Will It Come? What the Bloomberg Administration Wills at Willets Point (Part III)

(Continued from Part II)

Should a Slow Moving, Poorly Defined Project Still Be a Priority? Yes, Says the Mayor

With the project so poorly defined or flexible and its benefits so slow in coming perhaps Mayor Bloomberg would consider that a period of economic downturn is not a good time to make the wiping out the 250 businesses and thousands of jobs in Willets Point a priority. Not so. It is recently reported that he believes the opposite:

The mayor added that projects like the redevelopment of Willets Point should not be avoided during tough economic times, pointing out that the ambitious undertaking is expected to generate 18,000 construction jobs and more than 5,000 permanent jobs if approved.

“Just because we’re in an economic downturn doesn’t mean we’re going to walk away from our long-term responsibilities,” Bloomberg said. “The city did that in the 70s and it was a near disaster.”

(See: The Iron Triangle Tracker: Monserrate, Katz push for Willets approval, housing deal announced, Tully close, by Stephen Stirling, November 12, 2008)

Battle of the Job Figures: Why the Administration’s Should be Discounted

Of course, future job figures such as those issued when the administration is pushing for projects are untrustworthy. Though most recently the city has said the development will create 5,000 permanent jobs, not too long ago it was asserted that 22% more permanent jobs, 6,100, would be created. (See: Bloomberg Unveils Plan to Redevelop Willets Point, By Anahad O’connor and Terry Pristin, May 1, 2007.) Very likely the 3,000 figure given by the Willets Point Industry and Realty Association as the number of current jobs is high and that the actual number of current jobs is between 1,300 and 1,800, but those jobs, however disputed their count, are bird-in-the-hand. One needs to suspect the 5,000 permanent jobs predicted by the city is still too high and needs to be lowered again. That 5,000 figure also needs to be further discounted because those future jobs that will fully materialize only upon the project’s completion. As reviewed above, the indicators are that the full completion will be a number of years out perhaps as many as 30 or more. With the downturn in the economy, the present value of existing jobs gains comparative weight because the replacement jobs will take longer to materialize.

Obviously, whatever job figures one assumes, job creation figures should net out the number of jobs lost.

Why the Administration May Want to Proceed, at Least to a Point, Despite Economic Downturn

Given that the first steps toward the elimination of the Iron Triangle were undertaken a long time ago, it may understandable if the Mayor thinks that it is important to follow through. A process such as this can take so much time that when begun there is no telling when it can assuredly be completed or at what point in an economic cycle that might fall. Conceivably, the Mayor thinks it was important to get the approval from the City Council while he could. It may be unlikely, but it is possible that he envisions that the approval now obtained will not actually be utilized until the economic climate swings again. There is also the possibility that, having been resisted up to a point, the mayor is now interested in proving that the Iron Triangle can be eliminated for the sake of proving that he is able to do so. Eliminating it may say something about his administration and what it can accomplish where others have failed. Willets Point, after all, is famous for the its past successful survival despite effort of the powerful to put it out of existence.

Willets Point History; Stories of Visits by the Powerful and Wealthy

Depending on whose math you pay attention to, the neighborhood is 65- or 75-years-old, having been settled by some of the businesses now occupying it in the 30s or 40s. The first infrastructure was built in the 30s. The Willets Point area was not paved over when Robert Moses paved over adjoining property for the 1939 Wold’s Fair. The paved property was the ash heap or “valley of ashes” watched over by the eyes of the “Dr. T. J. Eckleburg” billboard in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby. (The triangle includes or abuts the location of George Wilson's gas station where, in Fitzgerald’s book, Myrtle Wilson was run over by Daisy Buchanan. The incident is pivotal for one of the book’s themes, that separated by their wealth, the characters of Tom and Daisy Buchanan are carelessly and insensitively destructive of other people’s lives: “They were careless people, Tom and Daisy–they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made…”)

New York’s next World’s Fair in 1964 with Robert Moses again in charge was on the same site during Mayor Wagner’s administration. Moses wanted to clear the Willets Point land for a parking lot in time for the fair. Successfully resisting Moses is credited with starting the career of a young lawyer named Mario Cuomo. After that, Mayors Koch and Giuliani both tried and failed to pout stadiums on the triangle site. (See: Willets Point, A Development Waterloo? Moses, Wagner, Koch, Giuliani—all have tried to redevelop the scrappy yard next to Shea. Now, it’s Bloomberg’s turn and it’s tough already, by Eliot Brown, February 19, 2008.)

Viewing Willets Point Demolition as Just Another Cost of New Citifield Stadium

Is the new Citifield stadium the reason the Mayor now wants to banish the Willets Point community into history? The Citifield replacement for Shea Stadium is closer to Willets Point than Shea was (by about the distance of a stadium). While we may think that the Willets Point is a perfectly acceptable neighbor for the spanking new stadium, Mayor Bloomberg appears to have other ideas. Willets Point property owners pay city taxes and the stadium owners do not, and yet the construction of the stadium may be bringing about the demise of Willets Point. If so, it will be an extra indirect cost of the stadium. Field of Schemes has used figures from public sources, including Good Jobs New York, NYC Independent Budget Office, and NYC Parks to calculate the total public cost of Citifield stadium as $484.99 million. Perhaps a cost for removing the Willets Point businesses should be added to that total.

It could be that Mayor Bloomberg doesn’t like the aesthetics of “junk yards” car parts or scrap businesses next to a new stadium. In terms of an economic argument, the Mayor has expressed a desire to build retail and entertainment space across from Citifield to lure visitors to the stadium. Years previously, the plan had been to build a “a massive entertainment complex” on top of Willets Point when the new stadium was built. (There are about 80 home games a year.)

Another Example of Bloomberg Administration’s Strange Non-Community Focus When it Comes to Stadiums and Parking Spaces?

It could just be that this is another example of the strangely misplaced focus the Bloomberg administration can have when it comes to stadiums (and their parking lots). Recent news stories mined newly unearthed e-mails concerning the administration’s negotiations concerning Yankee Stadium. They show that in lieu of those things that might be of most concern to the public and local community like restoration of seized parks and saving money, the Bloomberg administration was preoccupied with giving the Yankees an inordinate and undeserved amount of parking so that the administration could procure a theoretically “free” twelve-person luxury suite for its own use (together with “free” food). For more on this see: Mayor’s Focus on City Planning Matters: Some Quantified Analysis, Wednesday, December 3, 2008.

Predicting the Future of Willets Point (All Things Being Equal)

If one were to predict, one would probably say that one day, one way or another, the businesses at Willets Point will probably be replaced by other development representing higher and better uses. All things being equal this would probably naturally come to pass in due time without the use of eminent domain. But, when it comes to eminent domain, all things are not equal. Eminent domain is a tipping of the playing field that makes the unnatural happen. You are putting your faith in planners or government officials to know why the course of events should be taken away from Adam Smith’s guiding invisible hand. It therefore becomes incumbent upon those involved to ask whether eminent domain condemnations make sense given the alternatives or what would more naturally happen without the use of eminent domain. Eminent domain takings are done in the name of the public, so it is incumbent on the public (all of us) to ask these questions.

If eminent domain were not being used, the existing uses in Willets Point would assert their value economically. The existing uses would not be displaced unless other uses could out-compete them. Other uses would not bother to try to out-compete them if they could more economically go elsewhere.

