47 East 91st Street: Review and Ratings

Review of 47 East 91st Street by Carter Horsley

This handsome but modest apartment building was the subject of one of the most contentious "landmark" fights in the city's history.

Located in the Carnegie Hill Historic District, the property was long occupied by a one-story red-brick bank building of no particular distinction. The bank, Citibank, sold the property to Cary Tamarkin, a developer who wanted to erect an "as-of-right" luxury apartment building of 17 stories, about the same height as an apartment building directly across 91st Street and another directly across Madison Avenue.

Local community activists, however, protested and eventually enlisted Woody Allen, the movie director, comedian and actor who had recently bought a large mansion around the corner on 92nd Street, in their campaign.

The site's location is in the heart of Carnegie Hill, a half block from the National Museum of Design that is housed in Andrew Carnegie's former fenced mansion on Fifth Avenue, and very close to several private schools, several churches, and several museums as well as numerous boutiques and restaurants on Madison Avenue.

Because the site was in an historic district, the activists appealed to the city's Landmarks Preservation Commission to reject the project's design. The commission did so and the developer revised his plans and resubmitted them. The new plans called for a smaller building.

In February, 2000, Mr. Allen distributed copies of a three-minute video he had made to argue against what he termed an "egregious mistake." The Carnegie Hill Neighbors argued that "the vulnerable Citibank site is on the first of three consecutive Madison Avenue intersections that comprise the 'Commons,' our designation for the three-block section that surrounds the intersections of 91st, 92nd and 93rd Streets in the heart of Carnegie Hill....One unifying element of the 'Commons' is the unusual prevalence of rowhouses - 29 in total, all built by 1890...A further unifying element is that two-thirds of these were designed by only two architects, James E. Ware and A. B. Ogden....Of the 29 original houses, 21 remain essentially intact. Remarkably, the structures that replaced the eight demolished rowhouse are either of equal height or lower, thus maintaining the low scale character...While taller buildings also exist at each intersection, their dominance is mitigated by the pattern in which they are arranged. At each intersection, at least two buildings are low in scale and positioned so that they diagonally opposite each other... Of the three intersections, this was originally the lowest, but in the last 70 years, two tall buildings have replaced the lower structures of the other two corners. There is, therefore, no room for a third tall building at this intersection if the low-scale village feeling is to be preserved and the northward march of the canyon walls is to be avoided."

Clearly, if this logic were to be followed, one might surmise Manhattan should be razed to the ground. Look out for those canyon walls. What's so special about about 1890? Why not roll back the clock to 1690, or 1490?

Community activists, of course, very often raise very legitimate and important concerns and not every developer, of course, is inspired.

Like the presence of Jackie Onassis in controversies over the landmark status of Grand Central Terminal and the length of shadows that might be cast by a proposed new tower on the site of the New York Coliseum at Columbus Circle, the presence of Woody Allen as an opponent of a proposed, 17-story apartment building on the northeast corner of Madison Avenue and 91st Street on a site long occupied by a not terribly interesting-looking, one-story bank building was widely publicized and helped to sway the landmarks commission to deny a "certificate of appropriateness" for the proposed tower.

Many of the same activists who campaigned against this project were probably emboldened by their previous success several years before in another nearby development dispute that involved a proposed midblock apartment building on 96th Street between Park and Lexington Avenues. In that case, the activists convinced the city to force the developer to remove 12 stories from the top of the nearly completed building, which became known as the "Too Tall Tower." In that controversy, the developer s plans had been approved by the city and the zoning "error" was made by a Buildings Department official and the tower could have been built legally by moving it a few feet on the same site.

The community activists, of course, are not at fault and are to be praised for their efforts in most instances. The blame lies with the city's politicians and their cowardice and design ignorance.

The bank building occupies a prime site at one of the highest points in the Carnegie Hill neighborhood, which over the last decade or so has become one of the most sought-after residential locations in the city because of its concentration of many schools, religious institutions and high-quality, pre-war apartment buildings with large apartments.

The proposed apartment tower would not have been the first in this stretch of Madison Avenue as Rose Associates erected a 45-story, red-brick apartment tower between 89th and 90th Streets and another highly visible, beige and angled apartment tower was built a few years later on the southeast corner of the avenue at 94th Street. Furthermore, most of the avenue in the immediate vicinity and to the south and west is filled with apartment buildings of 12 to 18 stories.

The proposed design by Platt Byard Dovell was very much in conformity with the general massing of most of the surrounding apartment buildings and was, indeed, in some ways better because its façades had large multi-paned windows that gave the project a handsome texture that employed an old design treatment with a nice and modest touch of modernity that was not out of keeping with some of the nearby Art Deco buildings.

The one glaring problem with the proposal was its exposed watertank. Exposed watertanks flourish and abound on the city's skyline and many people find them rather quaint, despite the fact that some of the better developers and architects have often found very interesting and decorative ways to enclose them to add a handsome flourish to their projects.

