By Stephen Jacob Smith 4/22 3:41pm

In the Rezone

The Municipal Art Society is worried that the Midtown East upzoning would allow development that would block views of the Chrysler Building, among other landmarks.

Much Ado About Nothing? Midtown East Rezoning Not All That Grand

Based on the arguments made by those both for and against the Midtown East rezoning—a “sweeping proposal,” wrote New York magazine architecture critic Justin Davidson, with “swollen ambitions for the skyline”—one might think that the proposed land use change, which would affect 78 blocks between Second and Fifth Avenues and East 39th and East 57th Streets, would be a dramatic revision of New York City’s most hallowed business district.

Crain’s New York Business calls the plan “essential.” The Post’s Steve Cuozzo, ever a friend to big real estate, says it’s “vital to the city’s future, a way to ensure that Manhattan’s most desirable commercial zone can compete in the future with global capitals like London and Shanghai.” Read More

By Kim Velsey 3/01 5:15pm

Rezoning

Grand Central Station: an example of balancing progress and preservation well. (TravelJapanBlog)

The Station that Started It All: How Grand Central Embodies the Battle Over Midtown East

When the plan to rezone Midtown East was revealed last year, there was much excitement and much grumbling, but the outlines of the battle to come lacked definition. In retrospect, it seems so inevitable: how could the conflict over the heart and soul of the city’s central business district take any shape but that of progress versus preservation?

It is a conflict that haunts, if not defines, every land use debate in the city, and a particularly fitting one for Midtown. The district developed around, and largely because of, Grand Central station—a building that not only epitomizes the conflict, but helped to define it. Read More

By Matt Chaban 1/11 6:23pm

Best Laid Plans

Don't block my landmark, bro. (Getty)

East Midtown Hold Up: Maloney, State Pols Ask City Hall to Slow Down Rezoning

Add a few more names to the growing list of people concerned about the speed with which the city is executing the Midtown East Rezoning—ones that carry some serious political clout. In addition to the community boards, a few civic groups and local Councilman Dan Garodnick (who’s vote will be crucial to get the rezoning through the City Council), four new Midtown reps have just sent a letter to the mayor saying the rezoning needs more time to be perfected.

“Because this rezoning is so important, it is critical that it is done correctly the first time and is responsive to the concerns of the area’s current stakeholders even as it lays the groundwork for the area’s future,” Congresswoman Caroline Maloney, Assemblyman Dan Qart and state senators Liz Krueger and Brad Hoylman write. They ask the Department of City Planning to withdraw the plan currently in the works, which is expected to be certified in the coming weeks, “in order to permit sufficient time for community input.” Read More

By Matt Chaban 12/12/12 1:22pm

Best Laid Plans

17 Photos

420 LEXINGTON AVENUE

No Midtown for Old Men: MAS Wants 17 Buildings Saved in Face of Bloomberg’s Big Rezoning

From the start, one of the biggest concerns over the proposed Midtown East rezoning has been the fate of the area’s historic buildings. Midtown has its fair share of landmarks already, but it is no Upper East Side or Park Slope. No doubt there are precious older buildings worthy of preservation, or at least consideration for landmarks protections, especially when staring down all the development that is likely to come from a huge rezoning like the one the Bloomberg administration has proposed for Midtown East.

To that end, the Municipal Art Society has put forward 17 buildings it believes the city ought to consider protecting before the Midtown East rezoning goes into effect. The administration is rushing toward approving this plan sometime next year, but survey of the area’s historic buildings actually has more time than it might seem to proceed, since it has promised the rezoning will have a sunrise provision preventing it from taking effect until 2017. Still, that does not mean any of these buildings could be saved from being torn down and becoming the next Empire State Building. Read More

By Matt Chaban 11/27/12 10:16pm

Best Laid Plans

9 Photos

A High Line for the East Side

A High Line for the East Side: Strolling the Park Avenue Promenade

In this week’s Observer, we take a look at two proposals to widen the Park Avenue median and turn it into a pedestrian promenade. One is from SHoP Architects, one SOM, both presented at last month’s MAS Summit. Part High Line, part art walk, the hope is it would create an entirely new destination on the East Side of Manhattan, providing much needed open space along the way. Take a stroll for yourself and decide. Read More

By Matt Chaban 8/01/12 6:03pm

Make No Small Plans

A good idea? (DCP)

Richard Florida Warns of Super-Tall Towers—So Should We Be Scared of the Midtown East Rezoning?

