Ariel West (2633 Broadway) and Ariel East (2628 Broadway)- UWS Condos

[krulltime]

I just though about making a different thread for these two...

http://www.arielcondos.com

The cousins across Broadway..


Good find Gulcrapek! I like them!

Here are the renderings and an article...

http://i.pbase.com/v3/55/435155/1/51305750.ArielEW.JPG


Extell's Broadway towers are dissimilar


25-OCT-05

Renderings of the two condominiuim apartment towers that Extell Development Company has begun constructing facing one another on Broadway between 99th and 100th Streets indicate that they are very dissimilar.

The projects are known as Ariel East and Ariel West. Extell names it projects after stars.

Ariel East is a 37-story, 64-unit tower at 2628 Broadway designed by Cetra/Ruddy Incorporated and it features 7 setbacks facing Broadway and many corner windows.

Ariel West is a 31-story, 73-unit tower at 245 West 99th Street and 2633 Broadway designed by Cook & Fox and it has few setbacks and its slab from recalls that of 30 Rockefeller Plaza. It is a mid-block site that was formerly occupied by a Gristede’s store that collapsed during demolition injuring several pedestrians.

The two towers will significantly alter the northern skyline of the Upper West Side that heretofore has been dominated by the Riverside Church at 120th Street and Riverside Drive, the Master Apartments on Riverside Drive at 103rd Street and the Columbia Apartments at 275 West 96th Street.

Extell is also developing the Orion at 350 West 42nd Street and the former Stanhope Hotel at 985 Fifth Avenue and Altair 18 and Altair 20, condo conversions in Chelsea at 32 West 18th Street and 15 West 20th Street, respectively. Gary Barnett, a principal of Extell, was a principal in the recent purchase of a large property at the southern end of Riverside South, the huge development by Donald Trump.


Copyright © 1994-2005 CITY REALTY

[krulltime]

Took some photos today...

Ariel West:

http://i.pbase.com/v3/55/435155/1/51336068.ArielW.JPG

Ariel East:

http://i.pbase.com/v3/55/435155/1/51336063.ArielE.JPG

http://i.pbase.com/v3/55/435155/1/51336064.ArielE2.JPG

[czsz]

I'm so glad these are happening. These were awkward little sites for the longest time.

I wish there were hope for the west side of the block between 110th and 111th, but it seems that Commerce Bank has expensively rehabbed the building, so little will likely come of it for the time being. The southeast corner of 109th may have potential though.

[krulltime]

Yeah there are so many lots that I see with potential all along on broadway.

[NYatKNIGHT]

Are the buildings on the corners coming down or are those renderings just not showing them?

Thanks for the photos krull.

[krulltime]

You know I notice scafolding on some of those buildings but I ask a worker and he said the scafolding is just there to protect them. So they are not coming down.

It is just that lot you see on the photo for Ariel West... and for Ariel East they will leave the theater like it is. Thats how they gain more high. They bought the air rights.

[Fabrizio]

What a shame.

Upper B´way was for so long distinquished by it´s mix of tall and low buildings. It kept a certain intimacy and small neighborhood feel.... but at least these new towers aren´t so bad looking. Compare them to that 1970´s thing at 96th.

[krulltime]

No! The Art Deco Metro Cinema is not going to be destroy.

No buildings are coming down. There was nothing really special on those lots.

I think these towers are fine... tall and glassy yeah.

I am all on conserving the nice old buildings myself but for new ones... they have to be modern and interesting looking not trying to pretend to be an old gem.

[Fabrizio]

Sorry I didn´read carefully and changed my post... actually the tall stepped-back tower is really nice....majestic.

[czsz]

Upper B´way was for so long distinquished by it´s mix of tall and low buildings. It kept a certain intimacy and small neighborhood feel

It kept it looking patchy and neglected. There's intimacy in a 4-story townhouse next to a 15-story apartment building, but it's not the first word which comes to mind when I think of the 1-story taxpayer buildings nestled between 20-story towers...its appearance was rather more one resembling missing teeth, especially when compared to the majestically unified sweep of West End Avenue nearby.

[Fabrizio]

In fact West End ( like Riverside) was another story...all residential, no business, a quiet boulevard of important doorman buildings....with no street life.

B´way was a MIX of low buildings and tall...lively and kind of funky...that was it´s identity.... a lot of those small buildings were really beautiful and eccentric... the Zabars building is a good example of one that has remained. As I said though, these two towers at least look good and I´m glad to see that the Metro will be saved.

[czsz]

I'm all for buildings like the one Zabar's is in, but undistinguished one-story boxes like those being replaced by these towers have been the bane of Broadway for decades.

[ablarc]

I'm all for buildings like the one Zabar's is in, but undistinguished one-story boxes like those being replaced by these towers have been the bane of Broadway for decades.
Banks are prime offenders. They occupy corner lots with single-story crap.

[czsz]

The fact that many of these buildings are now occupied with banks (or their doppelgaengers, Duane Reade pharmacies or cell phone stores) has more to do with the recent trend adopted by certain corporations to blindside the competition and steal their market share. You see the same proportion of them in any sort of building in Manhattan. It really doesn't help though that the big banking chains, which are capable of meeting any high rent demand and even sustain losses to that end to hold onto their market shares, can in that way effectively stave off eviction and therefore any new development on those sites.

[Stern]

What a shame.

Upper B´way was for so long distinquished by it´s mix of tall and low buildings. It kept a certain intimacy and small neighborhood feel.... but at least these new towers aren´t so bad looking. Compare them to that 1970´s thing at 96th.

Are you talking about the building at the northwest corner of 96th and Broadway?

[czsz]

That would be the Columbia:

http://www.thecityreview.com/uws/bway/columbia.jpg

http://www.thecityreview.com/uws/bway/columbia.html

By Carter B. Horsley

This handsome, 35-story condominium was a major pioneer in the redevelopment of Broadway north of 86th Street. Not surprisingly, it was developed by William Zeckendorf Jr., and partners, who also pioneered the redevelopment of Union Square with Zeckendorf Towers and Eighth Avenue with the World Wide Plaza complex.

The Columbia, which was designed by Liebman Williams Ellis Architects, is one of the Upper West Side's tallest buildings as well as one of its most sculpturally massed. Its solid balconies are staggered or alternated to create a very vigorous façade. It is interesting that the architects also set the main tower back from Broadway to minimize its visual impact on that street's cornice line. The base of the building extends fully to Broadway and the top of the base contains a health club and pool. The building has a garage and a sun deck.

Building in 1983, the light-colored building has 300 units and many boast dramatic views, regardless of the direction.

At the time of its construction, the area had fallen on relatively bad times and this was the first major private investment. For a while, the site had been considered by a department store for a major satellite operation.

In his excellent book, "On Broadway, A Journey Over Time" (Rizzoli, 1990), David W. Dunlap, a reporter for The New York Times, noted:

"In spite of its rebounding commercial life, Broadway as a physical entity remained frozen in its pre-Depression state through the 1970's. It was a measure of local stasis that the blockfront at Ninety-sixth Street stood largely vacant, except for a community garden, for fifteen years after the Riveria and Riverside theaters were razed in 1976. Finally, in 1981, after several false starts by other developers, William Zeckendorf Jr., began a huge condominium apartment tower called the Columbia. This project has been credited - and blamed - for triggering the wave of luxury high-rise construction in the mid-1980s."

Indeed, in 1984 the city enacted new zoning for Broadway on the Upper West Side to encourage contextual architecture.

The name of the building is probably a reference to the famous university of the same name about a mile north on Broadway.

"This towering hulk is the earliest adventure in sophisticated modern housing on the Upper West Side. A bit brash, it evokes the cubistic dreams of Walter Gropius in his wonderful but losing scheme for the Chicago Tribune Tower," observed Elliot Willensky and Norval White in their excellent book, "The A.I.A. Guide to New York City, Third Edition," (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1988).

"What is refreshing here is that the terms of apartment development - pack the site, create units with balconies and views, do it at low cost - are met head-on, unflinchingly, in a neo-Bauhaus design that eschews fashionable contextualism and does not try pretentiously to conceal its inherent tawdriness. What a breath of fresh air!" exclaimed Francis Morrone in his book, "The Architectural Guide to new York City," (a Peregrine Smith Book, published by Gibbs Smith, Publishers, Layton, Utah, 1994).

[Stern]

New York Times:

On a Site With a Past, a Battle Goes On
By JAKE MOONEY

WHERE the Gristedes supermarket used to stand on Broadway between 99th and 100th Streets, there is a large hole in the ground, big enough to hold a few dozen workmen, an earth-moving machine and a hulking vehicle with a shiny metal pick in place of a scoop. Heavy trucks pull in and out on a ramp, which sits on the former site of two brownstones.

The property caught the city's notice in July, when the supermarket collapsed as workers were demolishing it, injuring 10 people, including a 7-month-old who was briefly buried inside her stroller but rescued when her nanny screamed for help. The demolition crews are long gone now, and workers are busy laying the foundation for a 32-story glass tower known as Ariel West, companion to a similar but taller structure rising across Broadway. Both towers are the work of the Extell Development Company, and both have been targets of neighborhood opposition.

The buildings are allowed by right under the current zoning. Still, a group called West Siders for Responsible Development has been expressing its concern about the project, via a Web site, a petition with about 2,000 signatures and regular meetings at local apartments and in the Metro Diner on 100th Street around the corner. Last week the group's president, Miki Fiegel, and its treasurer, Toni Cindrich, stood on the sidewalk next to the hole and laid out their objections, their voices raised over the rumble of the trucks.
•

"It's really quiet right now," said Ms. Fiegel, a real estate agent who works from home less than a block down 99th Street. "Wait until the drilling starts."

Ms. Fiegel has discovered that nothing, including playing "Tosca" at high volume, drowns out the noise. "This is a neighborhood full of people in the arts, people who work late," she said. "And when they start at seven in the morning, you can hear it for blocks."

Kenny Ziomek, the barrel-chested Teamster foreman for the site, ambled over. "Oh, they love us here," he said with a sarcastic smile. As if on cue, a thunderous pounding started behind him.

