The local paper for the Upper East Side THE WORD IS ‘CAMP’ ◄ P.12
WEEK OF JUNE
13-19 2019
MORTY’S THIRD AVE TOWER TOO TALL, BP SAYS GAME NEVER ENDS DEVELOPMENT
One block, one developer, two controversial towers
BY MICHAEL GAROFALO
SPORTS A day in the sun with the longestrunning softball team in Central Park BY MEREDITH KURZ
New York was founded in 1624 and about 60 years later Madison Square Park became public and about 160 years after that, baseball was born, in that park, in New York City. Sure,
Morty Gilbert has been playing softball in Central Park since the 1940s. Photo: Meredith Kurz
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A few hundred feet west of 249 East 62nd Street — the so-called “condo on stilts” that in recent months has captured the attention of Upper East Side zoning reform advocates for the 150-foot-tall mechanical void in its middle section — a second tower being built on the same block by the same developer has come under scrutiny for questionable zoning practices of its own. The 30-story condominium building nearing completion at 1059 Third Avenue is significantly larger than should be allowed under the city’s zoning resolution, according to Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer and a local land use group that examined the project’s building plans. The Department of Buildings, Brewer alleges, approved plans for the project with severely miscalculated floor area tallies that produced a building nearly 10,000 square feet larger than should have been permitted — the equivalent of roughly five stories of extra space, worth about $36 million. As reported by the New York Times, Brewer requested in a May 31 letter to Mayor Bill de Blasio that the DOB open an internal investigation to determine how the agency approved the plans. The “egregious lapses” in the floor area calculations, Brewer wrote, “seem deliberate.”
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INSIDE RENOVATION FOR STANLEY M. ISAACS CENTER Ribbon-cutting for a new senior kitchen and youth facility, P. 6
A BOOST FOR NEW MOTHERS An UES organization helps Medicaid-eligible women have healthy pregnancies, P. 7
A rendering showing two residential towers currently under development between East 62nd and East 63rd Streets on the Upper East Side. 1059 Third Ave. (left) and 249 East 62nd St. (right) are both projects of Orland-based Real Estate Inverlad Development. Image: George M. Janes and Associates
“The care with which these miscalculations occur — and the fact that they only accrue to the benefit of the developer — suggests this was not an accident,” Brewer’s letter reads. George M. Janes, a planning consultant who prepared the pending zoning challenge filed against the project by Friends of the Upper East
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Side Historic Districts, concurred with Brewer’s conclusion. “In past reviews, I have identified dozens of errors in DOB approved drawings, but such errors could plausibly be attributed to applicant negligence, ignorance, carelessness,
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DAD’S TURN TO MOM UP A debut novel about a divorced father’s unexpected custody experience, P. 19
Jewish women and girls light u the world by lighting the Shabb candles every Friday evening 18 minutes before sunset. Friday, June 14 – 8:10 pm. For more information visit www.chabaduppereastrside.co
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