The Sky Erasers: Cranes are Falling in the Siege of New York

"Only connect," E.M. Foster, the famed British novelist wrote. Sometimes my mind does that all on its own without Mr. Foster's injunction. This Sunday afternoon I passed Eliot Spitzer's apartment house on my way home from a trip to the country. The area around the building was blessedly free of the paparazzi who have hounded the Spitzer family and their neighbors for days. I looked at the Fifth Avenue building and my first thought was not of the Spitzer's angst but of the building itself, one of those ugly white brick sixties high-rises now owned by the Spitzer real estate family; a building that replaced one of the great mansions on Fifth Avenue during an earlier building boom in the city. And then I thought of the construction crane that fell in midtown on Second Avenue on Saturday -- one that has been a Godzilla threatening the neighborhood for months and has finally killed some construction workers and possibly some residents of the decimated small buildings below, paralyzing the city for hours and driving many frightened residents from their homes. Such cranes, the sign of new building, are all over New York these days. And then I connected with my thought that they are no longer building skyscrapers but sky erasers. When is enough enough in Mayor Bloomberg's New York? Right now seems a good time to call a halt and look around, take a deep breath while there is air enough to breathe and consider the future of the city.

Michael Bloomberg -- he of the billionaire's self assurance (French for arrogance) and grating out of town accent (sorry Boston) and the appearance of great probity (Latin for wisdom that is derived from being supremely rich) is symbolic of what has happened to my city. I call it mine because I am a born New Yorker, one who was born here and who has lived here for longer than I am allowed to tell by my protective wife who wishes me to keep my false facade of youth. Please don't tell but I've seen most of the changes that have taken place in Manhattan since the end of WWII. No, this isn't the old fogey in me speaking. It's the young man who loved and loves his city and has seen it fall victim to unregulated growth spurred on by unregulated greed. Who is to keep this from happening? The first answer might be the landmark's preservation group run by the immoderately rich and beautiful Amanda Burden. This group now appears to be window dressing for rampant, unchecked development, and is now doing its best to destroy the cultural integrity of Harlem. In recent years residents of Greenwich Village have watched their neighborhood being swallowed whole by a rapacious NYU, and now upper Manhattan is to be eaten alive by an insatiable Columbia University. Great institutions can be as greedy and thoughtless as realtors, there is a Donald Trump lurking inside every University president bursting to get out. God, or is it Bloomberg, only knows how much more building is planned, or was until the current recession occurred.

I live in an apartment house that was built in 1914 in Lennox Hill. Last year our pleasant historic neighborhood was threatened by a new luxury high rise that would have destroyed the low rise character of the neighborhood with its small shops and relatively short buildings, most of which originated before WWII. The developer was buying up some small stores and filing plans to drop his gilded behemoth on to a block that has rows of beautiful19th and early 20th century stores and town houses, one of which was designed by the genius architect Stanford White. Troubled by this development I wrote to Ms. Burden and got a nothing of a reply; that means she wrote back politely but without the passion of one whose business it is to protect a besieged historic neighborhood from just such abominations. I waited for the wrecking ball and the cranes to arrive. They didn't. Only the recent financial ruin of the developer has kept that building from happening, and there is no guarantee that it will not happen someday when market conditions change.

Who lives in these new luxury towers? Who buys these apartments? I dare say many foreigners. That doesn't read nice, does it? We are not talking here about Emma Goldman's huddled masses yearning to be free. We're talking rich Europeans and South Americans seeing a great opportunity. Okay, maybe it's my incipient xenophobia working overtime, but these people are buying up my city with cheap dollars, people who have no commitment to living and working in the city. Bush's monetary policies and his misbegotten war has turned us into a third world country ready to be exploited by richer countries.

I can't stress enough that each new high rise means the destruction of an old neighborhood, and the erasing of a bit more precious air and sky. Jane Jacobs noted this as far back as the fifties; everyone acknowledged her wisdom, but the building went on and Ms. Jacobs moved to Canada. And what does our wise Mayor do about this building? Instead of placing a moratorium on the new construction, he encourages it, making the city unsafe for pedestrians and for drivers. New building means new taxes, and cities run on taxes. He has a decongestion plan to impose new fees on those entering the city from the outer boroughs - the least affluent among us - to reduce the traffic and help clean up the air, and yet no plan to limit growth, a growth which means more energy used and more pollutants entering the atmosphere. Hey, Mr. Mayor, ever think that you could reduce the traffic by reducing the number of new buildings in the city? I am wise enough to know that we can't keep the city under a bubble to prevent change from happening. Cities are about change. But there is change, and then there is carnage disguised as change.

Despite his flip flopping on his party designation, once a Democrat, then a Republican, now a Who Knows What? -- this Mayor will always be a Republican for me. He sees unregulated growth as the key to a fiscally safe and sound city while I see it as unregulated growth that is slowly and steadily erasing my sky, making it harder to breathe and to live in the greatest city in the world. Yes, crime has gone down in the Bloomberg years, but there are more ways to be mugged than having a gun in your back. Sometimes a whole city can be mugged by developers whose only commitment is to the bottom line. And that's why cranes keep falling and people get killed and I get mad.

Comments

[jason10006]

How short-sighted. Its basic supply and demand. More housing=more supply=lower prices. Those "foreigners" buying up (some, not even close to most) of these apartments almost always RENT THEM OUT. New luxury building means prices fall or rise by less at older luxury buildings; this in turn affects prices at more sparse high-rises, which in turn affects the price of walk ups...NYC in general, and Manhattan in particular, need tens of thousands of new units each year for many years in order to prevent rents to sky-rocket. A moratorium on new high-rises could NOT in any way shape or form LOWER housing prices. At least most new buildings in places like Harlem set aside 20% of units for low-and moderate income residents; without these new buildings Harlem (again for example) would have not only fewer units overall, but fewer low-income units.