The exposed watertank, however, was not highly visible from most directions and the proposed tower's aesthetics were certainly no worse than the similar size apartment buildings directly across the avenue, a white-brick building, and across 91st Street.

A closer reading of the developer's proposal, however, revealed that the developer and architect had indeed paid great attention to the question of exposed watertanks and found that almost a majority of the apartment buildings with an adjacent area of several blocks had exposed watertanks.

The exposed watertanks are incongruous with the otherwise quite distinguished architecture of many of these old buildings and this plan visually hid part of the exposed water tank with a vertical element on the avenue side.

While the developer and architect obviously covered their tracks on the watertank issue with their extensive documentation, the exposed watertank was a design element that should have been decoratively enclosed given the prominent visibility of the site and while this would obviously be more expensive for the development it would not significantly alter the building's economics most likely.

It should be pointed out that the existing building on the site was particularly unattractive. While its red-brick masonry is pleasant, the building has no design distinction and is rather blatantly festooned with large blue and white signage for Citibank that is perhaps as offensive to this "refined" neighborhood" as a rather stark and bold sign for a Duane Reade notions store that opened up a couple of years ago two blocks to the south on the avenue in a mid-block location with less visibility than the bank's sign. Such signage is not discrete and is very commercial and not in context with the overall neighborhood pattern.

The opponents to the proposed tower did not argue to preserve the existing building out of love for its architecture or its signage, but because it was only one-story high it did not cast shadows on the mid-block gardens to the east, including one recently purchased by Woody Allen, and therefore also opened up vistas of the handsome mid-block buildings on 91st Street and the graceful spire of the Brick Presbyterian Church on Park Avenue at the end of the block.

An argument could be made that the occasional low-rise block on Madison Avenue permits a greater sense of openness and more "light and air," zoning concepts that are valid in many instances. This is one of those sites that deserve such consideration since the buildings that occupy the north half of the avenue blockfront adjacent to the proposed tower on the east side are not only low-rise but quite charming.

There is a real problem, however, with this approach as it permits Historic Districts to override local zoning and subject property owners within them to the current whims of local community activists and the Landmarks Preservation Commission.

Views and shadows have no legal standing in the city's zoning and indeed history for the true character of New York is its changing, eclectic skyline, which would be not exist if the protectors of views and shadow-chasers had their way.

There are some occasions, one must admit, where some views are very important and perhaps should be held sacrosanct, or somehow protected. Perhaps the most obvious example is the blocking of much of the view from north of 59th Street on Fifth Avenue of the Empire State Building by the handsome and interesting skyscraper at 712 Fifth Avenue.

In earlier times, one could argue that Trinity Church's spire at Wall Street and Broadway should not have been topped by adjacent buildings, and indeed the City of Philadelphia did debate for a while not permitting new towers to rise above its sensational and tall City Hall, although in the end taller towers were built. The view of New York's own City Hall was blocked for many years by a wedding-cake pile of an office structure at the south end of City Hall Park.

Conceivably, the city could have enacted legislation that would require a public review and approval process for specific, extraordinary individual New York City landmarks, but it has not, instead creating Historic Districts in which all proposed changes must be approved by the Landmarks Preservation Commission, as in this case. The only building in this case whose view would be partially blocked from one direction is the Brick Presbyterian Church and the view that would be partially blocked is of its back and the blocking of that view is not catacyclismic to the aesthetic stability of the church or the city.

All that one can say to the few residents who might have to suffer altered views or more shadows is "tough." A basic premise of the city's zoning in residential areas has long been that midblocks should be low-rise and taller buildings permitted on the avenues, which are broader than the sidestreets.

Views are a very expensive premium in New York real estate and understandably so, but New York City real estate is sold "as is" and developers and owners do not have infinite control of views in all directions from their properties and it is preposterous to suggest that they should or could.

In 1961, four years before the city finally got around to creating a landmarks law, the First National City Bank, the precessor to Citibank, demolished four Queen Anne townhouses that were built in 1885-6 on the northeast corner of 91st and Madison Avenue and had been acquired by the bank in January, 1950.

It erected a one-story building on the site in 1951 that was designed by Lusby Simpson, an in-house architect for the bank, who died in 1954.

When the city's Landmarks Preservation Commission created a Carnegie Hill Historic District, it specifically excluded this site, perhaps because there were few defenders of its architectural merit. Subsequently, the commission significantly enlarged the historic district and this site was included and as such any exterior change to it must be approved by the commission.

The developer applied to the commission for approval to erect a 17-story apartment building to replace the one-story bank structure and the commission held a hearing on the application at which some civic groups such as the Carnegie Hill Neighbors and residents urged the commission to turn down the application, primarily on the grounds that they did not want a tall building on the site although one is permitted under zoning.