Mr. Ziomek, a Long Islander who said he often chatted with passers-by, wondered aloud if the towers wouldn't improve the neighborhood by bringing a touch of luxury to a stretch of Broadway that is generally grungier than the areas to the immediate north and south.
•

But Ms. Fiegel says that what residents prize about the neighborhood are the buildings, including brownstones on some side streets and prewar apartment buildings, few of them taller than 15 stories, along the avenues. "You can see the sky," she said. "It gives the neighborhood a more human scale, and when you start putting these buildings up, you lose the scale of the neighborhood, you lose the character of the neighborhood."

One of the group's main goals, along with fighting the Extell project, is to prevent other tall buildings in the area. Residents fear such structures because the neighborhood contains so many low-rent buildings and single-room occupancy hotels that are tempting to developers.

At the Metro Diner, Ms. Cindrich brandished artists' renderings of the buildings that she had picked up at one of Extell's promotional champagne brunches, and recalled the community board meeting where residents first saw similar sketches. "People in the audience just gasped," she said.

Extell's senior vice president of development, Raizy Haas, said the group did not speak for the whole neighborhood. "You're always going to have people oppose development," she said, "but I think a lot of the people on the Upper West Side are pleased with what we're doing. Our buildings are definitely not going to be an eyesore; they're very beautiful glass towers."
•

Ms. Haas noted that Extell's president, Gary Barnett, was responsible for renovating the Belnord, the Renaissance Revival apartment building on 86th Street, after a long dispute between residents and the previous owner. "He's beloved by all the tenants in that building," she said. "He's sort of a hero to them."

And the noise from the drilling? It should be ending, she said, "pretty soon."

[Strangely Charming Quark]

If anyone has been by the sales office or when they are going to start selling the units. Thanks in advance if anyone has any information that they can share.

[krulltime]

February 16, 2006:


Ariel East:


http://i.pbase.com/o4/55/435155/1/56185334.IMG_7491.jpg

http://i.pbase.com/o4/55/435155/1/56185341.IMG_7496.jpg


Ariel West:


http://i.pbase.com/o4/55/435155/1/56185342.IMG_7498.jpg

http://i.pbase.com/o4/55/435155/1/56185349.IMG_7502.jpg

[czsz]

I'm really glad the building with Turkuaz in it is getting a new neighbour. It stuck out like a sore thumb for too long. Still...the width of that lot is startling! I hope the tower doesn't turn out too girthy...

[Strangely Charming Quark]

...with the idea of living within 50 yards of Indus Valley. Best Indian food on the UWS -- but that's not saying much I guess.

I have an appointment with the Ariel people next week so if I find out anything interesting I'll pass it along.

[ablarc]

That area's a bit of a culinary wasteland. Will the influx of yuppies make a difference?

[Strangely Charming Quark]

...from Indus, that's all the food I'll ever need. That Cheesy Pizza place on 100th has a pretty damn good slice. Perhaps Tom Valenti will be headed up this way? Perhaps.

[Strangely Charming Quark]

...like them or not, yuppies always make a difference. And with the average price of a place hovering around $2.7M or so at Ariel West, that will bring up some fairly discriminating palettes with fat wallets.

It seems to be a fairly gentrified area that needs some further sprucing up. Those buildings just might be the impetus.

[ablarc]

^ Trouble is, they all like the same food. ;)

[czsz]

"That area's a bit of a culinary wasteland."

You mean you don't like overpriced, mediocre food?

I actually recommend Mama Mexico. Meridiana seemed to have been alright as well. I heard there were some interesting places on Amsterdam and Columbus in the low 100s.

There are some interesting-looking places I'm too poor to try as well...Regionale, Alouette, Cafe du Soleil...

Anyway, if you want truly good Indian food, go to Baluchi's...or Jackson Heights.

[debris]

Cafe du Soleil has a good $19 "pre-Theatre Menu" deal, not bad.

[Strangely Charming Quark]

I have to admit, that 4-bedroom high floor with the south view looks pretty swank. Nothing like a 55-foot long wall of glass on the 27th floor. I presume the ladies might want to drop by.

Now the only problem, I need to find 3 roommates with a combined $4M or so in their pockets so I can get set up.

[antinimby]

This thread should be merged with this one (http://wirednewyork.com/forum/showthread.php?t=6532).

[lofter1]

Selling the Air Above

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2006/03/05/realestate/05air583.jpg
Hiroko Masuike for The New York Times
LOCATION IS KEY Four small buildings on West 99th Street sold most of their
air rights for about $2.7 million to the developer of a new condominium tower
with its entrance on Broadway. Their air rights were valuable because they
share a lot line with the site of the condo.

By WILLIAM NEUMAN (http://query.nytimes.com/search/query?ppds=bylL&v1=WILLIAM NEUMAN&fdq=19960101&td=sysdate&sort=newest&ac=WILLIAM NEUMAN&inline=nyt-per)
NY Times
March 5, 2006

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/05/realestate/05air.html

ON an island where there is often nowhere to build but up, the air in Manhattan (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/classifieds/realestate/locations/newyork/newyorkcity/manhattan/?inline=nyt-geo) can get pretty pricey. Air-rights deals, or the sale of unused development rights from one property owner to another, are generally considered the business of big-time developers. But in cheek-by-jowl Manhattan, homeowners, small-building owners and co-op boards can often find themselves involved, too. While potentially lucrative, such deals are complex and can even raise ethical quandaries for property owners.

On the Upper West Side, the owners of four town houses on 99th Street, west of Broadway, sold a total of 19,148 square feet of development rights last April to the Extell Corporation, which will allow Extell to add about four stories to a large, and controversial, condominium tower it is building on the block.

Extell approached the town-house owners for their air rights because the properties all share at least 10 feet of lot line with the developer's building site — a requirement for most air-rights deals. Several of the town-house owners said they were distressed over the idea of a tall building going up next door, one that would loom over their backyards and one that had been opposed by many people in the neighborhood because of its size. But they ultimately decided to band together and hire a lawyer to advise them and work out a contract with Extell.

"Basically, our feeling was it was going to happen; they were going to build this thing," said Jonathan F. Richards, who owns the upper two floors of one of the town houses that had been turned into a co-op with two units. Mr. Richards lives in New Mexico, and his apartment is used by a family member.

"We didn't feel that by selling or refusing to sell we would have any impact on whether they would build," he said.

The owners' lawyer, Gary R. Tarnoff, said he was able to get Extell to agree to several concessions that benefited his clients, including an agreement that the developer would try to place a garage entrance away from their property.

But while the owners negotiated the overall contract together, they agreed on prices separately. According to a calculation based on the real estate transfer tax paid on the transactions, they were paid a total of $2.72 million. Individual payments ranged from $584,000 to $764,000, depending on both the square foot price and the amount of air rights each owner decided to sell, city records show.

Each property had a different amount of air rights available to transfer, and two of the buildings kept 500 square feet of air rights in case they wanted to add on to their houses in the future. The price per square foot paid by Extell was $132 to $148.

The incentives for the developer are clear. Construction and marketing costs are generally estimated to be $450 to $500 a square foot, although the figure generally rises as you go higher in a building. Adding in the air rights, that puts the developer's costs at roughly $650 a square foot on the upper floors. The apartments on the top four floors of Extell's building have been priced at about $1,500 a square foot, leaving plenty of room for profit.

Extell has faced vocal opposition in the neighborhood to its 32-story tower, which it plans to call the Ariel West. Residents contend that the building is out of scale with others around it — including the town houses that have sold their air rights.

Last year, demolition work on a former Gristede's supermarket on the site caused a wall to collapse, briefly trapping a child in a stroller. That renewed attention on the project, but it has gone forward nonetheless, and workers are building the foundation.

The opposition has made some of the town-house owners nervous, and three of the six owners (two of the buildings have been converted into two-unit co-ops) asked that their names not be used and one refused to talk to a reporter. They said that they feared drawing their neighbors' ire for cooperating with the developer or that they were wary of violating a confidentiality provision in the air-rights deal.

But one of the owners said she regretted taking part in the deal altogether.

She said that construction workers had dug up part of the backyards of the town houses, apparently under a construction easement that was part of the air-rights contract. But she said the work went beyond what she had expected and that the workers had removed one large tree from her property and damaged the roots of another.

"Everything was dead and gone and dug out," said the owner. "I'm sorry I sold them anything."

Deals do not always have to spell regret, but many people who sell development rights do feel pressured in a variety of ways. Like the 99th Street owners, they may dislike the idea of helping someone put up a tall building next door. They may also believe that it would be foolish not to profit from the opportunity.

At the same time, developers frequently play one neighbor off against another. That is because a developer may be able to choose from among several adjoining properties when buying development rights. A developer may tell an owner that if he or she will not agree on a price, a deal will be made with someone else on the block.

Frank Farina sold 14,472 square feet of development rights last March for about $3 million, or $213 a square foot, to a developer that owned a site next door to his five-story building at 231 East 34th Street. Mr. Farina, 79, a retired restaurant owner, lives in the 19-unit century-old building and rents out the apartments.

"So far I'm happy with it," Mr. Farina said of the deal. "I had no use for those air rights myself. I wasn't about to build on top of my building. It was a no-brainer for me. I had no cause for turning it down."

The market for air rights in Manhattan, in its current form, dates to a revamping of city zoning rules in 1961. Those rules established density restrictions for every block in the city, expressed as a ratio of floor area to lot size. For instance, a 10,000-square-foot lot zoned with a floor-area ratio (or F.A.R.) of 10 could hold a building no larger than 100,000 square feet. But if a developer bought 15,000 square feet of unused air rights from his neighbors, then he could put up a 115,000-square-foot building.

When a property owner sells his air rights, he is really agreeing to merge his property with another one into what is known as a single "zoning lot." In most cases, the receiving site has to share at least 10 feet of lot line with the selling site. On 99th Street, the town houses all back up to the Extell property.

But F.A.R. can also be made to pass through a series of properties. That is, if a development company buys air rights from a neighbor, it can then buy the air rights from the next property down the block, even though it does not directly border on the building site. That is because all three properties will then be made part of the same contiguous zoning lot.

In a case that has received a great deal of attention recently, the developers William L. and Arthur W. Zeckendorf have been trying to increase the size of a planned condo tower on East 60th Street. The Zeckendorf brothers worked out an agreement to buy air rights from the property next door, which is owned by the Grolier Club. That allowed them to approach Christ Church on the other side of the Grolier Club, which had more air rights available.