Achieving Highest and Best Use: The Upzoning Alternative of Eminent Domain

For most people, upzoning is what probably first comes to mind as an alternative to eminent domain to stimulate an upgrade of property to a higher and better use. Upzoning without eminent domain allows change to proceed when it makes economic sense for property to change hands or use. It tends to naturally compensate departing businesses in much the same way that the divide- and-conquer deal the city’s EDC negotiated allows the three large individual land owners in the eastern part of Willets Point to benefit from the upzoned value when they sell their land. With upzoning, individual parcels would change hands or use in the sequence that made sense; the first parcels to upgrade being the ones where there was the greatest profit to be made. The speed with which a changeover would happen would depend on the economic climate, but land would not be likely to lie fallow because a change of use was artificially forced before the time was ripe. Change would be less controlled: If the economics were more attractive in Downtown Flushing or on land where businesses did not need to be displaced, change might occur there first instead of at Willets Point. Therefore, we might see the development there spearheaded by the local Chinese and Korean developers who are currently so active, rather than by through “big- developer” style development by the larger firms.

Upgrade of Infrastructure and Services if You Want Highest and Best Use: Lawsuit on the Subject

Another way to encourage a higher and better use of property is to upgrade the services and infrastructure in the area. The current situation at Willets Point is essentially the opposite. The city now provides minimal services to Willets Point. The area lacks sewers. There are no sidewalks. It has been so long since roads were paved that to say the area is spectacularly potholed would be a severe understatement. The potholes are lakebeds. The owners there have brought a lawsuit claiming that the level of services is discriminatorily low. The Daily News summarizes the allegation of neglect in the suit as follows:

The suit says the city has withheld services such as trash and snow removal and police surveillance; refused to maintain drainage, roadways and sanitary sewerage lines, and allowed curbs, gutters and fire hydrants to deteriorate beyond repair.

(See: Willets Point property owners sue city, by Jess Wisloski, April 10, 2008.)

Withholding services can be a strategy to, among other things, foster blight and pay a low price for land upon condemnation.

The Having-it-All-Plus-More Alternative to Today’s Proposed Willets Point Destruction

There is a way of having all the benefits of the Willets Point redevelopment plan plus more. There are alternative areas to build, even in the immediate vicinity of Willets Point. The parking lot for the new Citifield stadium involves an expanse almost as large as the Willets Point triangle. The world is quite familiar with ways that parking can be incorporated in other city structures. Building could begin in the areas immediately next to the subway and train station stops. In addition, also immediately next to the subway and train station stop there are rail yards that could be built over. There are obviously other areas in the city where our current priority is to build over train yards, Hudson Yards and Atlantic Yards providing examples.


Multiple Advantages

There would be significant advantages to building in these alternative areas, in addition to the fact that it would not involve the elimination of the existing private-sector-created Willets Point jobs and businesses. Initially, these areas would have a clearly defined and unique marketing appeal that would be comfortably consistent with developing the area at whatever speed unfolding economic conditions turn out to dictate. The buildings would attract people who wanted the pronounced convenience of being close to the subway. (The #7 train is actually one of the few subway lines whose capacity is recognized to be currently underutilized.) They would also be right next to Flushing Corona Park which apartments in the complex would overlook.

The problem of living in an emerging neighborhood not yet large enough to sustain supporting services would be greatly obviated by the immediate proximity to mass transit, which for commuters would make the neighborhood a near equivalent to an extension of the city they were commuting from. It would also mean that people moving in would be as little as one stop away from other neighborhoods like Downtown Flushing.

Rather than being hemmed in by problematic infrastructure like highways, the new development complex would make a substantial amount of problem infrastructure go away by building over it.

The retail that is supposed to be built to attract stadium patrons wouldn’t have to try to lure them in an unfamiliar direction away from the subways: It could instead present itself to patrons as they were walking to and from the subways and trains.

The housing could, and probably would, have all the same affordability components now talked about as being part of the administration’s Willets Point redevelopment plan. It might even be possible to do more affordable units. Buildings in this area are far enough west that they are not in the LaGuardia flight path; they could be built taller and, if otherwise appropriate, there could be greater density in this park side area.

Preparation of a Site and Proceeding in Parcels

The first phases of development could proceed immediately, far faster than the current Willets Point plan, because the impediments of an existing population, litigation included, would be avoided. In all likelihood, site preparation would be easier.

There would be site preparation costs, particularly for building over the rail yards, but there are also site preparation costs associated with building in the Willets Point triangle area. In the case of building over the parking lots and train yards, all of site preparation costs would constitute positive addictions to the city’s social capital whereas the cost of removing Willets Point businesses involves a partial subtraction of social capital. Rather than being out of pocket on the transaction, the city and the MTA might actually make money when the property to be built upon is put out to bid.

The development could be built in multiple chunks bid out over time to multiple developers following the model used in Battery Park City. Unlike building in the Iron Triangle, it would be relatively easy to phase development here.


Escalating Jobs

Presumably, development would grow out from the public transportation stops. It would grow out toward the Willets Point triangle. Jobs it created would be in addition to rather than sacrificing the private-sector-created Willets Point jobs. If the city’s figures are not inflated, when construction in the alternative area is half complete in perhaps 10 or 15 years, there would be 2,500 permanent jobs associated with the new development plus the 2,000 or so jobs at Willets Point would exist alongside those jobs. There is every reason to suspect that there would be more and better jobs in the Iron Triangle by that time.

By the time the development was all built out and reached the borders of Willets Point, there would be 7,000 or more jobs, a net increase of 5,000 or so versus the only 3,000 net increase in jobs in the area under the city’s current plan.

Probable Eventual Changeover for the Triangle

One would still expect that Willets Point would change. It is still predictable that the area will eventually graduate to higher and better uses. Some change might come gradually over time, but the complete changeover in uses might not happen until much later. Changes would happen through the private sector rather than being dependent upon subsidy. Presumably Willets Point development would respond, over time, to upzoning and an upgrade in services and infrastructure.

In time one might still predict a complete changeover in use that would probably come when the new development reached the borders of the triangle. But by the time the new development reached those borders the situation would be different. When the borders of the newly developed neighborhood reached and began to blend into the area of the Iron Triangle, be it 15, 20, 30 or 35 years out, the new complex spreading out from the transit stops would be a full-fledged neighborhood. Erecting residential buildings in the triangle thereafter would not involve the risky building of an isolated outpost. Anything built there at this later point would immediately have the services available because of the complex that had already been built, a neighborhood that the triangle could then become a part of.

Building in this alternative fashion would mean there would be no chance of the city being saddled with an unwanted mistake created by a public-sector, private-sector partnership. When ill-considered partnerships fail, the public faces clamorous lobbying for remedial corrections in the form of after-the-fact piling on of additional public subsidies.

We could be wrong about an eventual changeover of Willets Point from industrial use. Admittedly, there is a certain amount of crystal ball work involved in looking so far out into the future. The Municipal Art Society has submitted that:

Given its adjacency to other industrial sites, its relative proximity to the College Point industrial park, and its accessibility to major transportation routes as well as the airport, the site may be more appropriate for strategic investment in industrial uses.

MAS also suggested that the site has another rare characteristic making it a good candidate for continued industrial use; the site could be easily accessed by barge; such water transportation is especially energy-efficient. The advantage of proceeding in the fashion we are advocating is that the future need not be irrevocably dictated until future economic conditions have begun to better assert themselves.

A Win-Win? For Whom Could this Be Bad?

It seems like a win-win proposal that makes sense for the city. Shouldn’t the City Council, if it exercised leadership, be leading the city in this direction?

If this is not the direction in which the city is headed, one should ask why. For whom would such a proposal not be good? For whom is the Bloomberg administration’s proposal better?

The Bloomberg proposal is better for the one big developer that would get to have monopolistic sway over a multi-decade development project. The Bloomberg single big-developer proposal stands to be good for that single big developer for all the reasons such a proposal stands to be bad for the public.

