Community Board 7 unanimously voted Wednesday night at the American Bible Society at 1865 Broadway to disapprove Fordham University's plans to expand its Lincoln Center campus between 60th and 62nd Streets and Columbus and Amsterdam Avenues.
The board's vote is advisory and the land use issues now go to the Borough President, and then to the City Planning Commission and the City Council.
The university is seeking to modify much of the existing zoning for the site including its height and setback requirements, its inner and outer court yard requirements, the minimum distances between buildings, and the minimum distance between legally required windows and zoning lot lines.
It is also seeking a special permit to allow an attended accessory 68-car garage on the site of a proposed mixed-use building, and another to allow an attended accessory 265-car garage on the site of another proposed mixed-use building, and another to permit an accessory 137-car garage on a third proposed mixed-use site.
The community board maintains that the proposed new buildings and too bulky and too large and would severely impact traffic in the area and that it should not be able to sell two plots to residential developers because they had been acquired by the university for the purpose of education through eminent domain.
The plans would add about 2.35 million square feet to the existing "campus," which consists of the Schools of Business, Education, Social Service that was designed in 1962 by Voorhees, Walker, Smith, Smith & Haines, and the School of Law that was designed in 1969 by Slingerland & Booss.
The latter structure was described by Robert A. M. Stern, Thomas Mellins and David Fishman in their great book, "New York 1960, Architecture and Urbanism Between the Second World War and the Bicentennial," as "a long, narrow slab running parallel to Sixtieth Street, the building featured thin vertical strips of windows that, as the editors of Progressive Architecture reported, 'one source describes as an attempt to complement the white travertine mullion s of the Metropolitan Opera House.'"
It is, in fact, much more attractive, as can be seen in the photograph, but its visibility in the neighborhood would be severely encroached upon by the proposed new construction.
The authors also noted that the structure, named the Leon Lowenstein Center, "was elevated on a massive concrete podium that turned a sheer wall toward Sixtieth Street and contained the vast, rather barren Robert Moses Plaza."
The board's vote is advisory and the land use issues now go to the Borough President, and then to the City Planning Commission and the City Council.
The university is seeking to modify much of the existing zoning for the site including its height and setback requirements, its inner and outer court yard requirements, the minimum distances between buildings, and the minimum distance between legally required windows and zoning lot lines.
It is also seeking a special permit to allow an attended accessory 68-car garage on the site of a proposed mixed-use building, and another to allow an attended accessory 265-car garage on the site of another proposed mixed-use building, and another to permit an accessory 137-car garage on a third proposed mixed-use site.
The community board maintains that the proposed new buildings and too bulky and too large and would severely impact traffic in the area and that it should not be able to sell two plots to residential developers because they had been acquired by the university for the purpose of education through eminent domain.
The plans would add about 2.35 million square feet to the existing "campus," which consists of the Schools of Business, Education, Social Service that was designed in 1962 by Voorhees, Walker, Smith, Smith & Haines, and the School of Law that was designed in 1969 by Slingerland & Booss.
The latter structure was described by Robert A. M. Stern, Thomas Mellins and David Fishman in their great book, "New York 1960, Architecture and Urbanism Between the Second World War and the Bicentennial," as "a long, narrow slab running parallel to Sixtieth Street, the building featured thin vertical strips of windows that, as the editors of Progressive Architecture reported, 'one source describes as an attempt to complement the white travertine mullion s of the Metropolitan Opera House.'"
It is, in fact, much more attractive, as can be seen in the photograph, but its visibility in the neighborhood would be severely encroached upon by the proposed new construction.
The authors also noted that the structure, named the Leon Lowenstein Center, "was elevated on a massive concrete podium that turned a sheer wall toward Sixtieth Street and contained the vast, rather barren Robert Moses Plaza."
Architecture Critic
Carter Horsley
Since 1997, Carter B. Horsley has been the editorial director of CityRealty. He began his journalistic career at The New York Times in 1961 where he spent 26 years as a reporter specializing in real estate & architectural news. In 1987, he became the architecture critic and real estate editor of The New York Post.
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