I’ve watched and read some of the comments made by the people who are against this particular development, and it’s just mind boggling the extent of misinformation and the level of misunderstanding that some of these people have. Now everyone is of course free to have their opinions about things, but these people have no concept of what is actually going on and some of the ideas that they have in their minds are completely bizarre. And it’s not even about the supposed fearmongering with the absurd height miscalculations or shadows or anything, these people just simply do not understand what is going on in this development.
One of the protesters used the adaptive reuse of the Farley building and used that concept to make a point to save the other buildings that are in the project’s scope to be demolished. So he compared the renovation of an architecturally significant (and expansive) building to save a number of buildings with little architectural significance that can’t be adaptively reused to the extent that the Farley building was, at all. That’s not to say that there isn’t some historic and architectural pieces that are to be met with demo, but using that as an argument automatically makes it invalid.
Oh I know that, and I’m pretty sure that the opposition is aware of it as well. But it’s obviously that they are trying to pit anything against the development just to gain traction so that significant changes can be made to it.
That or they are just completely out of touch with what is going on, which if that’s the case well what can you do.
But technically, the developers don’t have to listen to what these protesters are saying, as they have little to no effect on this massive project, like an annoying fly in the house lol. But it’s funny how they oppose these towers yet didn’t complain about Hudson Yards
Well in a way they do because the developers are the state (New York State Empire State Development Corporation), otherwise Gov Hochul wouldn’t have been able to downsize the project by 17% if it wasn’t. And that was her way of slightly catering to some complaints. It’s just that their concerns (the people protesting against the project) aren’t really sensible.
There was definitely a lot of opposition to Hudson Yards though. It’s just that the case was entirely different (as it related to just the principal Hudson Yards development, not the special district) as it was a private development, and not many blocks were demolished because it was just being built on top of the railyard. And it didn’t have concern with a major transit hub, the 7 line extension (which is not even near being the central figure of the development as Penn Station is in this project’s case) had already been planned before Hudson Yards became a thing.
Further down the article there is a protester holding a sign that says
Destruction of 2,300 homes! Destroying homes and thousands of businesses and jobs!
First off, can anyone even verify the claim that there are 2,300 apartments in the planned ESC boundary? I find that to be highly incorrect as it seems most of the structures not staying are either commercial office space, mixed-use, or low lying rowhouse like housing, I can’t possibly count 2,300. The thousands of businesses also doesn’t sound right at all, maybe hundreds, but not thousands.
These people don’t want to listen or read as to what’s actually going on AND make up their own facts.
Not all developments are bad and equally not all developments are good, but these protestors in particular (only focusing on the ESC/ Penn Improvements) don’t want to seem to understand what this project entails. They just see tax cuts for the big man and big developers stepping on the small man. And I still can’t get over the fact that they think so many of the buildings proposed to be demolished are worth saving, that have absolutely no significance.
The problem I’m seeing is so many buildings in east midtown in particular with extremely low occupancy levels. Adding a bunch of new towers won’t help anything. This was the same problem with the original twin towers. It took many years to fill them up because there wasn’t enough demand. I get the part about building for the future but this seems premature right now.