The controversy is fairly classic Not In My Back Yard (NIMBY) syndrome. People entrenched in an neighborhood want to preserve their views and therefore their property values, maintain the status quo and prevent more people from living in the neighborhood.

In the 1960's and 1970's, some inroads were made by regional planners and civil rights activists against what was then called "exclusionary" zoning in some suburbs that made it difficult economically for new people, especially not superwealthy people, from acquiring property. Some local zoning regulations were rewritten that somewhat eased the "restrictiveness" of such laws and some progress has been made to prevent them being used for racial discrimination.

In the 1970's, the environment movement had its biggest victory when Marcy Benstock campaigned successfully to block the city from receiving more than a billion dollars in Federal subsidies to create very significant new park land along the Hudson River in Manhattan as part of the Westway plan to rebuild the deteriorated West Side Highway. She was, remarkably, able to convince Federal courts and the Army Corps of Engineers that some fish habitats might be disturbed by the large planned landfill that would have been the second greatest park in the city after Central Park. Her Goliathesque victory emboldened neighborhood activists all over the city to wage vigorous campaigns against almost all new proposed developments. Some were opposed because they were considered locally undesirable local uses (LULUs), others because they were considered not to be in context architecturally, others because they were too big, and others just out of plain, good old American oneryness.

Some major projects suffered agony for many years before being reborn in different guises, most notably the plans of Prudential Life Insurance Company and Park Tower Realty to redevelop West 42nd Street and of Boston Properties, which is headed by Mortimer Zuckerman, the publisher of U. S. News & World Reports and the New York News, to erect a large, mixed-use tower on the site of the New York Coliseum at Columbus Circle. The grandiose former plan was subdivided after tortuous years of legal challenges and subsequently developed in a rather helter-skelter fashion mostly by other parties after the original plan and commitment had led to the incredible renaissance of Times Square. The latter plan was thwarted by a group of civic activists that had support by the Municipal Art Society and such well-known figures as Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and Bill Moyers, the journalist, who argued that the tower would cast terrible shadows in Central Park but who calmly chose not to call for the demolition of the General Motors Building or all of Central Park South, which also cast such shadows.

The courts have extended citizens protections from many things, but not yet shadows.

How could these concerned citizens be so successful in battling the forces of evil they perceived?

The answer traces its roots back to the early days of tabloid television when the loudest screamer at a rally would get the most air-time and to the empowerment of local community boards, which were created in the 1960's and given an important role in zoning some years later when the city revised some of its Uniform Land Use Review Process (ULURP) procedures. There are 12 community boards in Manhattan and many more in the other boroughs. Any development project that is not "as-of-right," that is, which requires any public approval, or variance, must be submitted to the ULURP process.

The real responsibility for preventing aberations and abuse of the landmark process is a responsible, accurate and timely press for it is the duty of the press to alert and bring pressure on politicians and the public.

The design of the proposal tower was conservative, dignified and rather contextual.

In March, 2001, the developer presented a scaled-down, revised plan for the site that called for a building of 10 stories, but the civic activists continued their opposition and convinced Community Board 8 to vote against it. The Landmarks Preservation Commission scheduled a April 3 meeting on the revised plan and in November, 2001, the developer presented yet another revised plan that lowered the building height to 9 stories plus penthouse but Community Board 8 remained opposed and recommended that the new plan be turned down by the city's Landmarks Preservation Commission.

In December, 2001, the city's Landmarks Preservation Commission approved the developer's third proposal for the site but requested a revised treatment of the building's windows.

In early 2003, construction finally began on the 9-story building by the Tamarkin Company. The building will have seven full-floor apartments and one duplex penthouse with a one-story rusticated base and a beige-brick façade. The building will have its entrance at 47 East 91st Street. While it certainly is much more attractive than the one-story red-brick retail building it is replacing, it is much smaller than the other corner buildings at this intersection. It is sedate and nice, but not terribly exciting and not as interesting as the developer's previous plans. Another victory for tasteless and selfish community activists who haven't the foggiest notion of why the city was great.

The new building's façade is distinguished by tall corner windows at Madison Avenue and 91st Street. The corner windows are taller than the building's other windows and the second floor windows have 8 panes while the others have six panes. The windows are slightly indented into the façade which gives it substantive modulation. The façade, unfortunately, is two tones of beige brick that give it a rather motley appearance. It might have been nicer with red-brick to be more in context with the low-rise buildings just to the north, but on the other hand the beige façade is in context with the building just across 91st Street. This building has a nicely rusticated one-story limestone base.

What is most notable about the building apart from its superb location is that there is only one apartment per floor and the apartments are quite large: 4,000 square feet with 32-foot living rooms and 16-foot-square kitchens. In mid-2004, asking prices for the remaining apartments were between $7,865,000 to $10,475,000. The building also has a duplex penthouse with 5,815 square feet of interior space and 2,113 square feet of terraces and an asking price of $14,525,000.