Many Second Avenue residents on the Upper East Side are up in arms over the Metropolitan Transportation Authority's plans for entrances and ventilation structures for the Second Avenue Subway.
The first phase of the new subway construction is from 96th to 63rd Street and is scheduled for completion in 2017. Eventually, the line is expected to reach from 125th Street to Hanover Square.
An article by Bill Morris in the December 2009 edition of Habitat Magazine reported that some co-op boards on 72nd Street "banded together recently and fought a winning battle" against the MTA's decision to place new subway entrances with arched glass canopies in the concept but not the style of the great Art Nouveau station entrances in Paris on Second Avenue mid-block rather than at street corners.
The article quoted Valerie Mason, vice president of the co-op board at 320 East 72nd Street that the planned entrances "looked like two huge soccer goals," adding that "What I saw was an attractive nuisance and a safety hazard." Opponents of the mid-block locations argue that people would jaywalk in mid-block to the get to the stations.
Her building and another at 240 East 72nd Street filed a lawsuit against the MTA in state court and two other co-op buildings across the street filed a similar suit in federal court, all maintaining that environmental impact studies have to be done and public hearings held that that the MTA changed the locations of the entrances "five days after the (2007) public hearing."
Last June, in the face of mounting community opposition, the MTA submitted an environmental assessment of the possible locations of the entrance to the Federal Transit Administration and stated that its "preferred alternative" is the southeast corner of 72nd Street, the article said, adding that "a similar battle is being fought a few blocks to the north, at E. 86th street, where neighbors are trying to get the MTA to move a subway entrance from the middle of the block back to the northeast corner of Second Avenue."
The ventilation structures are a separate issue/controversy. An article by Sarah Ryley in the December issue of therealdeal.com notes that the ubiquitous sidewalk subway grates no longer comply with the city's building regulations and that therefore the MTA has proposed above-ground utility buildings several stories in height at each end of the new Second Avenue Subway stations.
The planned utility structures have been designed by DMJM+Harris and Arup, which were chosen in 2001 through competitive bidding to design the entire subway. The structures were described in the article's headline as "massive eyesores" and Stanton Eckstut, an architect with EE&K, which co-designed ventilation towers for the PATH train in the 1990s in Greenwich Village, said that the MTA should hold a design competition for the structures whose "bland facades" will create "dead corners."
The article said that at one point the MTA said the structures "could be designed to appear like a neighborhood row house in height, scale, materials and colors." The article said that the co-op building at 245 East 72nd Street successfully negotiated with the MTA to reduce the height of one of the structures from 150 to 75 feet.
The first phase of the new subway construction is from 96th to 63rd Street and is scheduled for completion in 2017. Eventually, the line is expected to reach from 125th Street to Hanover Square.
An article by Bill Morris in the December 2009 edition of Habitat Magazine reported that some co-op boards on 72nd Street "banded together recently and fought a winning battle" against the MTA's decision to place new subway entrances with arched glass canopies in the concept but not the style of the great Art Nouveau station entrances in Paris on Second Avenue mid-block rather than at street corners.
The article quoted Valerie Mason, vice president of the co-op board at 320 East 72nd Street that the planned entrances "looked like two huge soccer goals," adding that "What I saw was an attractive nuisance and a safety hazard." Opponents of the mid-block locations argue that people would jaywalk in mid-block to the get to the stations.
Her building and another at 240 East 72nd Street filed a lawsuit against the MTA in state court and two other co-op buildings across the street filed a similar suit in federal court, all maintaining that environmental impact studies have to be done and public hearings held that that the MTA changed the locations of the entrances "five days after the (2007) public hearing."
Last June, in the face of mounting community opposition, the MTA submitted an environmental assessment of the possible locations of the entrance to the Federal Transit Administration and stated that its "preferred alternative" is the southeast corner of 72nd Street, the article said, adding that "a similar battle is being fought a few blocks to the north, at E. 86th street, where neighbors are trying to get the MTA to move a subway entrance from the middle of the block back to the northeast corner of Second Avenue."
The ventilation structures are a separate issue/controversy. An article by Sarah Ryley in the December issue of therealdeal.com notes that the ubiquitous sidewalk subway grates no longer comply with the city's building regulations and that therefore the MTA has proposed above-ground utility buildings several stories in height at each end of the new Second Avenue Subway stations.
The planned utility structures have been designed by DMJM+Harris and Arup, which were chosen in 2001 through competitive bidding to design the entire subway. The structures were described in the article's headline as "massive eyesores" and Stanton Eckstut, an architect with EE&K, which co-designed ventilation towers for the PATH train in the 1990s in Greenwich Village, said that the MTA should hold a design competition for the structures whose "bland facades" will create "dead corners."
The article said that at one point the MTA said the structures "could be designed to appear like a neighborhood row house in height, scale, materials and colors." The article said that the co-op building at 245 East 72nd Street successfully negotiated with the MTA to reduce the height of one of the structures from 150 to 75 feet.
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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