[NewYawker]

Jane Jacobs showed that communities can have a say. She was able to save the West Village from 'Power Broker' Robert Moses's crane. She is missed. Currently, Amanda Burden has been well recognized for her proactive work as chair of the New York City Planning Commission. However, the power of planners--even Burden--is limited. Typically, the greatest power lies in the hands of the politicians, especially in today's development-focused environment.

[ReasonIsMyReligion]

Re "...but the building went on and Ms. Jacobs moved to Canada. "

Hmmm. Is it a leap to infer that such was the cause, and NOT the Viet Nam War draft? I believe Jane Jacobs had (has) a son.

[berensma]

I am a native of New York City. When I was seventeen and just starting at NYU, I would bicycle along the cobbled streets and largely empty warehouses of what became Tribeca and would feel invigorated just by being there. I read about the City's history through literature like Edith Wharton and Thomas Wolfe and early urban planners like Jane Jacobs. I felt like I really belonged to the City, and the City belonged to me. It was a great time in my life, and it ended sometime in my mid- to late twenties. By my late thirties, when I was for all intents and purposes trapped in an affordable Brooklyn rental with no upward mobility in sight save for purchasing in a neighborhood I didn't want to live in, I knew it was time to go.

I miss New York City. I'm not sure it's going to come back.

[GnitenGoodLk]

For a mayor who often decries "climate change is coming!We must prepare!" and "energy efficiency for our new buildings!" he's done neither except put out a cheap pdf outline of what needs to be done and letting any and all luxury high rise developments go up fast and furious (none energy efficient, they're massive energy and utility guzzlers)

..and he's putting himself out there letting it be known via press sound bites he's interested in another government job...a higher one this time...gives me shudders...

[ReasonIsMyReligion]

Huzzah. Under Bloomie, it's been "Developers R Us" in this town. To the long-term detriment of the REST of us non-millionaires, let alone non-bazillionaires, still trying to hang in here.

[TheRaconteur]

I neither have an apartment in New York, nor am I European or South American, but the reference to exploitation strikes me as greatly ironic, and somehow profoundly insulting.

It comes laced with a sense of hypocrisy, though perhaps both are understandable and forgivable when seen to manifest themselves in people that have known little else.

I would ask Mr. Yellen, who's self confessed (and as quickly dismissed) xenophobia verily drips from some words in his article, where the cries of exploitation were when the American machine used the very same principles of buy and sell in so called third world countries, working into labor, land and capital?

Ah, but when exporting American money, it was labeled by all parties as 'Foreign Investment'. Today, evidently, the tables, to some small extent, have turned. Suddenly the 'cheap dollars' allow the 'exploitation' of cities like New York by 'foreigners'.

The whole thinks stinks of this all pervading arrogance, really. Specifically, the idea that it was alright for us, but it's not alright for them to do the exact same thing is what sticks in my craw.

For decades now, the US Government, both Democrats and Republicans, have fervently pushed the Global Economy into being this giant instaweb that it is today. They shoved free trade down the world's collective throat, forcibly at times, coercively at other times, breaking down barriers that in some part protected small time operators in underdeveloped economies from competing with robust megacorporations, and as far as the local small timers went, someone might want to wander down to take a careful peek at the categories of local produce that the US subsidizes in order to create a bulwark for the resident economy. Ah well, dog eat dog world, and all that. Except it wasn't always and it needn't be this savage.

Well, I've got news for you, Mr. Yellen: Free enterprise is a frightful bitch. And she swings both ways.

Don't get me wrong, while I don't tend to talk about economic policy as much as I rant on social issues, I find the unchecked and irresponsible levels of growth one of the greater evils of modern society. Just the wrapping in which this particular point was conveyed was, in a word...

Repugnant.

[joebaggadonuts]

Nice angry piece, Rac. Can I get fries with that?

[Bounty2]

With all respect for your impassioned and thoughtful reply to this piece, I believe you have misread Mr. Yellen's intentions and his words. He is not defending American exploitation of other countries, merely saying that it is not good for a city to have its property owned by those who have no interest in living in that city and joining its community. Nor is his piece an endorsement of free trade. You have taken a piece about the lack of controls on building in a great city, something that has proven dangerous and tragic, and something that endangers its environment for its residents and used it as a platform for your own views on the "dog eat dog world." But don't attribute to the author views that are not his, nor are these views expressed in his piece - but you choose to misinterpret these views and attack them for what they don't say and don't convey. The only arrogance I see here is in your refusal to read the piece fairly and attack it for views it does not express..

[BARRISTER]

Bloomberg, like every other capitalist pig, cares not for the People, only for MONEY!!

[rektruax]

How many roommates do you need to stay on the upper east side? Talk of erasing sky, and lost low-rise charm is amusing to a guy who still lives in the "huddled masses" part of the city (Bed Stuy) where it takes the income of 3 or more working adults to pay the increasing rents. When I first moved here in '82 I only needed one roomie (and a bullet-proof vest) to make ends meet. Now the college grads in the apt. below have 6 to one house! And they're still paying about 500 a piece per month. Not complaining mind you. I could just leave.

Time marches on...

[JhNyc]

I loved your posting, Mr. Yellen, and greetings from neighboring Yorkville, which has seen its own explosion of awful high rises. I must speak up for Emma Lazarus, however. She was the author of "The New Colossus" (huddled masses yearning to breathe free) -- not Emma Goldman, the famous anarchist, now best known from the Academy Award winning performance by Maureen Stapleton in Reds. That said, I'm a huge fan of Sherman Yellen.