Among other things, the alternative of building on the parking lots or over the train yards would mean that bidding developers would have to bid maximum value for the land to be built upon. The use of eminent domain to acquire land in the triangle pushes down the amount that developers might have to pay. According to one city document (the implementation strategy), the price would not be bad given the number of acres involved: “The total site acquisition estimate is $131.5 million.” According to the Municipal Art Society’s August testimony, “The city has already set aside close to 389 million dollars to support the redevelopment of Willets Point; and as part of this plan the city will be using public monies to either buy out the owners or to pay fair market value via eminent domain.” The problem that MAS points out is that since so much of the investment is public money for which the city, not the developer, is at risk, the private sector’s incentive to proceed on schedule is drastically minimized.

It is possible to speculate that the single developer chosen might be Muss. It is possible that Muss Development might prefer that the city develop the Willets Point triangle area first over other areas because it is closer to the development they have already begun on the other side of Flushing Creek. Arguably, it might have a potentially greater synergistic effect. (For more on the perspective of Muss see the next section.)

Returning for a moment to the recent Yankee Stadium stories and what we noted about the Bloomberg administration’s misplaced focus when it comes to stadiums and their parking; it is quite possible that the administration can be somewhat oblivious to community goals when it focuses on delivering a substantial quantity of parking to meet the demands of stadium owners.

Some Relevant Perspective on the Alternatives

The subject of the Willets Point redevelopment came up just recently in a December 2, 2008 panel discussion, On the Waterfront: Finding the Balance for Development and Communities, sponsored by the Center for New York City Affairs and Milano The New School for Management and Urban Policy.

New York Needs Industrial Waterfront: Rethink Willets Point

Carl Biers, Education Director for International Longshoremen’s Association Local 1588, noted that some of the available wisdom being offered asserts the that the current national economic crisis has some of it roots in policies that subsidize housing and residential real estate at the expense of the “productive” sectors of the economy. Not disputing this, the panel discussed with general agreement the related theme that a balance is needed between industrial and other uses of the waterfront such as housing and recreation. Joshua Muss, President, Muss Development Company, which, as noted, is developing the project on the other side of the Flushing River and is a candidate developer for Willets Point, said that as a New York City housing developer he might prefer that all the New York harbor’s industrial uses be in New Jersey, but that he realized that couldn’t be the case and that some of the New York waterfront needed to be industrial.

When the panelists were asked for specific suggestions for what should be done differently on the waterfront Mr. Biers said he thought the Willets Point redevelopment should be rethought.

Relevant Thoughts from a Relevant Developer, Muss

Mr. Muss offered a number of other thoughts during the course of the evening that we found relevant to the Willets Point redevelopment. Early on he was asked about the effect of the financial crisis on ambitious waterfront development. “Ambitious has a way of being redefined,” he said. He said that the downturn in the economic cycle would have an effect on overall development, but that the effect would be more pronounced for waterfront development in part because environmental factors and things like ground water level and water tables came into play as well as the fact that properties were zoned for industrial use. He said that no developers were going to be putting projects into the ground in the near future. He said this was true unless they “had all the money in the world” because financing was not available. He said that developers would not be proceeding because they “are not dumb.” He pointed out, however, that development takes a very long time: 3 - 10 - 25 - 33 years and that this was a good time to “seek approvals.” He explained it was a good time to get the government officials’ attention. He said it was also a good time to take a “slow look” at development “without actually building.” He noted that the project on the Flushing River had taken him 28 years to get to it current point and that he had been working on another project for 33 years.

Mr. Muss also offered the following observation relative to convention centers. He said that 25 years ago he had worked up a plan that proposed to put a convention center in Sunnyside Yards in Queens “rather than at the edge of the city.” Earlier we noted the consideration that had been given to moving the Javits Center convention center in toto to Willets Point. From time to time consideration has been given to moving the Javits Center to the Sunnyside Yards location. If Javits is torn down, its Hudson River waterfront can be put to a higher and better use. Manhattan (See: Expansion of Javits Center May Shrink to a Renovation, by Charles V. Bagli, December 10, 2007.) While the suggestion of moving Javits to Sunnyside is not currently in fashion, such a new location would be about the same distance from LaGuardia as Willets Point. The location is also probably a more central-city location, while Willets Point is more “at the edge of the city.” Sunnyside is, however, father away from Kennedy International Airport.

From Mr. Muss’s remarks you might assume that he would agree with Mr. Biers that the Willets Point redevelopment should be rethought. Not so. Before the evening was out he gave his opinion, saying he thinks “Willets Point is so warranted” and observing that it could not have been done without government involvement.

EDC Official, Lannon: the City Needs Time If Wants To Avoid Making Mistakes

Whose perspective, Mr. Biers or Mr. Muss’s, should win the day? Should Willets Point be rethought? Another member of the panel, Venetia Lannon, a Senior V.P., Maritime Division, NYC Economic Development Corporation, offered some general guidance that could easily apply. Ms. Lannon said that the good news about development slowing was that there was an opportunity to “reexamine where we are.” She stated that there are problems when things are rushed, when there are questions about what the right answer is. In this regard she cited the IKEA built on the shores of Brooklyn. We previously wrote about the IKEA mistake to which Ms. Lannon was almost certainly referring:

Industrial Assets Decommissioned and Carelessly Sacrificed

We don’t want to sidetrack into the question of whether so much land associated with the industrial sector of the city’s economy should have been decommissioned. Certainly it was important to make a shift, but it is important to do these things intelligently and not reflexively. The elimination of a sorely needed graving dock (dry dock) in Red Hook to create an IKEA parking lot was a mistake. It eliminated high-paying jobs while replacing them with a similar number of much lower-paying jobs. If it was essential to have IKEA (with its parking lot), we could have had both IKEA and the graving dock. The city is now looking at spending a billion dollars to replace the sacrificed dry dock.

(For this and links to the background articles see: Saturday, October 25, 2008, More Discredit of Bloomberg as Qualified Financial Crisis Leader)

Several times when Ms. Lennon was speaking about setting a proper balance in waterfront usage, she was feistily interrupted the moderator, Greg David, Editorial Director, of Crain’s New York Business who told her with debatable jocularity that he did not think she was properly representing the Bloomberg administration’s point of view.

(Continue to Part IV)

Dear Eliot, . . . . . Please be a true reformer

This is the second in a series of posts I am running. Each post will share one of a number of letters I have written to politicians representing us calling for them to take responsibilty on Atlantic Yards.

I invite others to borrow freely from them in structuring their own letters.

The first in this series was my letter to Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg to which, as you will see if you refer to my first post, I received a response.

I also received a response to this letter I sent to Eliot Spitzer when he was still governor. More on that later because that is an interesting story in itself.

This letter back in May of 2007 was CCed to the Brooklyn Heights Association. The Brooklyn Heights Association is part of Brooklyn Speaks. Brooklyn Speaks and the Brooklyn Heights Association are quite appreciative of how flawed a (mega!)project Atlantic Yards is. They are not powerless. I have called upon them to take effective action “Effective Action Needed From Brooklyn Speaks, BHA, etc.” (Picked up and posted by No Land Grab, March 19, 2008.)


This May 2007 letter also refers to City Councilman Bill de Blasio. Since the letter goes back a ways it would be fair to say that Mr. de Blasio’s position on Atlantic Yards has been shifting since that time. (Atlantic Yards Report, Wednesday, April 16, 2008 De Blasio's (late) AY conversion and the need for oversight and Brownstoner, April 15, 2008 De Blasio Blasts Ratner on AY Obfuscation) It would also be fair to say that de Blasio’s position needs to shift more and that he is one the politicians from whom we will need more effective action in order to make sure the stake is driven through the heart of Atlantic Yards. Our respect needs to be earned on this.

(Need we comment that, in retrospect, Eliot did not earn our respect or convince us of his legitimate credentials as an honest reformer.)

