East River Fifties residents and ERFA members Gail Wasserman and Jennifer Crandall have been leading our tabling efforts around the neighborhood. They are the smiling faces that distribute information and answer questions about ERFA’s plan and its progress. We asked them about the most common questions and misconceptions. Here’s what the ladies said:
What is the biggest misconception that you keep hearing?
People think that the former developer’s bankruptcy and foreclosure struggle means that there is no longer any danger of the E 58th St. building being built.
The truth:
Foreclosure on a loan only means that the property would be transferred to another owner via an auction conducted by the lender. Another developer could take over the project and plan an equally tall building, perhaps with greater ability than the Bauhouse Group to see the project through to completion. Although the bankruptcy proceeding has caused a temporary delay, it could be resolved at any time and the project could rapidly move forward with a very able developer. The antiquated zoning laws that allow megatowers in our residential neighborhood would still exist and continue to be a threat in the future. ERFA’s rezoning plan, if successful, will ensure that this site and others in the East River Fifties community will no longer permit such towers.
The East River Fifties community is angry that this may happen in the Sutton neighborhood as well as elsewhere in the City. People are energized and committed to getting the rezoning accomplished.
Thank you again to Gail Wasserman and Jennifer Crandall for their continued hard work on this cause. You can find them at their next tabling event on June 16th at Cathedral High School (across the street from Le Pain Quotidien) on 1st Avenue and 56th Street.
Meanwhile, you can read our full FAQ here, or ask us something else by sending an email to info@erfa.nyc.
Last Tuesday, we held a rally/demonstration at Sutton Square calling on the City to hurry along approval of our rezoning plan and help us protect the East River Fifties community (the area between 52nd and 59th Streets, east of First Avenue) from megatowers forever.
Thursday, May 19th @ 6pm: Come Hear Council Member Dan Garodnick Speak to the Community at ERFA’s Evening Town Hall
Council Member Dan Garodnick, a co-filer on ERFA’s rezoning plan and a staunch supporter of our efforts to protect our community against supertowers, will address the community at Thursday’s evening Town Hall @ 6pm.
He has been urging the Department of City Planning to hurry along our zoning plan’s approval: “The outdated zoning around Sutton Place makes it vulnerable to out-of-scale development, and that’s the last thing this quiet, residential neighborhood needs. The community has put forth a strong rezoning proposal to prevent superscrapers from taking over, and we need to move this plan through the review process and pass it as quickly as possible.”
Once again, ERFA’s President, Alan Kersh, was featured in the news: this time, in The Wall Street Journal. The WSJ looked into the bankruptcy/foreclosure battle between the developer Bauhouse and its lenders, and spoke with him about the project.
Controversy over the project started as soon as its existence became public in March 2015…
The Sutton Place tower’s sheer scale—with 78 floors it would reach far higher than surrounding buildings—and location in the middle of a narrow residential street not far from Billionaire’s Row, drew immediate backlash from the community.
“It caught everyone by surprise,” said Alan Kersh, president of the East River 50s Alliance, which has been fighting the tower since it was first proposed last year, calling it “wickedly out of character and out of scale with our neighborhood.”
