Illegal roof space used for 5 years while case was pending. After receiving a Landmarks permit in 2000 to add a decorative wooden trellis to its roof garden, owners of Sushi Samba, a Greenwich Village restaurant made popular by Sex & The City, instead built a steel-reinforced trellis that it covered in canvas roofing, making its … <Read More>
City wanted to demolish bridges connecting both sides of Cypress Hills Cemetery. In the 1930s, under Robert Moses’ urging, the City obtained land from Cypress Hills Cemetery through eminent domain to build the Interboro Parkway, now renamed the Jackie Robinson Parkway. The City also built two bridges to allow passage between the cemetery parcels that had been divided by the Parkway.
repair the bridges, but noted that it was not legally responsible for any repairs … <Read More>
Support wall became ivied backdrop for lavish garden. In 1867, developers built two adjacent Sutton Place buildings, 441 East 57th Street and 447 East 57th Street, with a shared support wall and entered into a party wall agreement. In the 1910s or 1920s, the owners of 447 East 57th Street demolished their three-story building and, years later, a garden for a neighboring coop replaced the site where the building once stood.
The party wall remained … <Read More>
Developer built Park Slope condos based on erroneously granted permits. In 1998, Flan Realty LLC purchased three contiguous lots; one on 14th Street and two on 15th Street between 7th and 8th Avenues in Park Slope, Brooklyn. In 2000, Buildings approved Flan’s site plan to develop each lot with a fourstory, eight-unit condominium building. The three buildings were part of a single condominium offering plan, but due to a lack of financial resources, Flan only … <Read More>
Office space on E. 63rd Street once used by adjacent Barbizon Hotel. Responding to neighbors’ complaints, the Department of Buildings sent an inspector to 148 East 63rd Street, who found that the offices of Relais & Chateaux, hotel and restaurant owners, occupied four floors in the residentially-zoned building. Buildings issued an order to close the offices under the Padlock Law, which OATH ALJ Kara J. Miller upheld after a hearing requested by the owners, Jeanette … <Read More>
Three brothers owning land in Staten Island challenged use of ULURP to exempt City from condemnation procedures. In 2002, the Planning Commission approved an application by the Department of Parks and Recreation to add 14.5 acres to the Skyline Playground, a neighborhood park in Staten Island. Six of the 14.5 acres belonged to the Putter brothers, who planned to develop the site and had a pending application with City Planning for 50 affordable townhouses.… <Read More>