*********

May 29, 2007

Hon. Eliot Spitzer
Governor
State of New York
State Capitol
Albany, New York, 12224


Re: Please Support Reform in Brooklyn- Conduct and Governance of Public Authorities

Dear Governor Spitzer:

We live in Brooklyn Heights and together with many of our colleagues in this neighborhood of skilled and informed professionals we count ourselves as amongst your most effective, aware and first supporters. We naturally contributed heavily, including contribution of our time, to ensure that Democrats won across the board in the last elections. Since Brooklyn Heights is a home community for many Wall-Streeters, we acknowledge that Brooklyn Heights is also replete with a complement of professionals many of whom are hostile to, or have reservations about, certain of the reforms you have pursued (more on this later)- but we must emphasize that we are among those who have strongly supported you because of your reform agenda.

This letter is to urge you to be reform-minded as set forth herein and to urge you to understand that for us reform in Albany begins in Brooklyn.

Last week we received a political polling call asking whether we were within a few blocks of Downtown Brooklyn: Absolutely, we are within fewer blocks than they asked. We were asked about which local politicians we supported, (de Blasio- Thumbs down,- Montgomery- Thumbs up, red-faced Markowitz- thumbs down). Lastly, we were asked whether there were any major issues we thought were affecting our community. To this we were very emphatic that our community and the rest of Brooklyn is very significantly threatened by unfolding events in which you, your administration and the authorities you oversee have a very significant role to play. That is what this letter is about.

We cannot think of anything that has ever threatened Brooklyn so profoundly as the politically embarrassing Atlantic Yards project. As currently proposed it has all of the following things egregiously wrong with it:

1. Excessive Density. The project is absurdly and offensively dense. As what will be the densest area of the entire USA, (seven times the overall density of Manhattan) it will be a significant multiple of what would be an appropriate density which might, instead, be the much lower density of Battery Park City.

2. Indefensible Condemnation. The peculiar “Boymelgreen wrench” shape of the project will be as famous to future urbanists, government and political scholars (not to mention all the rest of the public) as the salamander shape that gave rise to the verb “gerrymander.” The wrench shape that has been thrown into the inexcusably odd history of this project will be a perpetual high-relief reminder etched on the Borough’s skin and skyline of two indefensible aspects of the project’s progress through the system. The peculiar wrench shape comes about for two reasons:

a. The unnecessary, unjustified, inappropriate and overreaching condemnation of the Wards Bakery Building block. This block with quality buildings that should be put to adaptive reuse is obviously being condemned because it is not actually over the rail yards. Since expensive platforms will not have to be built and since the zoning override of normal density restrictions will give the developer value far in excess of the condemnation price he will pay, this overreaching is purely for the purpose of creating a windfall gift to the developer.

b. The donut-hole of the Shaya Boymelgreen-developed block of property which is in no appropriate way distinct from the surrounding property. The relationships and special treatment of Boymelgreen in this transaction do not bear examination. Possessed of the knowledge that I have as a former public official (and which I believe is readily available to you and the people who work for you), I feel particularly well qualified to reach a conclusion on this subject.

3. Improper Bid Process. Everyone knows that the process by which the single developer for the project was selected was improper. The public knows the developer was not the high bidder for the property. People are aware of the exclusion of other developers from the bid process. People know that the criteria for the bid and the public benefit were improperly derived from the to-be-selected-bidder and not, as should have been the case, by public officials doing their job. When people consider the matter, they appreciate quite clearly that the site should have been bid out in multiple parcels to multiple developers (which would result in faster development). No one ever says it isn’t so when people aptly attribute the choice of the developer to that developer’s close personal ties with the former Governor. People know that all of this was done with an appalling lack of transparency and that there are no producible documents that can adequately justify or document the making of the choice.

4. Very Poor Design Quality. The project’s design is far below the lowest baseline that ought to be acceptable. The worst part of the project’s design is the residential and public space portions, but the rest of is also inexcusably below standard, the Gehry name being just eyewash. As his “dirty iceburg” building that recently appeared on West Street attests, the name Gehry does not provide any guarantee of good design. Frankly, this is a very big task that is monumentally beyond him. I don’t ask you to accept my comments based on the fact that I have a degree in urban planning but I do ask you to consider the lucid comments from others such as the Municipal Arts Society. Among other things, there should be no wholesale closure of public streets. The poor design is particularly regrettable because in this instance there should be a very high degree of obligation for good design for the following reasons:

a. The Empire State Development Corporation is exercising a zoning override. Zoning overrides are not, per se, always necessary but when they are exercised for the purpose of superseding the minimum design standards of the zoning code there is an opportunity to achieve better, more suitable site designs. In such cases design standards should not be overridden unless better, not worse, standards will be achieved.

b. Extra-high density creates substantial extra sets of problems that can only be coped with, as
in the case of Battery Park City, with good design.

c. Low-quality design should never be accepted from a developer if, as in this case, public officials have abdicated their normally applicable responsibility to themselves specify and impose suitably high design standards that will apply.

5. Public Benefit Mirage. The project has been promoted on the basis that it will deliver public benefit. Should it ever be done, it should only be done on the basis that public benefit will be delivered. But the idea actual that public benefit will be delivered is an uncertain, receding and distant mirage. Brooklyn is split on the subject of whether there should be an arena. We ourselves don’t favor an arena at the project location but we accept the point of view of others and acknowledge that, on this, reasonable minds could differ. However, the arena is being so heavily subsidized with millions of public dollars that it cannot properly be said that the developer is delivering this public benefit. The basic problem with any prospect of public benefit in this project is that the developer, rather than responsible public officials, has been the one coming up with his own meandering assertions of a.) what will theoretically benefit the public, b.) how he “commits” to it, and c.) when it might possibly be delivered. Partly because this project was not bid out in multiple parcels to multiple developers, the more important benefits of delivering the residential and ostensible “public space” portions of the project have been thrust out years further into the future than makes any kind of sense. The practical result is that immediately and for the foreseeable future there is a project that delivers extraordinarily disproportionate private benefit to the developer while the public lives with a perhaps ever-receding mirage of vague promise. The chance that the developer will ever deliver is inadequate and probably totally undermined by the developer’s tack to soak up public housing subsidies that would simply have delivered the same benefit more effectively and sooner elsewhere. That the developer is failing to deliver real and timely public benefit and has no hard commitment to do so is rooted in the fact that there was never a fair bidding process where developers competed to earn the right to develop Vanderbilt Yards/AtlanticYards. Net, net: The project delivers burden not benefit to the public.

6. Improper Review and Conduct of Environmental Impact. The improper handling of the Environmental Impact Statement for the project is another part of the project’s processing and consideration which should have been handled properly and wasn’t. The EIS was rushed through in an attempt at perfunctory dispensation of a legal requirement before the last governor left office. The essence of the EIS requirement is that there should be due and proper substantive consideration of the environmental issues which was quite palpably not the goal, nor was it what was done by those charged with this further responsibility to the public.

We know that, in the end, you and your team need to evaluate all of the above. The public might perhaps excuse bad process if it brings about a good project. Or the public might overlook a project of normal density that is of somewhat below-average or mediocre design. A project delivering real public benefit on a timely basis, notwithstanding a peculiar set of condemnation procedures, might evoke only a normal level of public regret. But a project that rises 1.) with crushingly oppressive and unprecedented density, 2.) awful and insensitive design, 3.) a peculiar footprint that announces the project’s errant DNA and genesis, and 4.) whose public benefit is a mere distant mirage, achieves a trifecta-plus-one that ensures permanent public opprobrium. This will be an irritatingly monumented public opprobrium that appears on every city map, subway map and picture of the Brooklyn skyline.

We think that everyone understands that even though your administration was not involved initially, that the Atlantic Yards project will not now happen as proposed without your administration’s active support, which makes you one of the officials most responsible for the project going forward.