The Zeckendorfs offered both properties $430 a square foot for their air rights, in what would be the highest price ever paid in such a deal. But more recently some members of the Grolier Club have balked at the arrangement, pointing out that the club's air rights are actually more valuable to the developers, since without them the Zeckendorfs cannot buy air rights from the church.

An exception to this rule exists for buildings with landmark status; they are allowed to transfer development rights across the street. And there are some specially designated areas in which certain properties are allowed to transfer their air rights anywhere within a specified zone.

One of these areas was created to benefit some two dozen Broadway theaters, which can transfer their air rights anywhere between 40th and 57th Streets and Avenue of the Americas and Eighth Avenue. And, while air-rights deals are most common in Manhattan, where the premium on buildable space is highest, they can occur anywhere in the city.

Robert I. Shapiro, the president of City Center Real Estate, a brokerage and consulting company specializing in development rights deals, cautions that, in practice, all air rights are not equal. Some blocks have height restrictions, so that no matter how many square feet of development rights a developer has at his disposal, his ability to build upward has a definite limit.

Other factors affect the value of air rights. When a developer has several neighboring plots to choose from in buying air rights, the law of supply and demand will help keep the price low. The opposite is true if a developer needs the air rights from a particular parcel. There are also some restrictions on the transfer of air rights between high- and low-density zoning parcels.

As a rule of thumb, air rights typically sell for about 50 to 60 percent of what a piece of land would sell for, said Bob Von Ancken, an air-rights expert who is executive managing director of Grubb & Ellis Consulting Services. In other words, a medium-size parcel that could hold a 100,000-square-foot building might sell for $45 million, or $450 a buildable square foot. A neighboring property owner then might expect his air rights to sell in the neighborhood of $225 a square foot, as long as there are no other factors affecting the price.

Mr. Von Ancken works to determine the value of air rights to improve his clients' leverage. Because buying air rights allows a developer to build higher, Mr. Von Ancken bases his estimates on the value of the upper floors of the proposed building. And since the upper floors bring the highest prices in apartment and office buildings alike, Mr. Von Ancken argues that the air rights should bring in premium prices as well.

Air rights can become important to buildings and individual co-op owners even if they are not considering selling them to a neighboring property owner. Some co-ops have found that they have to understand the value of air rights in considering proposals to expand individual apartments.

Elliott Meisel, a lawyer who advises many co-op boards, recently worked on a deal involving a building on Broadway in the mid-70's. Several years ago, the building had sold a group of antiquated maids' rooms on the roof to a couple that turned them into a 1,000-square-foot penthouse with a large terrace. But last year the couple decided they wanted more space, and they approached the board about putting on another room.

A consultant determined that the building had about 525 square feet of unused air rights, and the couple agreed to pay the board $250,000 for the right to build an addition of that size on the roof. Because the building was a co-op, the couple were not buying the air rights outright, Mr. Meisel said, but instead were buying more shares, entitling them to use the building's air rights.

Mr. Meisel said the co-op booked the payments as a capital contribution for the issuance of new shares so it would not be considered taxable income, and the money went to the building's reserve fund.

The construction and condo boom of recent years has led to an increase in air-rights deals, according to consultants and lawyers who specialize in these transactions. And while the pace of development may decrease as construction costs rise and the real estate market responds to higher interest rates, they say they have yet to see a downturn in the demand for air rights.

"It's been the busiest time that I have ever had," said Mr. Shapiro of City Center Real Estate, who has been involved in air rights deals for more than two decades. "I'm working seven days a week on this sort of stuff."

Copyright 2006 (http://www.nytimes.com/ref/membercenter/help/copyright.html)The New York Times Company (http://www.nytco.com/)

[Strangely Charming Quark]

...I am seriously considering putting a deposit down on a low floor 2 BR in the West building. I went to the sales office and and I have to admit, the place is going to be really nice. And Extell is top-shelf. So, tell me, and I shrewd, off-base or just out of my mind?

[czsz]

I would live there if it were 20-30 blocks more southerly.

Like I said, it's not terrible, but the neighbourhood is still somewhat transitional. It's probably going to be 5-10 years before it starts to really resemble the rest of the UWS.

[antinimby]

I think you need to go see for yourself. If you ask for people's opinion, you'll get differing opinions since people tend to see things differently.

[NewYorkYankee]

Im looking at an apartment on 99th and B'way tomorrow. Can anyone comment on the area? How does it compare to the UES around the 70's, and the UWS around the 60-70's? I dont have time to look at much but the building tomorrow.

[Stern]

You’re going to have to judge the neighborhood yourself. The Upper West Side in general is a nice neighborhood. To me 99th and Broadway is safe and quickly gentrifying, it has a couple rough spots. Right now the Upper West side is nicest up to 96th street and then from 110th to 125th. The stretch from 96th to 110th is for now a little rough but nothing to worry about.

[ablarc]

I lived on 106th and 108th, and I didn't even know it was supposed to be rough.

[krulltime]

The area still has minorities (non-whites) living around there. But alot of them live in rent control apartments or in some housing projects around the area. So it might look 'a little rough' because there are race and income differences but is not. It is a vey safe area.

[Stern]

I lived on 106th and 108th, and I didn't even know it was supposed to be rough.

Its a little rougher than the parts of the Upper West Side that I mentioned upto 96th and from 110th to 125th. Nothing that I would advise against. Walking through the area you can tell by the dominence of bodegas and lack of health food stores that this stretch is a little rougher. Last year there was a number of unsolved murders in the area, but that seems to have resolved itself. All that said this is still a safe area. Just not yet the yuppified UWS.

[NewYorkYankee]

Dosnt sound to good. I want somewhere near healthfood stores, and gyms. I also want to be near a Jamba Juice. :)

[krulltime]

^ What? You can find all of those things up there. Just walk all along on broadway (from Columbia University all the way down) and you will see them close to the 90's and 100's.

[czsz]

There are long distances for those things in that neighbourhood, though. It can feel very...sparse. It hardly has the convenience of the Village or even the lower UWS. Morningside Heights (roughly 106th-123rd) is kept artificially spiffier.

[NewYorkYankee]

Just got back. The neighborhood was...okay. You guys were right, more bodegas than health food. It was a diverse neighborhood, so that was kinda cool. The building on the other hand, was complete shit. I dont plan to look any higher than 75th street anymore. But, atleast I checked it out, right?

[antinimby]

Just not yet the yuppified UWS.Well, somebody's got to do it sooner or later! NewYorkYankee, you are now the official yuppie pioneer to the UWS. Help pave the road for all the future yuppies. :D

[czsz]

Don't worry, those buildings will fill fast. The neighbourhood is still 1,000 times better than Hells Kitchen where half the towers discussed on this site are going up.

[NewYorkYankee]

Well, somebody's got to do it sooner or later! NewYorkYankee, you are now the official yuppie pioneer to the UWS. Help pave the road for all the future yuppies. :D

Haha, thanks for the laugh! Maybe when a Whole Foods opens up there, I'll go.

[krulltime]

Haha, thanks for the laugh! Maybe when a Whole Foods opens up there, I'll go.


If you can afford a place close to a Whole Foods in Manhattan then you shouldn't be looking up there... there are plenty of nicer (expensive) areas south of there.

[czsz]

I don't think there are any Whole Foods uptown yet...

[Strangely Charming Quark]

FYI: There is a place called the Garden of Eden which I think is some big healthy food sort of place on 107th (?) or so and I know there is some health food place right on 98th.

Now, I can't vouch for the quality or selection as I 've never set foot in a health food store in my life.

Pass the Doritos and Jolt.

[Strangely Charming Quark]

So I called to go check out Ariel West and they said they couldn't even get me in for an appointment for 2 1/2 weeks because they're booked solid. What the hell? I'm dying to spend some money here and I can't even get in?

[stache]

Have a broker call for you.

[TLOZ Link5]

I was in the neighborhood on Friday. Ariel East is up to 6 stories. I couldn't get a good look at Ariel West — I was walking on the east side of Broadway — but the lot seems to be fully excavated and I heard a lot of noise coming from it. These two projects are moving along nicely.

[Peteynyc1]

Since there are two of them and all, they could have named them "Ariola left" and "Ariola right". I guess they felt Ariel would work better with the female buyers.

[BrooklynRider]

Okay - I hate to nitpick, but wouldn't that be "aureola"?

[Derek2k3]

Since there are two of them and all, they could have named them "Ariola left" and "Ariola right". I guess they felt Ariel would work better with the female buyers.

Maybe to keep with the astronomy theme they have going from The Orion. There are some larger renderings at the Sota Glazing website.
http://www.sotawall.com/site_pages/USA_sites.html

[kazpmk]

From the UC pics it's hard to know what's going on. Are both Towers UC?? (foundation work) . If construction began, did it begin in 2005 or 2006???

[krulltime]

Wow you really are eager to know this stuff. They are both under construction already. I am not sure when they started but I will say January is more likely.

[Strangely Charming Quark]

I've got a buddy who's a broker so I assume that he would know but he told me that they just increased prices -- for the third time. These things must be moving. Getting too rich for me, I better start looking over on Amsterdam. Good luck, everybody.

[ablarc]

...they just increased prices -- for the third time. These things must be moving. Getting too rich for me, I better start looking over on Amsterdam.
The inner workings of gentrification.

Sorry you got priced out before you could buy in. Next time, slap down your deposit before the price goes up. That way you can go along for the ride and start looking on Amsterdam with a few tens of thousand extra bucks in your pocket.

[Strangely Charming Quark]

Yeah, thanks. Frankly, it would have been a real stretch for me anyway. Plus, what happened to the new "this is a buyer's market" mantra I've been hearing for the past few months? I thought time was on my side but clearly that was not the case.

[czsz]

I would love to see gentrification spill over more conspicuously onto Amsterdam and Columbus in the 100s. The projects facing the park are an abomination, and rising rents would surely provide the impetus to fill in the empty space along CPW with inevitably high tax revenue generating (and urbanistically superior) properties.

