Rendering of Proposed Mixed Use Tower, located at 217 West 57th Street, New York. Image Credit: Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture.

Skyscraper to be built as-of-right, but requires Landmarks to review and approve its impact on adjacent individual landmark. On October 22, 2013, the Landmarks Preservation Commission voted to issue a certificate of appropriateness to Extell Development, despite one dissenting vote,  to allow a portion of a new planned tower to cantilever over the individually landmarked American Fine Arts Society building, located at 215 West 57th Street in Midtown Manhattan. The tower, which is intended to rise to over 1,400 feet, will house a Nordstrom department store at its base, and residences and a hotel above the store.  The French Renaissance-style landmark building has been continuously occupied by the Art Students League of New York since its construction in 1892.

The cantilevered portion of the building would be visible from multiple street vantages. The cantilever would extend 28 feet into the landmark lot, approximately one-third of the lot. The section intruding into the air above the Art Students League would start at 290 feet above the street and 195 feet above the roof of the art school, which is equivalent to “20 stories of air.” The cantilever would be set back 80 feet from the street wall.

At the public hearing, Gary Barnett of Extell stated that the project, which would constitute “a significant addition to the New York City skyline,” would create over 1,300 jobs and generate over $1 billion in tax revenue for the City over 20 years. Barnett said the proposal would in no way detract from the landmark. Preservation Consultant Bill Higgins argued that the cantilever and the landmark would “exist in different planes of urban experience.”

Architect Gordon Gill, of Adrian Smith and Gordon Gill Architecture, said the glass-faced building would be composed of cantilevers, including a “sky lobby” 139 feet above the street. He said the cantilever over the landmark would give the building “a sense of scale” and a “modulation of the texture” of the otherwise sheer side façade.  Gill said the transparent façade of the new building would provide “a contrast” to the stone-clad landmark, and “add texture and animation to the street.” (more…)

DOI Commissioner Rose Gill Hearn

For anyone considering sticking their hand in the colossal cookie jar that is New York City’s government, Rose Gill Hearn has a message for you: “we are watching.” With her usual stern glance, Department of Investigation Commissioner Rose Gill Hearn tells me she demands a “standard of excellence.” In her 12 years at DOI, Gill Hearn has met that standard, amassing arrests and recovering taxpayer dollars in record numbers. When she assumed her office, the ashes were still smoldering up the block from DOI headquarters at Ground Zero. 12 years later, Rose Gill Hearn is the longest serving DOI commissioner in New York City’s history.

A native New Yorker. Born at St. Vincent’s Hospital, she was raised on Long Island, graduated from Marymount Manhattan College and Fordham’s Law School. After spending three years doing white collar defense work at a private firm, she left for the U.S. Attorney’s office, where she would spend ten years and become Deputy Chief of the Criminal Division. For Gill Hearn, being a lawyer was part of her family’s legacy. Her father served as an assistant district attorney for the City.

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Illustration: Jeff Hopkins.

The United States Supreme Court’s June 25, 2013 decision, Shelby County v. Holder, struck down Section 4 of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, eliminating a “preclearance” coverage formula that had subjected numerous jurisdictions with checkered voting rights histories to the U.S. Department of Justice’s oversight.  Although the decision allows Congress to create a new coverage formula, in today’s political climate that appears unlikely.   While the preclearance system was often associated with deep Southern states like Alabama and Mississippi, in 1971 three New York City counties – Bronx, Kings and New York – were added as covered jurisdictions, and since then the DOJ has blocked New York voting laws on several occasions to protect the rights of minority voters.  This article examines Shelby County v. Holder, its consequences for minority voting rights across the country, particularly in New York, and possible local remedies in the event of Congressional inaction.

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Aerial rendering of the Willets Point proposal. Image Credit: EDC.

23-acre proposal will include environmental cleanup, expressway ramps, affordable housing, and retail and entertainment complex. The City Planning Commission held a public hearing on land use actions to facilitate Phase 1 of the Willets Point Development Project on July 10, 2013. The application was submitted by the New York City Economic Development Corporation and the Queens Development Group, LLC, a joint venture of Sterling Equities and Related Companies. Phase 1, to be split into Phase 1A and 1B, includes environmental cleanup, economic improvements, mixed use developments, parking, and infrastructure improvements on a portion of the 61-acre Special Willets Point District in Queens on the west and east sides of Citi Field, home of the New York Mets.

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Kate Sinding. Image Credit: NRDC.

Kate Sinding is a Senior Attorney at the Natural Resources Defense Council for the New York Urban Program. She has lived all over the world, spending her childhood years in Pakistan, the Philippines, and Kenya, as well as various locations in the United States. She studied women’s rights and international development at Barnard College. Sinding went to law school at New York University, where she earned a joint degree in law and public policy at Princeton. She started her environmental career at Sive, Paget & Riesel and dedicated herself to the firm for 10 years. Upon becoming a partner with the firm, Sinding remembered her desire to do non-profit environmental work and left the firm to pursue a career at the NRDC.

Early on in her career at the NRDC, Sinding worked on fighting five Las Vegas-style casinos that were proposed for the Catskill region of upstate NY. The NRDC’s stance was that such an intense land use was inconsistent with the region’s large system of drinking water reservoirs. Those reservoirs supply approximately 90 percent of NYC’s drinking water. This source of clean, unfiltered water is maintained thanks to partnerships between the State, City, local municipalities, and environmental organizations that keep the watershed untouched by development through watershed agreements intended to preserve large swaths of land around the reservoirs. Though the casino projects have been successfully fended off thus far, Sinding and the NRDC quickly learned that there was another looming threat to NYC’s drinking water.

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