We noted at this letter’s outset that our community is comprised partly of those in the financial community with reservations and doubts about your reform agenda. When you took on Wall Street you stood up and did things that people disagreed with in the name of reform and we believed earnestly in what you were doing. Atlantic Yards cries out for the kind of reform you have said you believe in. It is one thing, a good thing, to stand up against the crowd and the powerful for what is right.- It is an entirely different matter to go against the community and its interests to escort to completion a project which is poisoned by corrupt process and unconscionable inequity and windfall. (With simple and straightforward wisdom, the local Community Board 6, in September, voted 35-4 to disapprove of the project as proposed in the July 18, 2006 General Project Plan and Draft Environmental Impact Statement "because it will cause irreparable damage to the quality of life in the borough of Brooklyn.") This is a defining moment for your administration which will inform, in retrospect, how people view your goals and values.

We need to report to you that people in the community are saying that you are not willing to listen to opposition to the project. People who are saying this also ascribe certain meanings to their assertion, usually mentioning that you have family involved in the real estate business. We are able to argue against some of the most cynical assertions, pointing out that now and in the future contributions from Forest City Ratner and kin will forever be off-limits to you. Arguments notwithstanding, in the end everyone is expecting to make their ultimate judgements based upon your actions.

Everyone knows you have excellent people working for you. Everyone knows that there are plenty of people working for you who are fully sensitive to everything that is wrong with the project as proposed. If you listen and let the wisdom and concerns percolate up from the people you hired to do their jobs, they will tell you that the project desperately needs to be fixed and it cannot be fixed without some serious back-to-the-drawing-board activity. (Going back to the drawing board there is opportunity to create a fabulous project.) You just need to tell them that you want to hear the truth and that they should think in those terms.

Many people are dealing with the proposed Atlantic Yards making the assumption that it won’t happen as planned or with some other mixture of denial. Some say the conventional wisdom in Albany is that the entire project will never be consummated as currently planned. Some say that decision-making politicians such as you are simply inadequately informed and some say that much of the public likewise doesn’t yet truly know what to expect. Rest assured though that it will not be until the project is physically manifesting itself that public alarm and scorn will climax. Until then, let our voice be the “canary in the coal mine” for you.- At the Brooklyn Heights Association we hung on your words, fascinated to hear once again what you had to say when you addressed us. We thought then we were ahead of the pack in picking the right man. We hope that we were right then and hope that you prove us so by realizing that we are right about this now.

I am writing this letter jointly with my wife who is cosigning it below reflecting our shared and common viewpoint. Sincerely, this matter is critically important.


Sincerely,


Michael D. D. White


(& my wife)


CC: Brooklyn Heights Association

HUDSON YARDS & THE HIGH LINE

(Written May 2007)

As a recent article in the New York Times by Charles V. Bagli, “Biggest Building Site in Manhattan Up for Auction” (published May 17, 2007) made clear, it’s been put up for debate whether preservation and use of the High Line should be continued through the Hudson Yards site that is being put out for bid. There is also the question of whether and how much affordable housing might be made part of the developer site.

There are various assertions about what preservation of this section of the High Line may cost. For instance, the article reports that developers assert requirements for the High Line park OR affordable housing will increase their costs by $100 million, reducing the price they will pay for the Yards. One developer, Mr Durst, reportedly offered the estimate that the High Line preservation at the site itself would cost $100 million. Friends of the High Line have offered an estimate that preservation of the High Line in the Hudson Yards area will cost only $0.8 million, an extremely different amount. A better idea of the actual prospective cost may come from the bids themselves if, as discussed, it happens that respective bidding developers submit alternate bids, one predicated upon High Line preservation, the other not.

I think the question of whether this section of the High Line should also be preserved is a no- brainer. Of course the full High Line should be preserved.

1. A significant part of the High Line’s overall impressiveness is its total length. Shortening the High Line at its northen end will be a loss for the entire High Line. It will affect the language of every major tourist guide to the City forever onward.

2. The High Line is a unique opportunity being realized to create quiet public park space. The High Line is an exception to a current trend where significant amounts of our newly created City park space are subject to a great deal of highway noise.- Conversely, most of the High Line, because of its elevation and mid-block locations and distance from major roadways, will by and large provide a quiet experience. Anything that adds to the overall High Line experience will augment this rebalancing of the equation even though most of this northern portion of the High Line will not, itself, be one of the very quiet parts of the overall quiet park.

3. The High Line is creating obvious value to the City as demonstrated by the way in which developers are excitedly and quickly flocking to develop adjacent to it. I read reporting that a study commissioned by Friends of the High Line and conducted by the consulting firm Hamilton, Rabinovitz & Alschuler estimated the High Line would add 7% to the value of residential development at the Hudson Yards. That means hundreds of million dollars extra to the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (the seller) and to the City in tax revenues if the High Line is preserved in this area.

4. This is one example of a situation where the benefit of a one-time opportunity must be measured not in immediate terms but in terms of something that, like other great parks that have been created, will shape the City a hundred or more years into the future.

5. This particular terminating portion of the High Line offers the most dramatic and closest elevated view of the Hudson River of the entire High Line and links it with another major linear park, the Hudson River Park. If anything, opportunities should be reviewed for how to optimize this hook-up.

6. The High Line’s presence in this northern area provides sorely needed amelioration of some of the flaws of the Javits Center which is likely to remain at that site. It will afford the Javits Center with an immediately adjacent connection and humanizing relationship to the rest of the City through a high-profile public amenity and social experience. It will serve to help integrate the Javits Center with the rest of the City and help deal with the way in which the Javits Center is currently an austere place, which upon exiting you immediately seek to flee. There is also perhaps some opportunity in that the westerly side of the Javits Center has elevated areas that could integrate with the elevations of the High Line. Taking the opportunity that is present, Javits visitors could exit the Center and immediately begin a leisurely stroll through some of the most interesting experiences and neighborhoods available in New York. If the opportunities are destroyed, then out-of-city visitors at the Center will be handed maps of the City and told that if they exit the Center and navigate some unfamiliar streets they can eventually hook up with this interesting experience. So more often than not they may never do it. What a waste that would be.

7. If the High Line is destroyed in this Hudson Yards area it will always be famous for what WASN’T done. In operatic terms for those of us who are fans of opera, it will be as famous as the end of Turandot, where virtually every opera aficionado knows that Puccini died in the middle of writing it so that the first time that Turandot was performed, Toscanini, as conductor, stopped, set down his baton before reaching the end of the opera, turned to the audience and said, “Here is where the master laid down his pen.” Likewise, if the High Line isn’t completed through to its end, people will stroll a truncated mile upon it and get to a point, turn to each other and say, “Here is where the High Line used to continue, could have continued, and doesn’t now.” It would be dreadful if this became a disappointing part of every tour guide’s repertoire offered to all the tourists they address to take home to their respective home country.

Hudson Yards: Review of Development Proposal Designs

The following, while setting forth some updated analysis, is also partly in the nature of a catch-up. After the introductory update, this post sets forth comments I submitted to the MTA on December 10, 2007 about the development proposals for Hudson Yards.

I was pleased when a month later, on January 8, 2008, the MTA received an open letter from the Hudson Yards Community Advisory Committee with comments substantially parallel to my own. The Community Advisory Committee’s open letter is available at “Open letter to the MTA from Hudson Yards Community Advisory Committee”. The PDF is available too.

At the time the Committee’s letter was sent, the Committee was composed not only of key members of the community but also significant politicians and political representatives such as City Council Speaker Christine C. Quinn, Manhattan Borough President Scott M. Stringer, and
State Senator Thomas K. Duane.

The complete membership of the Committee at that time is set forth below.