[BrooklynRider]

It looks like a similar sales plan to Orion. Offer a couple of units at incredibly reasonable prices and start pumping out price increase amendments, so owner's will brag about "making money on their investment already." That it has been posted here is further proof of the ability of these manipulations to cause "buzz" in the industry.

[krulltime]

March 26, 2006:


Ariel East:

http://i.pbase.com/o4/55/435155/1/57740708.IMG_8178.jpg


Ariel West:

http://i.pbase.com/o4/55/435155/1/57740712.IMG_8179.jpg

[lofter1]

Fighting New Heights on the Upper West Side

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2006/05/01/nyregion/01west.1901.jpg
Casey Kelbaugh for The New York Times
Ariel East, one of two towers being built
on Broadway, between 99th and 100th Streets.
Some neighborhood groups that oppose
the project are seeking rezoning.

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2006/05/01/nyregion/01west.1902.jpg
Casey Kelbaugh for The New York Times
Andrew S. Dolkart of Columbia University
leading a tour of the Upper West Side
for Landmark West, a group that promotes
the neighborhood's architectural preservation.

By JOSEPH BERGER (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/b/joseph_berger/index.html?inline=nyt-per)
NY TIMES (http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/01/nyregion/01west.html)
May 1, 2006

When it gets mad, the upper Upper West Side springs fiercely into combat — most of the time, that is.

It was in the book-cluttered apartments between 96th Street and 110th Street where much of the successful plot to defeat a $1.1 billion West Side superhighway was hatched, leaving a governor and a mayor choking in the organizers' dust in 1985. In a smaller skirmish six years ago, residents were upset that a CVS pharmacy had opened on a stretch of Broadway that already had two Duane Reades and a Rite Aid. Petitions, pickets and a boycott followed and, a year and half later, the CVS closed its doors.

Yet, almost no one had any idea about what some see as a much more serious threat to the neighborhood's character. Its zoning is so generous that it allowed Ariel East and Ariel West, two luxury towers — one that at 38 stories would be twice as tall as any other building around it — to be erected opposite each other on Broadway, without the daunting gantlet of a West Side review. Those towers are inexorably rising, and that is why the neighborhood, shocked into action, is hurrying to rezone before developers begin tearing down shops, supermarkets and other low-rise sites and replacing them with tall apartment buildings.

"The race is to get it finished before new owners start their projects," said Miki Fiegel, president of West Siders for Responsible Development, a neighborhood group pushing for low-scale zoning.

Time is a factor, because right now any entrepreneur who assembles a lot of sufficient size can — without any community review — match the height of the two towers under construction, and there are at least a half dozen spots ripe for such development.

The battle on the Upper West Side is also being played out in various forms in the South Bronx, in Midwood and Red Hook, Brooklyn, and in other neighborhoods as the city struggles with the blessings of low crime and rising home values. But few neighborhoods can match turnouts like the 700 residents who attended a recent meeting at a neighborhood synagogue, Ansche Chesed. Ethel Sheffer, chairwoman of a Community Board 7 task force that is evaluating new zoning proposals, said older and poorer residents voiced fears that their apartments might be torn down and that they would be pushed out.

"They said, 'There won't be places for people like me,' " she said.

Any rezoning plan must eventually be approved by the City Council.

At stake is the personality of a neighborhood not quite like any of the city's others. It is a raffish mix of writers, leftists, musicians — Judy Collins and Lorin Hollander have apartments here — housing project tenants, the formerly homeless and, increasingly, Wall Street investors. Politically, it is liberal and generates one of the city's largest election turnouts. Ethnically, the neighborhood crosses the globe, whiter on the affluent east and west margins, more black and Latino residents in the middle.

According to the 2000 census, of the 52,032 residents in the tracts between 97th Street and 110th Street from Central Park to the Hudson River, 43.3 percent were white, 31.8 percent were Hispanic, 16.7 were black and 5.1 percent were Asian.

The stout old co-op buildings are less expensive and sometimes dingier than those to the south between 96th Street and Lincoln Center, and there are fewer brownstones, more tenements and more than 30 single-room occupancy buildings. Even though the median rent is $756, the median value of the owner-occupied co-ops, condos and brownstones is $328,561.

Many onetime socialists are, to their embarrassment, millionaires on paper.
Along Broadway, there are plenty of idiosyncratic shops, but a crop of new banks and chain drugstores have piqued fears about Banana Republics or Gaps to come.

This being the West Side, the rezoning push has set off feuding. The differences among the factions sound technical, but they essentially represent a clash between those who want to keep the neighborhood as close to its present scale as possible and those who think the Upper West Side should do its part in building enough housing for the city's swelling population.

"After all, if neighborhoods everywhere downzone, there surely will be less housing built, and therefore the housing stock will be even less affordable," Hope Cohen of the Community Board 7 task force said in a memo to other members.

It was the absence of major development — in contrast to the spate of high-rise buildings that have gone up in the more genteel blocks below 96th Street — that seemed to lull this usually vigilant community.

"When it came to zoning, people were probably caught sleeping," said Marsha Tantleff, a dental hygienist who lives on Riverside Drive. "They didn't believe it was going to happen up here."

The sense of neighborhood urgency is one reason many West Side residents, typically fussy about the environment, are trying to avoid rezoning and require the time and effort that goes into an environmental impact statement.

The predominant existing zoning along the Broadway corridor sets no height limits as long as the lot is spacious enough. The two towers that started the controversy could be built because Extell Development bought development rights from adjoining brownstones on the cross streets and from St. Michael's Church on Amsterdam Avenue. (Demolition for one of the towers drew attention last July when a structural collapse injured 10 people and left a 7-month-old girl briefly buried in the rubble.)

Most people seem to agree that the midblocks on the cross streets need to be rezoned differently from the avenues so developers cannot acquire development rights again. By city law, air rights cannot be transferred across zones. But there are sharp differences about what should be done with the avenues, with the Broadway corridor drawing the fiercest debate.

On a walk along Broadway, Ms. Fiegel pointed out clusters of short or shopworn buildings where developers could pounce. More tall buildings, she said, would cast shadows on Broadway, ruining its ambience. Her northeast-facing apartment on West End Avenue will have its light and views diminished by Extell's towers, which are between 99th and 100th Streets.

"Broadway is our main street — it's the place we walk," she said. "People sit out there. They meet their neighbors, enjoy the sunshine. It's our town square."

Her group would prefer zoning on avenues like Broadway that would create a street facade of roughly eight stories (85 feet) and permit roughly four to five additional floors on top, but set back from the street. The City Planning Department has recommended allowing not just a denser building with more apartments, but also a taller street fronting — up to 12 stories with total height limited to 17 stories (about 170 feet). That street height would be more in keeping with the bulky apartment houses that already line Broadway, said Rachaele Raynoff, a department spokesman.

Ms. Cohen said that she thought the department's proposal was "perfectly acceptable" but that she would prefer a zoning category that allowed a range of street heights, from 6 to 10 stories. Variety, she said, would be more in keeping with the "saw-tooth up-and-down quality" of the Broadway streetscape. The total height could be 14 stories (about 145 feet), unless a "community facility" like a post office is included.

In an interview, Extell's president, Gary Barnett, argued that opponents were exaggerating the number of development sites. He said a study that he commissioned showed that only one, a post office on 104th Street, had a footprint large enough for a tall building. He also noted that a building between 96th Street and 97th Street, the Columbia, was almost as tall as his tallest tower. Residents who have not waded into the fracas, like the Very Rev. James Parks Morton, the dean emeritus of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, say that development is inevitable. But they would like to make sure it comes nowhere near the heights of the Extell buildings.

"I guess I base my arguments on the way the great European cities, Paris and London, have said that certain areas are sacred in terms of their scale," Dean Morton said.

Copyright 2006 (http://www.nytimes.com/ref/membercenter/help/copyright.html)The New York Times Company (http://www.nytco.com/)

[vc10]

I'm sure that many of these people also spend a lot of time worrying about the lack of housing in NYC. The fact that preserving the character of a neighborhood reduces the supply of housing is something that apparently doesn't occur to them...

Fighting New Heights on the Upper West Side

[Fabrizio]

Actually the Upper West Side has plenty of public housing built over the decades.

New million dollar luxury condos do NOT help the housing shortage.

--------------------------

"In a smaller skirmish six years ago, residents were upset that a CVS pharmacy had opened on a stretch of Broadway that already had two Duane Reades and a Rite Aid. Petitions, pickets and a boycott followed and, a year and half later, the CVS closed its doors."

"...and that is why the neighborhood, shocked into action, is hurrying to rezone before developers begin tearing down shops, supermarkets and other low-rise sites and replacing them with tall apartment buildings."

They should dedicate their protest in honour of Jane Jacobs.

Although I think these are actually nice looking developments... there is a danger on the horizon ...and I say viva i NIMBY!

[lofter1]

Uh oh ....

Ariel East's Bad Glass Problem

CURBED (http://www.curbed.com/archives/2006/05/01/ariel_easts_bad_glass_problem.php)
Monday, May 01, 2006, by Lockhart

http://www.curbed.com/archives/2006_05_arieleast.jpg



Ariel East and Ariel West, the twin Extell developments (http://www.curbed.com/archives/2006/02/13/where_supermarket_fell_ariel_east_and_west_rise.ph p) rising at 99th Street on the Upper West Side, get their moment in the sun in an NYT article today examining the downzoning arguments. But a tipster notes a graver problem with the facade of Ariel East, seen above:Thought you might like to see some pictures of the rather ugly facade going up (at record speed, I might add) at Ariel East. The glass curtains are very wavy and look like the tinted windows on my high-school boyfriend's El Camino--and very little like the website rendering. For now though, I like the style of the building. This week it grew taller than the surrounding buildings, but the setback makes it fairly unobstrusive and it doesn't seem grossly out of proportion with what's around it.

The Corcoran site (http://www.corcoran.com/property/nd/index.asp?p=1&CGM=Y) shows zero sold so far. Anyone have inside poop if this is true or not?

[lofter1]

The rendering:
http://www.curbed.com/archives/2006_02_ariel.jpg

[Fabrizio]

Oh my God :


http://www.curbed.com/archives/2006_05_arieleast.jpg


Save me a place on the picket line.

[kurokevin]

I think the glass looks very nice, a tad reflective, but very similar to mid-rise that just went up on Hudson St. above Canal.

