Sanitation proposed to reopen marine waste transfer station near Asphalt Green and Bobby Wagner Walk. After the Fresh Kills landfill on Staten Island closed in 2001, the Department of Sanitation contracted with privately-owned transfer stations, landfills, and waste-to-energy facilities to dispose of residential waste. Sanitation now delivers a large percentage of waste to transfer stations within the City, where tractor- trailers pick up the waste and drive it to landfills in other states.

In 2004, Mayor Bloomberg announced a new 20-year solid waste management plan. The City’s marine waste transfer stations would containerize solid waste onsite, and private companies would transport it by barge or rail, thereby reducing truck traffic and long-term costs. The marine waste transfer station at East 91st Street, bounded by the East River to the north and east, Carl Schurz Park to the south, and FDR Drive to the west, would be redeveloped to containerize waste generated in Manhattan. Sanitation trucks would access the transfer station using an elevated ramp that crossed over Asphalt Green, a sports and recreational complex located between York Avenue and FDR Drive. (more…)

1931 building among Texas architect’s diverse body of works. Landmarks voted unanimously to designate 275 Madison Avenue as an individual City landmark on January 13, 2009. The 43-story tower was designed by architect Kenneth Franzheim for Houston banker Jesse H. Jones. Though he made his fortune in banking and real estate development, Jones also served as Chairman of the Reconstruction Finance Corporation and as Secretary of Commerce under President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Jones often retained Franzheim for his development projects, including an auditorium built in Houston for the 1928 Democratic Convention.

275 Madison was built towards the end of the City’s skyscraper boom, which ended during the Great Depression. The Art Deco building features a three-story high ornamented base, and a 40-story slab-form tower. The tower’s setbacks and unique shape were largely inspired by the 1916 Zoning Resolution, partly enacted to keep tall buildings from blocking light and air to the street. The building features prominently in photographer Berenice Abbott’s series “Changing New York.” Commissioner Pablo Vengoechea called it one of the City’s iconic skyscrapers, and noted significance in its reflection of the Zoning Resolution’s shaping of the skyline. (more…)

Bruce Schaller, DOT’s Deputy Commissioner for Planning and Sustainability, stands on the front-lines in the battle over the City’s congestion pricing plan. Hand-picked by Mayor Bloomberg a month after the City announced its intention to charge vehicles entering or leaving Manhattan below 86th Street, Mr. Schaller must present and implement a plan that satisfies City, state, and federal officials.

As a transportation consultant, he analyzed the impact of East River bridge tolls for the Straphanger Campaign, advised transit authorities in Chicago and Austin as well as NJ Transit and the LIRR. Mr. Schaller also served as a director of the Taxi & Limousine Commission and deputy director of the Transit Authority. He earned a reputation as a congestion pricing guru through a series of op-eds as well as an extensive report he drafted for the Manhattan Institute on the subject. (more…)

The temperature was in the 90s the day Simeon Bankoff met with City- Land. Mr. Bankoff, Executive Director of the Historic Districts Council, a prominent city preservationist organization founded in 1971 as part of the Municipal Art Society, and operating independently since 1986, had just returned from a demonstration on the steps of City Hall. While most would have wilted, the charming and voluble Mr. Bankoff animatedly discoursed for over an hour on the Historic Districts Council, the Landmarks Preservation Commission, and the future of preservation in the City.

Raised in Manhattan Beach, Brooklyn, and a graduate of Stuyvesant High School, Mr. Bankoff has only left the city for the four years that he attended Sarah Lawrence College in Westchester County. After a series of positions with preservation- oriented organizations and as one of HDC’s first paid employees, Mr. Bankoff became its executive director in 2000. (more…)

Depression-era pools and play centers considered for individual designation. In the 1930s, under the guidance of Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia and Parks Commissioner Robert Moses, the City built dozens of parks and swimming pools using federal Works Progress Administration funds. In the summer of 1936 alone, the City opened eleven large pool-oriented play centers.

On January 31, 2007, Landmarks heard public testimony on the proposed designation of nine of these WPA play centers, including the Bronx Crotona Play Center, McCarren Play Center in Brooklyn and three Manhattan locations. Landmarks previously designated Queens Astoria Play Center and the Orchard Beach Bathhouse in the Bronx, the remaining two recreation centers opened by LaGuardia and Moses in the summer of 1936. 3 CityLand 95 (July 15, 2006). (more…)