Manhattan Community Board 4: Lee Compton, Anna Levin, Walter Mankoff, Joe Restuccia, Jean-Daniel Noland
U.S. Representative Jerrold Nadler (or proxy)
City Council Speaker Christine C. Quinn (or proxy)
Manhattan Borough President Scott M. Stringer (or proxy)
State Senator Thomas K. Duane (or proxy)
Assembly Member Richard N. Gottfried (or proxy)
Hell’s Kitchen Neighborhood Association – Kathleen Treat
Housing Conservation Coordinators – John Raskin
Friends of Hudson River Park - Ross Graham
Friends of the High Line - Joshua David
Manhattan Plaza Tenants Association – Marisa Redanty
Rep from 544 West 35th street – Camilla Pettle
44th Street Block Association – Renee Stanley
45th Street Block Association – Justin Krebs
Hudson Crossing Tenants Association – Brian Sogol
Save Chelsea - Andrew Berman
West Side Neighborhood Alliance - Anita Black

My comments were with respect to five development proposals that were submitted for Hudson Yards. A proposal has now been selected by the MTA.

Through a circuitous route the development proposal that was selected by the MTA was the Related Companies proposal. The Related Companies proposal was viewed by me and probably the substantial majority of the public as the second-best proposal from the standpoint of design and creation of a livable city. Brookfield Properties, which everyone thought submitted the best proposal, dropped out of the bidding. Tishman Speyer was announced as the winning proposal but did not follow through and was thereafter replaced by Related.

While it is unfortunate that we are not now proceeding with the Brookfield proposal, the Related Companies design is the closest to Brookfield’s and can be modified and improved by incorporating many features of the Brookfield proposal. We sincerely hope this will happen.

Density is an absolutely key consideration in evaluating the design and development proposals for the site. The Community Advisory Committee’s # 1 comment on the proposals is, “There is too much density for a successful environment.” The MTA is striving to put as much density on the site as possible in order to maximize the sales price for the yards. This striving for density is one of the things that makes attention to good design and things like continuation of the street grid and maximization of streets absolutely critical. Only with the best design can this proposed density be expected to work.

Should the density for the site be as great as proposed? Very likely not. The site is a good site for high-density development but the Community Advisory Committee is probably right in complaining that too much density is being squeezed onto this site; more density is being squeezed onto the site than would be built on immediately adjacent property. If you look at what is proposed for the site in the context of what is proposed for the neighboring properties you will note that the proposed density mounds up and is greater directly over the Hudson Yards property being sold by the MTA than the property that surrounds it. That is good for the MTA because it garners a higher price but bad for the public because it doesn’t make optimal long term urban planning sense. It doesn’t make long term urban planning sense because the density around the properties closest to the extension of the #7 subway line is less although it is there that it should be relatively greater.

Since it doesn’t make good long-term urban planning sense to selectively mound up extra density over the Hudson Yards site, we can assume that the decision is being driven by the practical expedient of maximizing site sale proceeds to the MTA. Some may applaud this decision given the news that subway fares are to rise again for the second year in succession. The New York Times points out today that “This would be only the second time in the history of the subway that fares were raised in consecutive years; the last time was in 1980 and 1981.” (See: “M.T.A. Plan to Raise Fares Angers Officials and Riders” By Ray Rivera)
Interestingly, the MTA is NOT maximizing the sales price of the land it is selling in the parallel example of Atlantic Yards. Rather than raise more money for capital or operating expenses the MTA is selling its property to the Atlantic Yards developer at a substantial write-down and collecting far less (hundred’s of millions less) than it could. In the case of the Atlantic Yards site the density of the site is being maxed out to an inappropriate degree, but the real estate value of that extra density that is being created with this maxing out is being given to the Forest City Ratner as the developer of the site rather than being captured by the MTA as in the case of Hudson Yards. (See: Friday, June 27, 2008 “No-property-tax status was supposed to raise the price of the Vanderbilt Yard”)

One last thing on Atlantic Yards, vis-a-vis Hudson Yards: The participation of City Council Speaker Christine Quinn and the other above named political representatives in the Hudson Yards Community Advisory Committee letter on Hudson Yards reveals where Speaker Quinn and the others should stand on the Atlantic Yards. They no doubt know this. There are many parallels between the proposed Hudson Yards and Atlantic Yards projects so that criticisms of Hudson Yards, which is a relatively good project (a high density project in a high density neighborhood), also apply to Atlantic Yards. At the same time, all the ways in which Atlantic Yards is different from Hudson Yards make Atlantic Yards a substantially worse project, probably the worst project being proposed in the City right now.

Here are the comments I submitted to the MTA in December on the development proposals for Hudson Yards.


*******
December 10, 2007

To: Metropolitan Transportation Authority

From: Michael D. D. White


RE: West Side Yard Development Proposals: Tell us what you think. Write your comment and drop in the box.

______________________________________________________________________________

Here are my comments on the five West Side Yard development proposals. First, Brookfield Properties design is very much my favorite. Second, all of the High Line should be kept (see the final section after comments on the individual proposals).

BROOKFIELD PROPERTIES PROPOSAL IS BEST BECAUSE:

• It is the proposal with the best intricacy and the proposal with the best potential for adding additional intricacy with tweaking. That is important working at these densities.

• I also like its treatment of the High Line. I think Brookfield did a superb job creating a great public promenade space around the High Line and I like to think that during much of that portion of the year when people spend the most time outside there will be an arrow of setting-sunlight coming in from the river.

• It has several other admirable and varied public spaces including the best space taking advantage of the waterfront.

• It does the best job of maximizing the street connections.

THE RELATED COMPANIES IS SECOND BEST:

I am in concurrence with the Curbed poll in that I think The Related Companies’ proposal is the second best in terms of its attractiveness to the public. Interestingly, the characteristics that make the Related proposal good are characteristics it has in common with the Brookfield proposal but which the Brookfield proposal mostly does better.

COMMENTS OF BROOKFIELD PROPERTIES PROPOSAL:

The proposal is my favorite. Here are ideas for tweaking it:

Here are some other thoughts including some suggestions for possible eventual tweaking.

Connections to the High Line. I would create more second level connections between the East/West running stretch of High Line (“West Chelsea Promenade”) and the other project public space at the South end up at that higher level. Right now there is one such connection and there should be at least one more making it easier to access the cultural space. (BTW: I note that with the Manhattan Children’s museum on the West adjoining “Hudson Green”- good idea- there are actually two cultural spaces which is good.) While some additional connections would be great, the Related proposal, by comparison, gives the High Line a sort of hug-of-death in this area and would benefit from some separations.

Possible Outdoor Promenade Running East/West Parallel to High Line. There are no places I know of elsewhere where the High Line can be appreciated from its own level or from outside and above. There is a unique opportunity to create such places here with this design. In so doing, you have the chance to accentuate the sense of place and destination. Without disrupting any plans for the foundations of the proposed buildings it should be possible to create a recessed promenade that would run alongside and at the same level as the High Line. If there is recess into the buildings there would be Bellamyesque shelter from the elements that pedestrians could opt for. The promenade would also create extra connection options capable of luring pedestrians all the way to the South of the upper-level public spaces.

Elevated Space on the South Next to the High Line. I think it is worthwhile to keep in mind the extra high density of this project which is why the extra streets the Brookfield plan are especially beneficial. It also means that extra pedestrian levels can be supported. Some of the multi-level kind of outdoor park experience created by Olmstead and Vaux can be experimented with here if, alongside the High Line, a third level is created. This could be done if, there were space elevated perhaps over interesting arches. There are two almost identical square parks abutting the West Chelsea promenade. The arches and elevated space could be at the South side of at least one of these spaces.

