Broken Spiral Slide. Image credit: City of New York Office of the Comptroller.

549 NYCHA-owned playgrounds have hazardous conditions and lack of repair and maintenance records. On April 4, 2018, Comptroller Scott M. Stringer released an audit of New York City Housing Authority playgrounds’ conditions and maintenance. NYCHA is responsible for the maintenance of each development’s playgrounds. Results from playground inspections are required to be entered into NYCHA’s electronic system for tracking maintenance and physical repair work. However, the Comptroller’s audit shows that NYCHA failed to consistently maintain playgrounds. (read more…)

Extension includes 74 properties in two sections contiguous to Upper East Side’s original historic district. On March 23, 2010, Landmarks voted unanimously to designate the Upper East Side Historic District Extension. The extension consists of two distinct sections along Lexington Avenue, with one between East 71st and East 76th Streets, and the other between East 65th and East 63rd Streets.

The area first experienced a period of major development in the 1870s, spurred on by the opening of the Third Avenue and Second Avenue elevated rail lines in 1878 and 1880. Neo-Grec and Italianate-style architecture dominated this period of development. The construction of the Lexington Avenue Subway in 1911 triggered a second wave of development. Many existing rowhouses received exterior and interior alterations, and as apartment living became attractive to wealthy New Yorkers, developers began building large Beaux-Arts, Colonial Revival, and neo-Gothic apartment houses. The area’s development history, as well as the scale and character of properties within the extension, matched that of the Upper East Side Historic District, originally designated in 1981. (read more…)