As for Ariel West, what is going on at street level? It's hard to tell from the rendering, but please don't tell me it is set back from it's adjacent neighbors. That's when New York developements really upset me!

[czsz]

Given the row of trees about mid-level on the adjacent building in the rendering, I would say that it's going to have a very low-rise base at street level with a rooftop garden, and the tower portion set back.

[ablarc]

What would have been wrong with holding the street wall?

This stretch of Broadway could use a little regularizing.

[MidtownGuy]

The glass and brick are really hideous, even worse together.
I like the setbacks on the one building, but the materials are just cheap looking.
I don't mind the height, it's really what happens at street level that I am more concerned with lately.

[ablarc]

These buildings should rise sheer from the sidewalk to about the height of their neighbors. Then --after a setback-- what they do in the sky is largely irrelevant.

[vc10]

That's baloney. Housing, like any other market, is subject to laws of supply and demand. Supply of any kind has an effect.

Do you think, by the way, that the locals would be fine with Ariel East and West if the buildings were externally identical but the units were low-income housing?

Actually the Upper West Side has plenty of public housing built over the decades.

New million dollar luxury condos do NOT help the housing shortage.

[Fabrizio]

No. THAT`S baloney. There is no "housing shortage" for million dollar apartments. No millionares without a choice of condominiums in Manhattan. No millionares doubling up on friends couches because of the "luxury condo" housing shortage. Gimme a break.

Would these folks protesting want a low-income housing project? I will say this: the UWS (as I mentioned ) hosts plenty of low income projects. Do your home work. And I´d say that YES, reserving part of the development for the poor, or elderly, would actually go over with this crowd.

Read the article: "older and poorer residents voiced fears that their apartments might be torn down and that they would be pushed out. "

Now THAT´S a housing shortage.

[ablarc]

That's baloney. Housing, like any other market, is subject to laws of supply and demand. Supply of any kind has an effect.
Supply and Demand may be an iron law, but it doesn't necessarily have a strong effect across the boundary of adjacent markets. High demand for BMW's doesn't necessarily drive up the price of Kias, which are in a different market; and widespread availability of unsold Cadillacs doesn't necessarily lower the price of Scions. You can transfer this analysis to housing.

That may help explain why all this building of high-priced condos hasn't yet (or ever) driven down rents for modest dwellings. They're different markets with different pools of customers.

When the baker in my 'hood puts baguettes on sale to avoid being stuck with a load of unsold bread, it has no effect whatever on the price of a loaf of Arnold's at the grocery next door.

[vc10]

The main objection to this project is its height -- the fact that buildings this tall haven't been a feature of this area of town. As you say, there is a lot of low income housing in the neighborhood (including several projects), so it's not exactly in danger of losing its diversity.

The fact that it's so difficult to build in NYC means that supply is always going to be constrained. That means prices are always going to be high. It's made worse by the fact that so many existing residents are effectively tied to their existing rentals by rent control/stabilization. That effectively removes that potential supply from the market. That jacks the price of housing for new residents up yet further.

Eliminate rent control/stabilization and five years later there will be no shortage of housing in Manhattan because a lot of folks will have moved to cheaper locales (and it will be far cheaper for new folks to move into Manhattan than it is today).

No. THAT`S baloney. There is no "housing shortage" for million dollar apartments. No millionares without a choice of condominiums in Manhattan. No millionares doubling up on friends couches because of the "luxury condo" housing shortage. Gimme a break.

Would these folks protesting want a low-income housing project? I will say this: the UWS (as I mentioned ) hosts plenty of low income projects. Do your home work. And I´d say that YES, reserving part of the development for the poor, or elderly, would actually go over with this crowd.

Read the article: "older and poorer residents voiced fears that their apartments might be torn down and that they would be pushed out. "

Now THAT´S a housing shortage.

[Fabrizio]

"The main objection to this project is its height..."

Then we did not read the same article.

"The fact that it's so difficult to build in NYC means that supply is always going to be constrained. That means prices are always going to be high."

Vc: as ablarc explained, you CANNOT use that argument with real estate. Actually in real estate supply often FUELS demand. Just as more highways often mean MORE congestion. It depends on many factors.... a quick sound bite about the "law of supply and demand" doesn´t do.

"That jacks the price of housing for new residents up yet further."

Not true. Again....see ablarcs post.

"Eliminate rent control/stabilization and five years later there will be no shortage of housing in Manhattan because a lot of folks will have moved to cheaper locales "

That is exactly what any one who truly loves Manhattan and it´s diversity DON´T want.

[nyesq]

...I am seriously considering putting a deposit down on a low floor 2 BR in the West building. I went to the sales office and and I have to admit, the place is going to be really nice. And Extell is top-shelf. So, tell me, and I shrewd, off-base or just out of my mind?
Would you be concerned about street noise for a unit facing Broadway on one of the lower floors, say 1-10?

[MrSpice]

The main objection to this project is its height -- the fact that buildings this tall haven't been a feature of this area of town. As you say, there is a lot of low income housing in the neighborhood (including several projects), so it's not exactly in danger of losing its diversity.

The fact that it's so difficult to build in NYC means that supply is always going to be constrained. That means prices are always going to be high. It's made worse by the fact that so many existing residents are effectively tied to their existing rentals by rent control/stabilization. That effectively removes that potential supply from the market. That jacks the price of housing for new residents up yet further.

Eliminate rent control/stabilization and five years later there will be no shortage of housing in Manhattan because a lot of folks will have moved to cheaper locales (and it will be far cheaper for new folks to move into Manhattan than it is today).

You are absolutely right!

[MrSpice]

Actually the Upper West Side has plenty of public housing built over the decades.

New million dollar luxury condos do NOT help the housing shortage.


Of course they do! Many of those apartment will be sublet to other people and help alleviate the shortage of rental housing in New York.

I think the residents are not saying "Build tall building, but just make sure they are affordable" They are saying "Don't build any tall buildings"

That's ridiculous. Many of these people lucked out and rented many years ago and now pay peanuts beucase of rent regulation. Part of their opposition is envy. New York needs to have more housing of all kinds. And if we assume that this is housing for millionaires - we need more of them too. Any sale generates transfer and real estate taxes. Any "wealthy" resident pays local income and sales taxes so there's more money for projects like public housing.

[Fabrizio]

Mr. Spice: I can only go back to the original article. About the community group protest:

-------------------
" right now any entrepreneur who assembles a lot of sufficient size can — without any community review — match the height of the two towers under construction, and there are at least a half dozen spots ripe for such development."

"The predominant existing zoning along the Broadway corridor sets no height limits as long as the lot is spacious enough."
-----------------


Think about that: "no height limit"

Plenty of other neighborhoods in Manhattan have faced the same problem... and have height limits....some of the most charming and desirable neighborhoods in Manhattan.... I think what theses folks don´t want is to see their area become another Yorkville.

Furthermore:

"Her group would prefer zoning on avenues like Broadway that would create a street facade of roughly eight stories (85 feet) and permit roughly four to five additional floors on top, but set back from the street. The City Planning Department has recommended allowing not just a denser building with more apartments, but also a taller street fronting — up to 12 stories with total height limited to 17 stories (about 170 feet). That street height would be more in keeping with the bulky apartment houses that already line Broadway, said Rachaele Raynoff, a department spokesman."

^^^That´s their request: a street wall of 8 stories with 5 on top....(IMO I think it´s wrong btw ...TOO low....) but the city planning department recomends up to 12 floors at the street and 17 stories total height.

That a difference of only FOUR FLOORS total between what the community groups are proposing and what the city planning department is proposing.

Furthermore:

"Ms. Cohen said that she thought the department's proposal was "perfectly acceptable" but that she would prefer a zoning category that allowed a range of street heights, from 6 to 10 stories. Variety, she said, would be more in keeping with the "saw-tooth up-and-down quality" of the Broadway streetscape. The total height could be 14 stories (about 145 feet), unless a "community facility" like a post office is included."

So.... they think that the city´s proposal is "perfectly acceptable" but would prefer a varied street wall height. That doesn´t sound so inflexable or wrong-headed to me.

I think keeping this "Upper West Side" asthetic by maintaining certain visual clues will only pay-off in the end.

[pianoman11686]

Apparently, Ariel East (the taller one) is shooting up a lot faster than Ariel West. Photo updates from Curbed (http://www.curbed.com/archives/2006/07/24/ariel_condos_update_growing_like_kudzu_in_the_east .php#more), posted by Jeremy:

http://www.curbed.com/2006_07_arieleast.jpg


http://www.curbed.com/2006_07_arieleast2.jpg

[nyesq]

The West building's progress was hindered by the Gristedes collapse at the site.

We bought a unit in the West building...any buyers on this Board? looking forward to the additional space...

[lofter1]

The developer no doubt wants the eastern building to be up first so they can sell the units there before the western building goes up and blocks the views.

Typical NYC ploy.

IMO the Ariel East is an abomination -- look at the way it meets the building to the north.

And that brown banding -- ugggh.

If the prior picture showing the lousy wavy glass is any indication this thing will just get worse as the facade goes up.

Another reason to avoid the once fantastic UWS.

[lofter1]

ruffles have ridges, too ...

***

[pianoman11686]

From http://cityrealty.com/new_developments:

Ariel East topped out on Upper West Side 28-JUL-06

Like the Empire State Building rising in isolated splendor in Midtown South, the recently topped-out, 37-story Ariel East residential condominium building dominates its immediate neighborhood and much of the Upper West Side.

The building, which will contain 64 apartments and was designed by Cetra/Ruddy Architects, is located mid-block between 99th and 100th Streets at 2638 Broadway.

It is one of several major developments now in construction for Extell Management. It is across from Ariel West, a 31-story, 73-unit condominium tower at 245 West 99th Street that is also known as 2633 Broadway. The photograph at the right was taken at 82nd Street and Amserdam Avenue.