Differentiating the Two Square Parks Abutting the West Chelsea Promenade. The two almost identical square parks abutting the West Chelsea promenade have a nice organized feel when looked at as part of a big plan, but as they might be experienced by pedestrians it is likely best if they are differentiated so that they provide different on-the-ground experiences. This can be assisted by slightly varying their shape. Another way to add to the difference would be to partially encircle one of the parks with an elevated vantage which could be done by allowing the space elevated over the arch (or arches) described above to continue around the park. The actual open area of the green space would remain the same, but would feel different if the elevated vantage walks were recessed into the side of the adjoining buildings. If you look at the Related plan you will see that Related has a very nice triangular public space on the South by the High Line. Some of the unusual closure feel afforded by triangle shapes could help here. See my next comment.

Possible Skewing of First Floor of South-westernmost Residential Building. Without having to change the existing foundation plans for the buildings and with only a minimal, if any, amount of cantilevering, some very interesting effects could be achieved by slightly skewing the first floor of the South-Westernmost residential building. The following could be achieved:

1. A slight triangular feel could be given to the adjacent park now planned to be square.

2. There could be elevated space in the sunlight overlooking that small park that could be an extension of an elevated vantage walk. This might involve walking out from recessed space to the sunlit space. Building pillars could be left in place for an interesting exterior effect.

3. The new promenade running parallel to the High Line could widen and open up to a wider public space that could then lead down graciously via steps from the upper-level project spaces to the street level spaces below the promenade at the Southwestern corner.

4. There could be an elevated space at the Northwest corner of the building from which the public could appreciate “Hudson Green” on high. This space could even be accessible via connections from the elevated space overlooking the High Line. It might make either a good special function space or a good performance space. Perhaps both. (Yes, I know it is under residential space.)

Connections Between the Street under the High Line and the Higher Ground Level of the Project’s Other Public Spaces. The “West Chelsea Promenade” could be quite an extraordinary Mecca. You have Chelsea at one end of the High Line, the Javits Center at the other, and the projects green space will draw from the center of town- The Moynihan Station and new buildings in that area. “Hudson Place” as the southern end of the new boulevard/park (Senator Schumer et. al. permitting) and the cultural space will also draw people in. There will the buses and new subways and new water taxis all ending there. Done right it will have quite a draw. Therefore as much attention as possible should be paid to the space and part of this is connecting the street below the High Line to the great spaces at the project’s own ground level. There could be a very interesting stair connection, perhaps a double staircase wrapping the corner, at the corner where the Western four residential buildings reach the cultural center at the edge of the “West Chelsea Promenade.” As a destination spot I see this as being a location for a lot of interesting retail, maybe like the areas in Rome where small vendors sell silk and leather.

“Hudson Green.” I think “Hudson Green” is ideal. In talking to people about it I would emphasize its similarity in size (and other aspects) to park at the North of Battery Park City because people generally know and like that park. It is great the way it is open to the Southern and Western sun. In contrast, the Steven Holl design for Extell is oxymoronic: It makes a big thing about the angling of buildings on the South to let the sun’s light through as it travels the sky but the answer would have been not to put the tall building on the South side of the property at all. If I were to mull over any tampering with it, it might be to make it just a little less rectilinear. In Related’s plan I like the nonlinear narrowing with the slight triangular point of the big east/west running main space. I know that there is an argument that Brookfield slightly diverged from the RFP guidelines by the way in which the Hotels break up the green space while providing a needed wind break. I think this defines the public spaces in a superior way, but I am also wondering whether the criticism could be addressed somewhat by providing an interesting feeling of connection under the hotel space via a route that could be very interesting to travel. Maybe part of that route would share connection with the streets.

Connections to Hudson River Park. I would make the connection between the High Line and Hudson River park a better more direct one. Right now, “Hudson Green” connects with the High Line and connects via a walk way to Hudson River Park. If you want to go from the High Line to Hudson River Park you can do it by going back through “Hudson Green” but it should be possible to go more directly.

“Hudson Hall” & Adjustable Outdoors. When I asked questions about “Hudson Hall” it wasn’t entirely clear whether this space was going to be more indoor or outdoor in character. But that makes me think about something I have been wondering in general. On reason I avoid and don’t enjoy Related’s Time Warner Space is that it has such a stuffy interior mall feel. Space is more fun when it is outdoors and alive with breezes. On the other hand, there are times when protection for the elements is desirable. It seems to me that with the proper mechanics there can be space that changes in character as the situation changes and that this space could be quite “green” if properly managed. In a way, it goes back to having windows that open. Looking forward, it ties in with the intelligence of computers to know what the weather is or even what the weather is going to be. People who own their own houses in the suburbs can economically cool them with central attic fans that effect a quick exchange of air with the outdoors when the temperature conditions are appropriate. Looking at the design of “Hudson Hall” I wonder about whether it could sometimes share climate with the outdoors on a nice day and other times have its own interior climate modulated largely by exchanging climate with the outside. Bring in cool evening air in the summer. Let the space be sometimes sun warmed when appropriate. I wonder whether this approach can be carried over to other public spaces in the project as well.

Good Continuous Flowing Ground Floor Retail. One of the things that the Brookfield plan does very well is provide lots of continuous forking paths for a flow of ground floor retail trails. Because of the density and destination nature of the site, it should be possible to support a lot of retail. In contrast, Related’s proposal disintegrates in certain places into separated tower-in-the-park buildings that would break up that flow. Once again, there is a huge opportunity for multilevel retail tying in with the High Line.

Floor Plate Sizes. I know that floor plate sizes have been discussed as a matter of importance. The Tishman proposal seems to make them important above all else. That is one reason their result is so intimidating. I gather that Doctoroff may be preoccupied with the subject in terms of New York competing with London as a financial center and the theory that there may be a continuing growth in the need for sizable trading floors (That is not necessarily my own bet). You seem to have an easy option for increasing large floor plates by increasing the height of the low structure abutting the Northwest condominium building. (The top of that space can also be a terrace overlooking “Hudson Green.”) Height could also go up for the buildings abutting “Hudson Place” immediately on the East.

Integrate Space for Vintage Orchestra(s)? I would love it if you might be interested in the following. I am in contact with a vintage orchestra that is looking for a more suitable permanent home. There is another vintage orchestra with which they might conceivable share space. The orchestra is based in New York and plays fairly regularly on Prairie Home Companion. The optimal venue would probably be a nightclub style seating about 200.

Building Textures. One thing that Related did well was posting pictures showing their proposed buildings with a range of various building styles and textures, a number of them reminiscent of older buildings on the West side. I think various textures and variety is a good way to go and it makes the density less intimating and everything seems more comfortably familiar. It is still possible to have big windows on the Hudson with these other styles and I think people are getting tired of glass as the perpetual answer. One thing that is interesting when you look at the Related visuals is that Related has a clump of residential buildings that look like they come straight from what we did at Battery Park City. Since they were therefore very different, they stand out oddly in the model, but the picture on the wall with different textures reconciles quite well how they would fit in.

Setbacks. Given the prescribed density, there is not much opportunity for setbacks though they can add a lot to a landscape. Maybe a few things like the skewing of the first floor that I described above can add something that may help in a way, but it may just be too bad that there isn’t more opportunity in this regard.

COMMENTS ON EXTELL DEVELOPMENT COMPANY PROPOSAL:

The Steven Holl design for Extell is oxymoronic: It makes a big thing about the angling of buildings on the South to let the sun’s light through as it travels the sky but the answer would have been not to put the tall building on the South side of the property at all.

The cable system for construction is ingenious, but it only makes sense to use it if such a huge new section of the city can, at the same time, be well designed. This proposal does not demonstrate that this can be achieved.

