Good morning. It’s Monday and we’ll look at a controversy over plans to build some very tall towers in Manhattan, where they would dwarf neighboring buildings.
When is a building too tall? In a city where expensive supertalls have punched through the skyline, that question is being raised by Andrew Berman, the executive director of Village Preservation, a group that focuses on architecture in Greenwich Village, the East Village and NoHo. His target is a 30-story condominium tower planned for West 13th Street. He says the tower would overwhelm an area of mostly rowhouses and buildings that aren’t nearly as tall — 538 feet tall, he says. That would put the tower’s top floor more than 200 feet above the tallest existing building in the Village. The height question has also come up on the Upper West Side, where there are already concerns about replacing a two-story library with a taller building that would include roughly 850 apartments, a mental-health facility and a new library. That project is not even officially on the drawing board yet. Another larger project — whose centerpiece would be far taller — has begun demolition of the stretch of West 66th Street where ABC had television studios and offices for generations. Berman’s group is questioning whether zoning rules under the “City of Yes for Housing Opportunity,” the sweeping plan pushed by Mayor Eric Adams last year to allow more citywide development, apply to the Greenwich Village project. The City Council narrowly approved “City of Yes for Housing Opportunity,” which includes zoning changes and affordability targets, after the mayor’s office committed an additional $5 billion to affordable housing and infrastructure projects. Berman said that the new tower would be an “outrageously oversized” luxury condominium with no affordable housing. Village Preservation filed a challenge with the Department of Buildings last month, just before the end of a comment period on the building permit sought by the developers. A spokesman for the agency said that it was reviewing the challenge. A spokeswoman for Legion Investment Group, a developer on the project, said that the proposed building “fully complies with all applicable zoning regulations and is being pursued strictly as of right,” meaning that the tower could be built under existing zoning. She added that Legion was “confident” that the new building would “enhance the neighborhood and its surrounding streetscape.” The mayor mentioned one of the projects on the Upper West Side — the one to replace the library, the Bloomingdale branch of the New York Public Library — in his State of the City address in January. He said the project would have “over 800 units of mixed-income housing,” along with a “community hub.” A spokesman for the New York City Economic Development Corporation said that “the only way out” of the city’s housing affordability crisis “is to build more housing, and public libraries like the Bloomingdale branch present the perfect opportunity.” The library building, which dates to 1960, was a candidate for replacement because of “aging facilities that required a capital investment.” But the details of the building have yet to be worked out. The city has not chosen a developer or even solicited proposals. The spokesman said the economic development agency hoped to do so this year and “make a selection by 2026” — when a new mayor will take over at City Hall. Whatever plan emerges would have to go through the city’s land use review process. On West 66th Street, where the old ABC buildings are being demolished, the developer Gary Barnett is planning a structure that he told me would be “around 1,200 feet.” That is so tall that Sean Khorsandi, the executive director of the local preservation group Landmark West!, said that the tower would be “head and shoulders above its context,” meaning other buildings in the neighborhood. Those include Extell’s new 70-story tower across from the ABC site: a condominium where listed apartments range from nearly $6 million for two bedrooms with three bathrooms to $85 million for six bedrooms with seven bathrooms. A 1,200-foot building would “dwarf the neighborhood, even when we take into account the skyline of Central Park West,” Khorsandi said. He noted that the Eldorado, the landmark Art Deco building on Central Park West between 90th and 91st Streets, is 391 feet tall. In 2023, local elected officials wrote to the Department of City Planning, supporting a change in zoning rules from Landmark West! to limit the height of new buildings on the ABC site. Khorsandi said that change would have held them to around 32 stories. Barnett, who said he had the right under current zoning to build the new tower on the block, said he had another building in mind that would have some affordable apartments for the site — “smaller units” than in the 1,200-foot one. He also said he was “looking to convert” an existing building into affordable units. “That’s conditioned on our discussion with the community board,” with which he said he “would prefer to have a friendly relationship.” WEATHER Today will be sunny, with a high around 81. Expect a slight chill tonight, with a low near 64. ALTERNATE-SIDE PARKING In effect until tomorrow (Sukkot). The latest New York news
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Dear Diary: I met one of my oldest friends, Connie, on the subway in 1980. We traveled the same route every day from the Upper West Side, taking the subway to Nevins Street in Brooklyn and continuing from there, changing trains if necessary, to Winthrop Street. From there, I walked to Kings County Hospital, and she walked to Downstate Medical Center across the street. One day, after several weeks of this parallel and silent commute, I leaned over toward her. “Who are you?” I asked in that New York way. And with that question, our friendship began. We found that we had much more in common than our commute. She had grown up in Jackson Heights, Queens, and had gone to Catholic school. I had grown up in Midwood, Brooklyn, and had gone to an all-girls Orthodox Jewish school. She had left home as a single woman, unheard-of at the time, and had become a physical therapist. I had left my childhood home unmarried and had become an audiologist. Now, we both lived on the Upper West Side and, after our days at work in Brooklyn, we would spend our evenings hanging out together in the neighborhood. Connie ended up leaving the city and settling in Buffalo. I too left New York, for California and then Boston, but have since returned. Still, for the past 44 years we have remained connected, celebrating and mourning together: marriages, births and deaths. As I continue to commute, I wonder: Does anyone still find their best friend on the subway? — Sara Zacharia Illustrated by Agnes Lee. Tell us your New York story here and read more Metropolitan Diary here. Glad we could get together here. See you tomorrow. — J.B. P.S. Here’s today’s Mini Crossword and Spelling Bee. You can find all our puzzles here. Ama Sarpomaa and Ed Shanahan contributed to New York Today. You can reach the team at nytoday@nytimes.com. Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox.
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