Construction on Ariel West, which has been designed by Cook and Fox, is trailing somewhat behind Ariel East. Ariel East has one-bedroom, two-bath apartments with about 1,551 square feet of space that are available for about $1,195,000, three-bedroom, three bath units on the 8th floor with 2,214 square feet of interior space plus a terrace that is available for $2,650,000. It also has a four-bedroom, 3 ½ bath apartment on the 28 floor for $3,750,000 and a 4,130 square foot penthouse with a terrace with three bedrooms, and 3.5 baths for $6,795,000.

http://www.cityrealty.com/graphics/uploads/1154122223_ariele2.gif

[ablarc]

IMO the Ariel East is an abomination -- look at the way it meets the building to the north.
Fair assessment. Setback occurs too soon; streetwall not high enough.

Always seems something's a bit sleazy about Gershon and his projects.

[NYCDOC]

I agree that the way Ariel East meets the building to the north sucks, but what is going on with Ariel West? It is really unacceptable. The building is setback so far after about 2 stories that it doesn't even feel to be on Broadway. It is so unbelievably ugly to see the whole exposed sides of the buildings to both the north and south.

I can't believe that anyone would design a builing to be so far setback and let alone that the city/the community would allow this to go forward. I don't know if I've said this before on this forum, but in my opinion "Development" implies taking steps forward and garbage like this is nothing but a step backwards. It destroys the street wall and just leaves an unorganized mess that you might expect in a city that has no zoning laws and just has structures just randomly constructed.

When I saw this on Saturday afternoon I really was baffled and upset. It just represented to me everything that is wrong with new developments going up in NY. The beauty of NYC is being crushed. Why is there no consideration for asthetics anymore?

I've asked before on this forum and I'll ask again, how do people take an active stance in this town to make a difference in what happens to our neighborhoods in terms of the architecture and street scape that all of us here are clearly passionate about? If anyone has any ideas I'd love to hear them because I really can't tolerate more crap like this anymore.

[investordude]

I've heard one of the things the NIMBYS have a problem with is shadows on Broadway. If that's true, it probably explains why they built with a huge set back after a few levels.

Just speculation though.

[lofter1]

It's about height. Regs only allow so much total square footage per the size of the lot (plus whatever air rights are purchased). The more square footage "wasted" on maintaining the street wall means less square footage up high -- where the highest priced units are.

This is where zoning regs which mandate minimum street wall in accordance with existing neighborhood conditions are needed.

[Fabrizio]

Sticks out like the proverbial sore thumb... and we´ll have a left and a right.

The UWS is about BRICK ....there´s a visual uniformity similair to the historic areas of the great cities of Europe....if you´re going to break that uniformity it better be good.

A classy piece of ultra-modern architecture done by a Richard Meier would´ve worked here ....but this is junk....tall glittery junk.

Sophistication:

http://www.emporis.com/en/il/im/?id=197296

[antinimby]

Ariel West taken on 9/20/2006.

http://img56.imageshack.us/img56/6067/arielwestjg5.jpg


http://img239.imageshack.us/img239/5184/arielwest1ph5.jpg

[kurokevin]

It is strange how the zoning laws that are supposed to protect our streets often are the culprit in destroying them. Decent building, just wrong everything else.

If only it could have risen 6 measly floors at the streetwall this all could have been fixed.

[lofter1]

I recently went to a zoning committee meeting at Community Board 2 (in regard to the hotels going up at 66 Charlton & 54 Watts -- both of which will sit back from the existing street walls on their streets) and we discussed Zoning Regs in regards to street walls.

It turns out that NYC has no Zoning Regulations requiring a minimum street wall height (only maximums in various districts). In fact, due to FAR, if a builder DOESN'T honor the existing streetwall and pushes the bulk of the building back from the street then more height is allowed (in most cases).

All at CB2 agreed that, in most cases, maintaining street walls would be a great thing -- and changing the Zoning Regs would be long and involved.

Don't know that there is the support -- either within City Planning or at a grass roots level -- to fight that fight.

Any thoughts?????

[ablarc]

It turns out that NYC has no Zoning Regulations requiring a minimum street wall height (only maximums in various districts). In fact, due to FAR, if a builder DOESN'T honor the existing streetwall and pushes the bulk of the building back from the street then more height is allowed (in most cases).

All at CB2 agreed that, in most cases, maintaining street walls would be a great thing -- and changing the Zoning Regs would be long and involved.

Don't know that there is the support -- either within City Planning or at a grass roots level -- to fight that fight.
Most of the country's zoning enshrines yesterday's ideology as today's mandate and tomorrow's obstruction of progress. It took decades to write modernism's penchants into the law, and it'll take decades to get them out.

Not long ago I designed a town house development that flew in the face of suburban zoning and various well-intentioned but mistaken sociological "studies" by planners. The studies' conclusions had been adopted by the city as legal guidelines for the district where I designed the project, and these guidelines remained in place despite the fact that the welfare-case subjects of the studies had moved on decades ago. Only the policy remained, addressing no-one.

Trying to be progressive and dedicated to smart growth, the city desperately wanted the non-conforming townhouse project, but the professional staff had to recommend rejection; their job is to enforce the law as written. Eventually the City Council had to overrule their own planners, declaring: "We have to make it easier to get a project like this through." And indeed they will --in a few more years-- with a new set of strictures that will enshrine today's wisdom and serve as an obstacle to tomorrow's progress, as conditions and tastes change in unpredictable ways.

In most cases I'd favor skipping the zoning entirely --leaving the decision to the City Council, which has the power anyway to overrule the zoning. The time, effort and money put into going through the zoning rigamarole is a waste.

And the decision-making quality that emerges from the intelligence of eleven bright, well-intentioned folks far exceeds the capabilities of laws written decades ago without any idea of actual conditions in the place and time they govern. It isn't even theoretically possible to postulate a scenario in which blind application of numerical formulas yields a better outcome than insight and intelligence applied to a known condition.

Zoning is more or less bunk.

[lofter1]

That ^^^ unfortunately leaves NYC with Mr. Chang & Mr. Kaufman and their assorted POS.

NYC will survive them ... but really would be better off them -- or their McSams.

[ablarc]

That ^^^ unfortunately leaves NYC with Mr. Chang & Mr. Kaufman and their assorted POS.

NYC will survive them ... but really would be better off them -- or their McSams.
Not sure what you're saying, but these guys operate within the zoning.

[lofter1]

That's what I said -- the existing zoning allows them to put up the POS that we're seeing all over town ...

More a matter of bad taste than anything else.

[ablarc]

Taste is like culture: by one definition everyone has it, by another it's a possession of the few.

[pianoman11686]

Another ugly, blank sidewall - another failure at producing good, modern architecture.

The arguments about zoning are interesting, and make sense: few, if any, bureaucratic processes/regulations seem to apply well these days. They're all hopelessly outdated, and in many cases, are such obstacles that they prevent progress to occur; instead of moving forward, we're constantly moving backward, or spinning in circles to address paperwork. It's a wonder anything gets done in a somewhat timely fashion these days; there must be a venerable army of people whose job it is to pore through all the legal documents and make some sense of them.

If anyone's ever read or seen The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Universe, I think you'd agree that we're really starting to resemble the Vogons.

[ablarc]

From Wikipedia:

Far back in prehistory, when the first primeval Vogons crawled out of the sea, the forces of evolution were so disgusted with them that they never allowed them to evolve again. Through sheer obstinacy, though, the Vogons survived, wrecked the planet, and emigrated en masse to the Megabrantis cluster, where they form most of the Galactic bureaucracy, most notably in the famous Vogon Constructor Fleets (which allows them a socially-acceptable way to spend their time demolishing things).

Some must be hard at work writing zoning codes.

[lofter1]

And designing hotels and apartment buildings in NYC ... :(

[pianoman11686]

From Curbed (http://www.flickr.com/photos/jschumacher/251945700/in/pool-curbed/):

http://static.flickr.com/92/251945700_c6690d99d6.jpg

Uploaded on September 24, 2006 by jschumacher (http://www.flickr.com/photos/jschumacher/)

[ablarc]

Broadway has the potential boulevard order of West End Avenue. I would have been happy to see these as streetwall buildings like the ones in the foreground; To accomplish that, however, you need to resort to airshafts. Those aren't too popular these days.

[lofter1]

I was happy to see last weekend that these have fairly minimal impact when viewed from Central Park at the North Meadow.

[ablarc]

I was happy to see last weekend that these have fairly minimal impact when viewed from Central Park at the North Meadow.
Why is that a good thing? Central Park is surrounded by buildings that don't have minimal impact --and is enhanced by them. Start with all the twin-tower buildings on the West Side, don't forget the Beresford, then focus your attention east and south. Impact, impact everywhere --and almost all of it good.

[lofter1]

It is "good" that it has little impact 'cuz I don't like this building ... ;)

Neither do I like the banal red brick building just to the west of the Museum of Natural History which is closer to CP and therefore more "present" when one is in the park. Ditto for the horrid black box hopital buildinig on the east side of the park in the 90's.

Give me beautiful buildings surrounding the park (your CPW buildings including the Beresford are good examples). Save us all from bad design poking up over the trees.

[krulltime]

November 9, 2006:


http://www.pbase.com/image/69978713.jpg

http://www.pbase.com/image/69978720.jpg

http://www.pbase.com/image/69978719.jpg

http://www.pbase.com/image/69978722.jpg

http://www.pbase.com/image/69978724.jpg

http://www.pbase.com/image/69978726.jpg

[Stern]

The NIMBY's werent right. I do like the form of Ariel East, its just the application that's horrible. This is a despicable building, the architecture is simply repulsive.

[investordude]

The problem with the blocks above 96th is that prewar architecture, or worse yet, ugly post war brick box towers, are so pervasive it gives the impression of a place whose glory days are in the past. We need a visible modern building that says Harlem and its environs are alive and well, and those buildings should be visible and militant in their message that the future of Harlem is now and ready for investors.

I think the architecture makes that statement well, without detracting from the other architectural heritage. And let's get real - what this replaced was a supermarket that was ugly, so I think its a positive.

So, I think this is a case where the developers "out of context" building sends a useful political message for the neighborhood, even if NIMBYs and architecture critics don't see it.

[Fabrizio]

The supermarket was small and ugly. This is big and ugly.

The most usefull "political message" would be great new architecture. Not bad new architecture.

There is good modern architecture going up around the city... new modern buildings sitting next to old that work beautifully. Look downtown...Soho, Tribeca. The great old pRE-wars of upper Broadway deserve sensitively designed neighbors just as much as the cast-irons downtown.

