This Land Is My Land
Zoning Battle Brewing on Canal Street
Landlords want to upzone Canal Street so they can build taller buildings. Preservationists want to limit growth. Same old story. New setting: Chinatown.
The Wall Street Journal reports that, “A group of real-estate developers have commissioned a study to rethink Canal Street as they ratchet up a controversial effort to allow for taller buildings Read More
Coney Island’s Joe Sitt Takes Fifth Avenue Jewel for $140 M.
Coney Island developer Joe Sitt, of Thor Equities, beat out his rivals to win the Takashimaya Building on Fifth Avenue for more than $140 million, according to the New York Post:
[A] slew of potential buyers had been whittled down to a mere five finalists. Along with Sitt, those included Vornado Realty Trust; Read More
Cole Miller’s Controversial Gramercy Park Restaurant a Go
No one said dealing with Gramercy Park residents would be easy—this is, after all, the neighborhood that’s famous for regulating access to Manhattan’s only private park with the fervor of a drill sergeant at basic training.
But it must have been hard to anticipate the uproar that ensued when a simple liquor license request from restaurateur Read More
Totalitarian Tendencies Feed Tensions at Gramercy Park
So amusing—and bemusing—are the many feuds surrounding Gramercy Park, Manhattan’s only private greensward, that the subject is nearly irresistible journalist-bait.
Today, the Journal ran what must be the gazillionth article on the ongoing dispute between National Arts Club president O. Aldon James, who favors a more lenient and open-gated park management philosophy, and park Read More