In its final grand zoning gesture, the Bloomberg administration is racing to rezone Midtown East, paving the way for what could be a wave of huge, skyline defining towers. But in an essay in this weekend’s Wall Street Journal, Richard Florida seems to warn that that could be the wrong approach for New York, as it has been the case in other hyper-dense cities. Read More

By Matt Chaban 7/12/12 6:00am

Best Laid Plans

6 Photos

Eastside Sweet Spot

How About Another Empire State Building or Two? City Outlines Mega Midtown East Rezoning

It’s the moment developers, planning geeks, and perhaps the entire city without knowing it, has been waiting for all year: the unveiling of the city’s plans, first hinted at in the mayor’s State of the City address, to remake the face of Midtown Manhattan.

It is big. No, really big. Bigger than almost anything the city has ever seen. Empire State Building big. While that will not be the case for every tower that is eventually built through the program, it could be for at least a few. Read More

By Matt Chaban 6/27/12 11:00am

Best Laid Plans

Picture 8

Faulty Towers: Midtown Needs a Makeover, with Twice as Tall Towers, But Can Mayor Bloomberg Get It Right?

It was but one line in Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s State of the City address in January, but it could prove to be one of the biggest of his dozen years in office.

“In the area around Grand Central, we’ll work with the City Council on a package of regulatory changes and incentives that will attract new investment, new companies and new jobs,” the mayor said from the stage inside Morris High School in the Bronx.

Hizzoner spent more time talking about Cornell’s Roosevelt Island tech campus, keeping the Hunt’s Point Produce Market from moving across the Hudson to Jersey and efforts to further expand the blue-collar workforce on the waterfront. Even the redevelopment of nearby East Fordham Road and Webster Avenue got equal billing with these vague pronouncements about “the area around Grand Central.”

Despite the scant mention, it turns out that for an administration that has never shied away from big plans, this may be one of the biggest projects yet. Read More

By Matt Chaban 6/07/12 9:00pm

Best Laid Plans

Needs work. (Globe Images)

Is Midtown Too Small? City Planning Outlines Ideas for Adding (Much) Taller Towers

How many New Yorkers, after a long day of work, are headed home, a little beaten down, look up and think to themselves, “You know what Midtown needs? Bigger buildings.”

Probably not very many. But this is a question the Department of City Planning and the Bloomberg administration are very seriously considering as they work on rezoning a huge swath of Midtown East, the vaguest details of which were revealed to the land use committees of Community Boards 5 and 6 last night.

The goals of the plan, first revealed, also vaguely, in the mayor’s State of the City address, are quite reasonable. Like it has with so much of the city, from the Far West Side to the Brooklyn waterfront to downtown Jamaica, Queens, the administration wants to revise a set of zoning principals first laid out in 1961, and changed little since.

Meanwhile the world has, as has the city, and in order to stay competitive with places like London, Shanghai and Abu Dhabi, Midtown, where 80 percent of buildings are 50 years old or older, must modernize. “We need to think of the global context,” said Edith Hsu-Chen, director of the department’s Manhattan office. Read More

By Jess Schiewe 6/06/12 6:02pm

Lodgings

A claustrophobic's nightmare.

Hotelier Gets Claustrophobic With Tomb-like Rooms

We are as fond of baby animals and those brightly-colored mini food erasers as much as the next person. But our affections are decidedly more muted when it comes to small hotel rooms. Certainly there’s something cute about the teensy spaces, but it’s one of those you-won’t-know-until-you-try-it kind of things. And we’re not sure that we want to try it.

That said, tourists will have more opportunities than ever before. BD Hotels, the developer responsible for opening the first tiny hotel (or pod—if you want to put a positive spin on it) in Manhattan in 2007, is opening up a new location in Murray Hill, reports The New York Times. The 366-room hotel, Pod 39, will be slightly larger than its Midtown East sibling, Pod Hotel, and it will have more amenities. Read More