For me height isnt even the problem. Imagine something like the Charles/Perry Street towers here. Simple...clean design....nicely finished. Here we get garish mirrored glass. Puny brick stripes. A tortured shape. Most likely a concrete wall on one side.

[ablarc]

Investordude and Fabrizio, you're both right. Great that there's something new and forward looking and terrible that it's such crap. These buildings are contemptuous of their neighbors.

[rsupreme]

So how are sales going here, anyone know? :confused:

[NYCDOC]

How can anyone discuss these buildings without expressing anger over the way Ariel West is so far set back, ruining the street wall and exposing the sides of the neighboring buildings?!?!? THIS is without a doubt the worst part of a crappy development.

[rsupreme]

How can anyone discuss these buildings without expressing anger over the way Ariel West is so far set back, ruining the street wall and exposing the sides of the neighboring buildings?!?!? THIS is without a doubt the worst part of a crappy development.


What's so bad about that? I've seen a number of posts about the set back, but doesn't that add character to a block? Don't other buildings in the city have little courtyards, etc.? :confused:

BTW, anyone know who's going to be managing the building? Will it be Penmark like in the Orion?

[ablarc]

What's so bad about that?
Retail discontinuity, gap-toothed streetwall, exposed windowless party wall, disruption of established pattern.

[czsz]

The problem with the blocks above 96th is that prewar architecture, or worse yet, ugly post war brick box towers, are so pervasive it gives the impression of a place whose glory days are in the past. We need a visible modern building that says Harlem and its environs are alive and well, and those buildings should be visible and militant in their message that the future of Harlem is now and ready for investors.

Reminds me of 1989, when every ex-Eastern Bloc capital needed tacky-flashy reflective glass midrise to show that it had "arrived" into a vaguely Houston-Atlanta-Phoenix vision of the urban future...

Where is the reflective salvation for Park Avenue's aging brick boxes?

[ablarc]

Where is the reflective salvation for Park Avenue's aging brick boxes?
They don't need salvation any more than upper Broadway needs it. All that's required up there is replacement of the single-story branch banks with slightly updated brick boxes.

Btw, glad to see you back.

[Kris]

http://webfiles.uci.edu/cfagan/ssp/nyc07/IMG_4974.jpg

http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showthread.php?t=124070

[krulltime]

http://webfiles.uci.edu/cfagan/ssp/nyc07/IMG_4974.jpg

http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showthread.php?t=124070


I like that photo! :) Those new towers look fine.

[Stern]

They look good from a distance but this part of Manhattan isn't about the skyline, its about the streetlevel, and they fail in the cityscape.

[Fabrizio]

Looks like a Christos art project using Reynolds Wrap.

[jovialfriar]

http://www.nysun.com/article/48107

This article echoes my thoughts exactly. West will be a welcome and acceptable addition to the neighborhood. East, however, is a monstrosity that should have never been built.

Two Ariels Rise Up On the Upper West
Architecture

BY JAMES GARDNER
February 6, 2007
URL: http://www.nysun.com/article/48107
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Have Ariel East and Ariel West, both on 99th Street, destroyed the scale of Upper Broadway? Or was that accomplished as long ago as 1980, with the arrival of the Columbia three blocks south on 96th Street?
Whichever the culprit, there was an intense outcry from the locals when these two latest developments were announced, for the obvious reason that their great height would belittle everything in their vicinity. Their 30-plus stories constitute an even greater aggression in that their immediate neighbors are low-lying, a fact that underscores the jagged unevenness of Broadway's skyline. Unfortunately for the neighborhood, which fought so doggedly and so successfully against an extension of the Westside Highway and against a CVS pharmacy only a few years ago, it lost this latest battle, and the two towers, now topped out, represent a fait accompli.
And yet, for all that, I cannot bring myself to believe that the spirit of the neighborhood, that etherous abstraction the locals always invoke to thwart development, has been significantly compromised by the new intruders. Its scale was already compromised early on, and scale in general was never as important on Upper Broadway, with its fairly uneven building stock, as on, say, Park Avenue. You could even argue that Broadway and 99th Street would be improved if the two-story movie theater just south of Ariel East were developed so that it did not look, as now, like a gaping hole in the streetscape.
Beyond the controversy surrounding them, the two projects manage, by the standards of New York real estate, to be fairly distinguished. Both are the work of the Extell Development Company. Ariel West, designed by Cookplusfox, is 31 stories, while Ariel East, the work of Cetra/Ruddy Incorporated, is 37. As it happens, the two buildings are strikingly different in conception and in the specifics of their designs.
Ariel West is the more conventional, being a slab upon a base — there is no more polite way of saying it. What redeems it from banality is the sensitive detailing that has always been a hallmark of Cookplusfox, who are also the force behind the Bank of America Building now rising on 42nd Street and Sixth Avenue. In the Broadway building, the dominant formal conception — which is not especially challenging at this late date — consists in what has been called the collage aesthetic, the forming of a building through a composite of slightly or greatly discordant parts. It is interesting to consider that this aesthetic was largely formulated by one of the principles, Robert Fox, in the Condé Nast and Reuters Buildings on West 42nd Street.
In the late 1990s, when this idiom was in the ascendant, there was a whiff of daring to it. It grew out of deconstructivist style and was supposed to say something about the fractured epistemology of the world we live in. But how tame it has become in this latest project. Ariel West behaves itself with exemplary poise, a largely bipartite structure with a lower, detached component growing out of its southern side. There is also a hint of traditional contextualism to the building in the reddish, bricklike cladding that accounts for much of the façade. Still, there is no mistaking this for a Neo-Preo building (one of the many designed to look old or pre-war). It's reverence for modernism's rectalinearity is as fastidious as that of the Seagram Building.
The detailing of Ariel East, directly across the street is not as chaste and not as good, though the massing of the building is more daring and interesting. By my count, it rises in a series of seven setbacks from the street, all of them oddly flush to north and south, creating a jagged effect only in profile. It may be my imagination, but that effect, somewhat totemic and forbidding, recalls Raimund Abraham's Austrian Cultural Forum on East 52nd Street. On Broadway, however, it serves to accentuate the height of the structure. It just keeps rising and rising in a way that belies its 37 stories and seems to be rubbing the neighborhood's collective nose in the fact that it got itself built in the first place.
Nor is accommodation of the neighborhood's sensibilities in any way fostered by the detailing of the façade, which is striped and skewed at ground level and causes the sides of the building to resemble the interior of an integrated circuit.
Ultimately, the sum total of these two buildings is probably somewhere in the middle, as so often in Manhattan. They are not as awful as the neighbors feared, but they are also not as distinguished as they might have been. And while the honor and integrity of Upper Broadway have not been dealt a death blow, one must hope that such lofty towers continue to be the exception rather than the rule.
jgardner@nysun.com (jgardner@nysun.com)
February 6, 2007 Edition > Section: Arts and Letters (http://www.nysun.com/section/8) > Printer-Friendly Version

[ablarc]

A plausible assessment.

[londonlawyer]

It's bad enough that these buildings are tall (and therefore, out of place), but they should have had stone facades. The gaudy, Gershon-esque facades stick out like sore thumbs. This is a preview of what shiny glass would have looked like on Rosen's Madison Ave. proposal. I love glass towers, but they don't fit in in certain areas.

[Thethinkingman]

Well the Ariels won't be alone too long. 808 Columbus (29 stories) is going at full steam. I'll see if I can get a look at it tomorrow and post a pic in it's thread.

[MikeW]

The nail that sticks up must be hammered down? I don't think so.

I kind of like the way they stand out. It breaks up the monotony a bit.

[ablarc]

I kind of like the way they stand out. It breaks up the monotony a bit.
Yeah, for too long this stretch of Broadway has been mummified.

[sfenn1117]

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601088&sid=aSNZuJC7wt6s&refer=muse

As Godzilla Condos Loom Over West Side, Zoning Arrives Too Late

By James S. Russell

March 29 (Bloomberg) -- The Ariel Condominiums, a pair of shiny glass towers nearing completion on Manhattan's Upper West Side, add a bloated presence to this mid-rise neighborhood. Rising to more than twice the height of the apartment buildings that line Broadway at West 99th Street, they disfigure the view for miles around.

Outsized towers are popping up everywhere, galvanizing neighborhood protests. Until now, activists have successfully defended Manhattan's urbane boulevards on the Upper West Side -- modeled on 19th-century Paris -- and their leafy, family-scaled side streets.

These two lunks could rise to defile the neighborhood because Extell Development Co. carefully avoided the kinds of maneuvers that trigger public hearings and local outcry.

Manipulating one of New York's many zoning peculiarities, Extell bought air rights -- the blob of unbuilt space that floats above existing buildings within the zoning envelope -- from a church and Art Deco movie theater. The city permits those rights to be transferred to an adjacent building without public fanfare. That's how the developer built Ariel East, the taller of the pair, to 38 stories where 15-story heights prevail.

This lunk rises in traditional Manhattan wedding-cake style. Yet instead of telescoping upward in gentle tiers, architectural firm Cetra/Ruddy Inc. produced seven eyeball-jarring setbacks. The tower unceremoniously tops out at about 400 feet.

`Pathetic Attempt'

Ariel East's frameless, semi-reflective glass looks so insubstantial that the 64 units might as well be filmed in shiny Mylar gift wrap. In a pathetic attempt to compensate, the designers have added stripes of red terra cotta that zip aimlessly across the surface.

I should not be mystified that Extell would build a design that would earn the creator an F in any self-respecting architecture school. Hotshot developers love to crow over drinks about how little they managed to spend, conning buyers with glitzy lobbies and posh model units that obscure the graceless, white drywall boxes on offer.

You don't have to work too hard to please buyers in a city that's been a sellers' market for half a century.

Certainly, Ariel East isn't the most architecturally gruesome of the new crop of Manhattan condos. This one boils the blood because it could have merited its prominent position on the skyline. Though neighbors fought its height, the slim profile actually makes it less obtrusive than people feared. Had it been squat, as many older buildings are, it would have cast the street and adjacent properties into deeper shadow. A design of finesse could have made that silhouette soar.

