The local paper for the Upper East Side
WEEK OF OCTOBER EYEWITNESS IN PUERTO RICO ◄ P.2
12-18 2017
OBAMAS EYE ‘FAR EAST SIDE’ REAL ESTATE The Whitney Museum and Gansevoort Peninsula, the proposed site of the sculpture, as seen from the south. Photo: Michael Garofalo
WHITNEY PITCHES GANSEVOORT PENINSULA INSTALLATION MUSEUMS Proposed sculpture evokes waterfront’s past BY MICHAEL GAROFALO
The area now known as Gansevoort Peninsula, a strip of land that juts into the Hudson River near 13th Street, has been a location of significance on the Manhattan waterfront for about as long as humans have inhabited the island. Lenape settled the area and harvested oysters and lobsters from the estuary’s rich waters. Later, Fort Gansevoort was built at the site to defend the Hudson during the War of 1812. Bustling piers serviced the produce markets and meatpacking plants lining the neighborhood’s Belgian block streets during the commercial booms of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, but by the 1970s post-industrial decay had taken hold. Artists in search of cheap studio space moved into the neighborhood, and the piers, then largely abandoned, emerged as gathering places for the local gay community. The Meatpacking District as it is to-
day, with its droves of tourists flocking to trendy boutiques and hotels, anchored by the High Line and the new home of the Whitney Museum of American Art, was scarcely imaginable. The waterfront’s bygone days are invoked in the conceptual and literal framework of “Day’s End,” a major public artwork by the artist David Hammons that the Whitney hopes to build on the banks of the Hudson. Hammons’ proposed sculpture, formally unveiled October 4, is an ethereal representation of the past that Adam Weinberg, the museum’s director, described as “a kind of ghost monument.” Plans for “Day’s End,” a spare steel structure that would stand mostly over the water on the southern side of the Gansevoort Peninsula, opposite the museum, were presented to the public for the first time at a meeting of Community Board 2’s Park and Waterfront Committee hosted by the museum. Hammons draws the title of the proposed piece from a 1975 work
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The former POTUS and FLOTUS in a New York state of mind? They tour 10 Gracie Square, a storied 1930 riverfront coop known for wealth, discretion, social cachet — and the occasional tragedy BY DOUGLAS FEIDEN
Balmy breezes blow off the East River in summer, so it’s cooler than the rest of the island. Frigid winds howl off the straits of Hell Gate in winter, so it’s colder. Floating leaves from the trees in Carl Schurz Park ride the updrafts of autumn, then softly rain down on terraces and penthouses. These are the micro-climates familiar to residents on the five short culde-sacs east of East End Avenue. In addition to their novel atmospheric conditions, the old-line coops in this semi-cloistered enclave known as the “Far East Side” offer another important feature: discretion. And that could explain why Barack and Michelle Obama have recently been spotted touring duplex apartments at 10 Gracie Square. The city possesses few dwellings as dignified and decorous. Here, it is stately, but not showy. There is charm, cachet — and typically, circumspection. The exceptions, however, have been spectacular. While the coop seeks to keep its affairs private, its tragedies and scandals have exploded in the public eye, and tabloid headlines, while infrequent, have been jarring. At least three millionaires took their own lives in the building — two in plunges from penthouses, a third with a bullet to the temple — and one murderer was apprehended on the premises, but only after doormen delayed her arrest, keeping detectives at bay for 24 hours. Happily, longevity is also common
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Then-President Barack Obama with ex-President Bill Clinton after a 2009 lunch at Il Mulino’s on West Third Street in Greenwich Village. Barack and Michelle Obama have been coming to Manhattan for years, and are now thinking of living here. The First Couple have been touring duplexes at 10 Gracie Square. Photo: Official White House photographer Pete Souza, via flickr
among coop residents. A former first lady of pre-Communist China lived to be 105. A financier who saved a great Wall Street firm after the 1929 stock market crash died at 107. Gracing the dead end of East 84th Street, sporting 204 feet of riverand-esplanade frontage up to the dead end on 83th Street, the 15-story, 43-unit, limestone-and-brick building has been the historic pied-à-terre for generations of Whitneys, Vanderbilts, Mellons, Burdens, Hitchcocks, Astors, Stantons, Rudins, Fairchilds and Havemeyers. Will it now house a First Family? It’s not yet clear. The Obamas have been mum about their intentions. All that’s known with certainty is that the ex-President and ex-First Lady have viewed listings in the 1930 residence, which boasts a private, double-gated security breezewaycum-driveway that runs through the
building at street level and has long masked the comings and goings of high-profile homeowners. The real estate brokerage community has been abuzz at the prospect: Will the first couple buy the five-bedroom, five-bath, 12-room, $12.5 million penthouse replete with library, wrap-around terrace, twin balconies, four fireplaces, private elevator landing, 12-foot ceilings and 66-foot
CONTINUED ON PAGE 15 Jewish women and girls light up the world by lighting the Shabbat candles every Friday evening 18 minutes before sunset. Friday, October 13 – 6:00 pm. For more information visit www.chabaduppereastside.com
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