Review denied of neighbor’s alterations

Neighbor asks the Landmark Preservation Commission to review their neighbor’s completed renovations. Richard Robbins lives in an apartment on West 103rd Street. Robbin’s next-door neighbors at 315 West 103rd Street received permission in 2008 from the Department of Buildings to enlarge their home. In 2009, Buildings ordered the neighbor to stop working on the addition, at a point when only the roof and the backyard expansion had been completed. In 2015 The Landmarks Preservation Commission … <Read More>


5Pointz: The Anti-Rebellion Message of the Graffiti Dispute

Graffiti has become much more than spray-painted tags and quickly disappearing pieces on train cars and underpasses. In some quarters it is now high art. Highly prized are works by Shepard Fairey, the artist behind the “Hope” poster Fairey made for Barack Obama’s presidential campaign, Jean-Michel Basquiat, who began as a graffiti artist and whose works today command huge prices, and Banksy, whose street works are carefully preserved.  These dramatic changes in the nature and … <Read More>


A Better Path for East Midtown

Early in January 2017 the City of New York began the official public approval process for a proposal to rezone East Midtown Manhattan. The proposal was based in part on a report by the East Midtown Steering Committee co-chaired by the Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer and the District 4 Council Member Daniel Garodnick.

The new 2017 proposal is the third proposal for rezoning East Midtown. In 2013 the Bloomberg Administration proposed to rezone East … <Read More>