Jane Jacobs derided tower-in-the-park design as towers in urban “prairies.” This exemplifies that unless it is a tower in a “moor.” In this case “moor” would be less. The design does not even allow trees. There will be no way to go back and retrofit the landscaping to break up the vast center with any feel of intricacy.

The buildings themselves worsen the experience by being huge, bland, featureless and repetitive. And anytime a building gets described as resembling a “tuber” you know you are in trouble.

Keeping the High Line is good though.

COMMENTS ON HUDSON CENTER WEST/HUDSON CENTER EAST LLC PROPOSAL (DURST-VORNADO):

One problem with the Durst/Vornado and Extell plans is that they have too little sense of human scale. For instance, the sinuous taffy-pull shape of the Durst elevated people walkway (that “makes up” for destruction of part of the High Line) leaves you uncomfortably clueless about scale, aside from being rather silly. The proposal also lacks intricacy.

The green ideas and effort is nice- but this is something that any of the proposals can be asked to do. It does not substitute for good city-making or design.

The fact that the proposal does not fully preserve the High Line is a definite negative.

COMMENTS ON THE RELATED COMPANIES PROPOSAL:

Brookfield handles the High Line in an ideal way on 30th Street by being mostly separated from it. By contrast the Related proposal gives the High Line a sort of hug-of-death in this area and would benefit from some separations. Whereas, I would tweak the Brookfield plan to add some connections to the High Line on the South, in the case of Related's plan I would tweak it to add some separations in the same area. Keeping the High Line is good though.

There are a lot of things I like about the Related proposal though I have to get over a personal blue state reaction to Fox/Murdock.

I really like the triangular public space on the South.

I like the nonlinear narrowing with the slight triangular point of the big east/west running main space.

There is a clump of residential buildings that look like they come straight from what we did at Battery Park City. Since they were therefore very different, I had to struggle with that for a while even though I would love a whole complex done this way. The picture on the wall helped me reconcile what I thought about that. I come out positive on the tension in design. But looking at the picture made me think about some of the 12th Ave/West Street buildings further downtown that have an even older echo and it seemed to me making some of other buildings mimic that old style even more might help really pull together the conglomeration of style effect you are going for but which is not so absolutely obvious. It wouldn't be necessarily to give up big windows on the water but it might reduce construction costs.

The recent changes Related made to it main model during the exhibition improve the proposal by making the Eastern buildings less like the Time Warner complex. I don’t like the Time Warner complex. I like that there is lot mixed together in the complex. I like some of the performance space there. But I generally avoid the complex. I remembered liking very much the Dan Brodsky plan that lost out to Related and thought it echoed CPW well.

The idea of the waterfall of trees in the western facing windows of the tallest building. Dramatic and fun but it may be a full employment challenge for arborists which might wind up getting solved with some fairly generic easy-to-grow varieties the selection of which, accordingly, may feel a bit vintage in about 10 years.

Especially as buildings near the water, the lines for linked and flowing retail is too broken. The tower in the park stuff never works out that well in actual experience. There are some ways to play with fixing this though.

There is a huge opportunity for multilevel retail tying in with the High Line that is missed. Going for extra retail will be supported given the density that is coming and the potential destination aspect of the site. You have Chelsea at one end of the High Line, the Javit's Center at the other, and this is a park that will draw from the center of town- The Moynihan Station, (and new Related buildings over there), buses and new subways and new water taxis will all end there. Done right it will be a Mecca.

COMMENTS ON TS WEST SIDE HOLDING, LLC PROPOSAL (TISHMAN SPEYER):

This plan is intimidating and dull partly because too much stress is put on achieving a high proportion of large floor plate building based on a questionable bet that this is what the financial industry will be needing in the future. This is not a good bet and too high a sacrifice to make. Go back and study where Wall Street is really heading: this is a bet that probably won’t pay off.

The full High Line should be kept.

KEEPING THE HIGH LINE.

It may turn out that there is some arguable cost involved but I think the question of whether the northern section of the High Line should also be preserved is a no- brainer. Of course the full High Line should be preserved.

1. A significant part of the High Line’s overall impressiveness is its total length. Shortening the High Line at its northen end will be a loss for the entire High Line. It will affect the language of every major tourist guide to the City forever onward.

2. The High Line is a unique opportunity being realized to create quiet public park space. The High Line is an exception to a current trend where significant amounts of our newly created City park space are subject to a great deal of highway noise.- Conversely, most of the High Line, because of its elevation and mid-block locations and distance from major roadways, will by and large provide a quiet experience. Anything that adds to the overall High Line experience will augment this rebalancing of the equation even though most of this northern portion of the High Line will not, itself, be one of the very quiet parts of the overall quiet park.

3. The High Line is creating obvious value to the City as demonstrated by the way in which developers are excitedly and quickly flocking to develop adjacent to it. I read reporting that a study commissioned by Friends of the High Line and conducted by the consulting firm Hamilton, Rabinovitz & Alschuler estimated the High Line would add 7% to the value of residential development at the Hudson Yards. That means hundreds of million dollars extra to the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (the seller) and to the City in tax revenues if the High Line is preserved in this area.

4. This is one example of a situation where the benefit of a one-time opportunity must be measured not in immediate terms but in terms of something that, like other great parks that have been created, will shape the City a hundred or more years into the future.

5. This particular terminating portion of the High Line offers the most dramatic and closest elevated view of the Hudson River of the entire High Line and links it with another major linear park, the Hudson River Park. If anything, opportunities should be reviewed for how to optimize this hook-up.

6. The High Line’s presence in this northern area provides sorely needed amelioration of some of the flaws of the Javits Center which is likely to remain at that site. It will afford the Javits Center with an immediately adjacent connection and humanizing relationship to the rest of the City through a high-profile public amenity and social experience. It will serve to help integrate the Javits Center with the rest of the City and help deal with the way in which the Javits Center is currently an austere place, which upon exiting you immediately seek to flee. There is also perhaps some opportunity in that the westerly side of the Javits Center has elevated areas that could integrate with the elevations of the High Line. Taking the opportunity that is present, Javits visitors could exit the Center and immediately begin a leisurely stroll through some of the most interesting experiences and neighborhoods available in New York. If the opportunities are destroyed, then out-of-city visitors at the Center will be handed maps of the City and told that if they exit the Center and navigate some unfamiliar streets they can eventually hook up with this interesting experience. So more often than not they may never do it. What a waste that would be.

7. Any cost of preserving this section of the High Line should not be measured against the cost of demolishing it. It should instead be measured against the cost os replacing it with a fully comparable substitute amenity. Demolition for plaza or park space does not constitute a comparable amenity either in terms of area of public space or otherwise.

8. If the High Line is destroyed in this Hudson Yards area it will always be famous for what WASN’T done. In operatic terms for those of us who are fans of opera, it will be as famous as the end of Turandot, where virtually every opera aficionado knows that Puccini died in the middle of writing it so that the first time that Turandot was performed, Toscanini, as conductor, stopped, set down his baton before reaching the end of the opera, turned to the audience and said, “Here is where the master laid down his pen.” Likewise, if the High Line isn’t completed through to its end, people will stroll a truncated mile upon it and get to a point, turn to each other and say, “Here is where the High Line used to continue, could have continued, and doesn’t now.” It would be dreadful if this became a disappointing part of every tour guide’s repertoire offered to all the tourists they address to take home to their respective home country.

As for High Line design: There should be no abrupt design transitions.

FINAL THOUGHT ON DENSITY

One final comment overall. Most New Yorkers would be quite happy if this effort were not striving for this extreme density even though lower density would reduce proceeds to the MTA. But if there is going to be insistence on extreme density there must be truly excellent design to pull it off.

CONTACTING ME

Please feel to contact me if you want. I am a lawyer with a lot of experience in government, public finance and development and I have a degree in urban planning.