Lunk No. 2

Across the street, the sins of lunk No. 2, 73-unit Ariel West, are less egregious. Extell also obtained air rights for this site, but not enough to match lunk No. 1's height. At 32 stories, it's thicker than Ariel East and so looms more incongruously over neighboring brownstones, even though it's slimmed with a nicely formed setback.

Architect Cook & Fox -- better known for office towers like the Bank of America headquarters, now under construction in midtown Manhattan -- clad the exterior in gridded metal, glass and two-toned terra cotta. The result looks both more substantial and more suave than Ariel East. Still, it's a perfunctory performance, considering the asking prices of $1,200 and more per square foot.

When citizens complain about Manhattan's ridiculous real estate prices, developers retort that it's because of New York's maze of regulations and approvals. In fact, Extell got its approvals expeditiously.

Missed Opportunity

It may never again. Now that the tall-building horse has left the barn, citizen watchdogs have persuaded the city's planning department to reduce permitted heights to less than half what was granted for Ariel East and will prohibit the air-rights gimmickry.

The new zoning will almost certainly be approved, drastically curtailing the possibilities to creatively engage the neighborhood's rich context in a way that would work for neighbors and developers alike.

Extell, and most other city developers, fully deserve such punishment for abusing the regulatory freedom they had. The irony, of course, is that it may become impossible to build inventive designs to obscure these mediocrities.

(James S. Russell is Bloomberg's U.S. architecture critic. The opinions expressed are his own.)

[pianoman11686]

Can't say I agree with his interpretation.

[infoshare]

I walked by this area yesterday - the terracotta (I think thats what it is) stone trim on the building on the west side of the street came-off well.

Both buildings are nice additions to the streetscape - as the saying goes "whats not like";) .

[Fabrizio]

Yep, thats just what stately Upper Broadway needed: Mylar

If these things had been built in Tribeca or Soho people would be screaming with rage.

Notice how those areas are getting the good stuff thanks to concerned citizens and high standards.

BTW: that "terra cotta trim" is about as decorative as drain-pipes.

[infoshare]

BTW: that "terra cotta trim" is about as decorative as drain-pipes.

Yes, but only where it was put on the side of the Ariel (east) it looks like an afterthought (drainpipe) the way it zig zags along the side of the building - not nice - but I promise you will not find me cringing in horror at the sight of it as I walk by the on the street.:p

P.S. Anyone got a pick of the side of Ariel East, the zig-zag terracotta detail - if so please post. Oh, and btw I noticed that this 'trim; is a similar stone detail used on the Visonaire - possibly the very same (precast) type of product.

[Derek2k3]

Pic posted by Krulltime on SkyscraperPage. Originally taken by NewYorker2005 (http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showpost.php?p=12237077&postcount=366) of SkyscraperCity.
http://www.pbase.com/rfcd100/image/75848437/original.jpg

I agree with the author. They don't fit in not because they are tall but because they are poorly designed. Riverside Church is tall and wonderful.
Maybe a combination of economics, archaic zoning rules, and a poor job done by the architects is the cause. Typical of the city and the community to only see height as the problem.
How many of these hideous piles must rise, both tall and squat, until the city takes notice that design oversight is just as important as bulk regulation.

Rowhouse blocks of Clinton Hill and Bedstuy are being destroyed by 2 story crap-boxes yet no-one seems to take notice...
planners and the community sit around helplessly or mull over down-zoning the neighborhood into the subway...
R-Negative districts here we come.

[Fabrizio]

That panorama is wonderful. Thanks for posting it.

[pianoman11686]

I agree with the author. They don't fit in not because they are tall but because they are poorly designed.

But the author does see height as the problem. Not only that: he sees the very possibility to build high as a problem.

How many of these hideous piles must rise, both tall and squat, until the city takes notice that design oversight is just as important as bulk regulation.

I've thought about this point long and hard, and I just don't know how to approach it. Back when the idea behind zoning was first being explored, it was proposed by some planners that the government exercise its police power to regulate "offenses to the eye." The precedent was already set by regulating offenses to the ear/nose through nuisance law. Still, I doubt this could be justified on legal grounds, and even moreso, used effectively. Too many aspects of aesthetics are still subjective. Thus, it'll probably remain addressed by "advisory" community boards and associations.

Does anyone know just how close the new zoning changes are towards getting passed? Is this the Lower East Side happening all over again? If so, we'll probably just get more squat, bulging things that look to make up the loss in height by going wide.

[Peteynyc1]

Great picture! The Western building with is large blank wall and set backs looks absolutely horrible. This looks like something that would get built in Sofi or the fashion district, worried about what will go up next door with unpurchased air rights (325 5th style). Something tall and modern wouldn't look so bad in that location, had it been done with class and style. This looks just horrible. That picture says it all in my mind.

[infoshare]

I've thought about this point long and hard, and I just don't know how to approach it. Back when the idea behind zoning was first being explored, it was proposed by some planners that the government exercise its police power to regulate "offenses to the eye."

Not so long ago the biggest "offense to the eye" on the upper west side was
this ugly - architectural aberration (http://www.thecityreview.com/uws/bway/dorilton.html) - on the corner of Broadway and 71st Street.

The follow are some quotes from 'Architectural Record' when the Dorilton was completed.

"This is an architectural aberration .........." AND "..... the sight of it makes a strong man swear and weak women shrink affrighted" These excerpts are from a book titled 'New Yorks Fabulous Luxury Apartments' by A.Alpern

If matters of artistic opinion were regulated at the time, and given what the critics had to say, the Dorilton would likely have been rejected by the local laws and/or community boards on the basis that the Dorilton was an offense to the eye.

Another problem with a LAW against 'offenses to the eye' is that all to often a 'professed' objection to the architectural design of a new building is nothing more than a clever way to cloak some particular financial interest and/or other parochial concern. Yes, we do need to think "long and hard" before we write Art/Architecture into legislation.

cheers PianoMan, you rock! :D

[ablarc]

Nice find, infoshare, and an important post. You articulate something we all need to keep in mind:

If matters of artistic opinion were regulated at the time, and given what the critics had to say, the Dorilton would likely have been rejected by the local laws and/or community boards on the basis that the Dorilton was an offense to the eye.

We also need to be ultra wary of the 40-50-year blind spot that follows us around. That has claimed at various times --in the interest of curing ugliness-- Penn Station and 2 Columbus Circle. Currently it fuels hatred of Modernism in general (Boston City Hall) and the work of Paul Rudolph in particular.

[antinimby]

So maybe oneday, people will even come to appreciate the Kaufman's and O'Hara's too! :D

[Fabrizio]

The Dorilton is INDEED:

"....an architectural aberration .........." AND "..... the sight of it makes a strong man swear and weak women shrink affrighted"

In fact: It is indeed NOT "good" architecture. Those words are as true today as they were back then.... it is a gaudy mish-mash

...but it's ALSO quite splended.

But please remember howerever : that quote, although very true, must be understood in it's context.

First of all, It was written in an era when it was a given that such buildings featured important and expensive materials, with detailing that required extensive craftsmanship and artfulness. Sculptures, bas relief, glazing, murals, marble, terra cotta, brick work, mosaics...

So while the building is still today considered a kitschy mess by anyone with knowlege of architecture, it's ALSO appreciated as being "beautiful" because of it's materials and craftsmanship.

A building by Kaufman or O'Hara contain NONE of that artfulness.

[pianoman11686]

The Dorilton is INDEED:

"....an architectural aberration .........." AND "..... the sight of it makes a strong man swear and weak women shrink affrighted"

Aha! So the building does in fact cause offense to the eye, which in turn causes offense to the ears of surrounding pedestrians who endure the swearing and shrinking (shrieking?) of the offended observers.

[Fabrizio]

hyperbole :

A figure of speech in which exaggeration is used for emphasis or effect, as in I could sleep for a year or This book weighs a ton.

[pianoman11686]

tongue-in-cheek (tŭng'ĭn-chēk')

adj. Meant or expressed ironically or facetiously.

adverb
1. in a bantering fashion; "he spoke to her banteringly"
2. not seriously; "I meant it facetiously"

[antinimby]

My vocabulary has certainly expanded just by reading this thread. :D

[nyesq]

i bought in the west building, and am now told that they're shooting for an October closing/move-in date, with possible delays beyond that. Any other buyers out there in similar situations? i haven't locked in my mortgage given the uncertainty of the move-in date.

[cyborg]

I bought into the East building and got my estimate closing date in September. The sales staff did not mention a possible further delay but I guess one can't be so sure. I already locked in my rate but need to extend it.

[kz1000ps]

High Anxiety

http://img507.imageshack.us/img507/6308/buildings600us8.jpg
Two shiny towers rising on Broadway between 99th and 100th Streets have profoundly transformed the neighborhood’s traditional cityscape.

http://img513.imageshack.us/img513/1729/17tallgfxlgqy0.gif

By JIM RASENBERGER
Published: June 17, 2007

IT was two years ago, in June 2005, that residents of the Upper West Side got their first glimpse of the two glass-sheathed towers that were to rise on Broadway at 99th Street. The local community board was having its monthly land use meeting — not generally an occasion of high drama — and Gary Barnett, president of the Extell Development Company, came to share renderings of his proposed buildings. As he unveiled them, a gasp was heard throughout the room. “People shrieked,” recalls Sheldon Fine, chairman of Community Board 7.

Mr. Barnett had spent millions of dollars acquiring air rights from properties next to his own lots on the east and west sides of Broadway. These air rights, as the neighborhood came to learn, allowed him to build hundreds of feet higher than the 16-story ceiling that defines much of Broadway above 96th Street.

For those who still didn’t grasp Mr. Barnett’s intentions, the name he gave his towers was a hint: Ariel East and Ariel West. According to Mr. Barnett, the name Ariel was borrowed from a star. In fact, the only celestial body commonly known by that name is one of the moons of the planet Uranus, but the message was clear. Mr. Barnett aimed high.

Not since Donald Trump’s Riverside South project in the early 1990s, said Mr. Fine, has a set of buildings on the Upper West Side aroused as much opposition as Mr. Barnett’s towers. Petitions circulated, gathering signatures by the thousands. Demonstrators took to the streets. None of this, however, did anything to stop the towers. Floor by floor they rose, plywood forms giving way to rebar and concrete, and finally to acres