Some residents of 5 Tudor Place at Tudor City, the housing enclave across First Avenue from the United Nations announced yesterday a lawsuit to block construction of Sheldon H. Solow's redevelopment of the former Con Edison properties nearby along First Avenue.
The City Council recently approved revised Solow's plans for the project that will include about 3,000 apartments, 1 million square feet of commercial space, a new school, about 69,000-square feet of retail space and open space.
According to an article by David Freedlander in today's edition of AM-NY, "The suit alleges that the City Council and the City Planning Commission approved developer Sheldon Solow's $4 billion plan for the former Con Ed site on the East River against the stated wishes of the local community board."
The article quoted Edan Untereman, president of the East Midtown Coalition as stating that "The planning commission says they are interested in community-based planning, but it's pure bunk," adding that "They have been arrogant from beginning to end. It is very important to people to have a say in how their neighborhood looks and whether or not developers can come in and change it."
Residents of the complex, which was developed by Fred F. French between 40th and 43rd Streets and First and Second Avenues between 1925 and 1928, allege, according to the article, that the planning commission "arbitrarily and capriciously" disregarded the community's plan for while "publicly extolling the benefits of community-based planning."
The article quoted Evelyn Konrad, the lawyer bringing the suit, as saying that "The planning department pays lip service to community-based planning and then they spit in the face of community based planning." "We spent all these years with all these city agencies trying to set up guidelines about how this area should be," her quotation continued, "and then a decision gets made hastily and in private that sets it all aside."
Vivian Gilbert, the president of the board of directors of 5 Tudor Place, told Mr. Freedlander, that Harry B. Helmsley was thwarted in his plan more than a generation ago to build towers in the park spaces of the complex that straddles 42nd Street by "old women lying down in front of trucks," adding that "People really care for this area, and they don't want to see it ruined," she said.
In their excellent book, "The A. I. A. Guide to New York City Architecture, Fourth Edition," Norval White and Elliot Willensky described Tudor City as "an ambitious private renewal effort that included 12 buildings (3,000 apartments and 600 hotel rooms) along its own street....Everything faced in, toward the private open space and away from the surrounding tenements, slaughterhouses, and generating plants. As a result, almost windowless walls now face the United Nations."
The City Council recently approved revised Solow's plans for the project that will include about 3,000 apartments, 1 million square feet of commercial space, a new school, about 69,000-square feet of retail space and open space.
According to an article by David Freedlander in today's edition of AM-NY, "The suit alleges that the City Council and the City Planning Commission approved developer Sheldon Solow's $4 billion plan for the former Con Ed site on the East River against the stated wishes of the local community board."
The article quoted Edan Untereman, president of the East Midtown Coalition as stating that "The planning commission says they are interested in community-based planning, but it's pure bunk," adding that "They have been arrogant from beginning to end. It is very important to people to have a say in how their neighborhood looks and whether or not developers can come in and change it."
Residents of the complex, which was developed by Fred F. French between 40th and 43rd Streets and First and Second Avenues between 1925 and 1928, allege, according to the article, that the planning commission "arbitrarily and capriciously" disregarded the community's plan for while "publicly extolling the benefits of community-based planning."
The article quoted Evelyn Konrad, the lawyer bringing the suit, as saying that "The planning department pays lip service to community-based planning and then they spit in the face of community based planning." "We spent all these years with all these city agencies trying to set up guidelines about how this area should be," her quotation continued, "and then a decision gets made hastily and in private that sets it all aside."
Vivian Gilbert, the president of the board of directors of 5 Tudor Place, told Mr. Freedlander, that Harry B. Helmsley was thwarted in his plan more than a generation ago to build towers in the park spaces of the complex that straddles 42nd Street by "old women lying down in front of trucks," adding that "People really care for this area, and they don't want to see it ruined," she said.
In their excellent book, "The A. I. A. Guide to New York City Architecture, Fourth Edition," Norval White and Elliot Willensky described Tudor City as "an ambitious private renewal effort that included 12 buildings (3,000 apartments and 600 hotel rooms) along its own street....Everything faced in, toward the private open space and away from the surrounding tenements, slaughterhouses, and generating plants. As a result, almost windowless walls now face the United Nations."
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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