I disagree with the "message" the author finds in a private auto exit/entrance. Have you SEEN what the paparazzi do to people who are "famous," whether they want to be or not?
1
Sounds like these buildings are perfect for Section 8 Housing tenants. Where's Judge Sand to force social engineering onto NYC? Oh he's 6 feet under. A proper place for what he did to Yonkers back in the 80s.
1
I find the idea that the ONLY rich folks have created a "gated community" hilarious and hypocritical considering that for all intents and purposes practically everybody who lives in an apartment building, condo, coop, or housing project lives in one.
Think about it for a minute, is there any type of gatekeeping in your building (whether it be a locked building lobby door with an intercom system or a doorman is irrelevant) that prevents non-residents from entering without being authorized? Would you want to live in a building that let anybody off the street roam the halls?
The other thing is courtyards and pedestrian access, looking at apartment buildings in google maps from space you can see that most city blocks have dozens of courtyards. Looking at those same blocks from street view shows that they're all fenced in and made inaccessible for security purposes. Courtyards that are accessible to non-residents are usually the exception and not the rule.
Think about it for a minute, is there any type of gatekeeping in your building (whether it be a locked building lobby door with an intercom system or a doorman is irrelevant) that prevents non-residents from entering without being authorized? Would you want to live in a building that let anybody off the street roam the halls?
The other thing is courtyards and pedestrian access, looking at apartment buildings in google maps from space you can see that most city blocks have dozens of courtyards. Looking at those same blocks from street view shows that they're all fenced in and made inaccessible for security purposes. Courtyards that are accessible to non-residents are usually the exception and not the rule.
4
Two words NYT: Lighten up.
Please stop making everything in New York into class war. They shouldnt be everywhere, but give me a break. Yet another opportunity to bash the rich and wax nostalgia about New York not being the same (cue the Duane Reades and Banks and hipster hate). Also, don't we all view ads in the NYT (real estate or jewelry or fashion or business) at prices that are out of reach for all but the tippy top?
A driveway is a nice perk (or vehicle entrance) is a nice perk for anyone who has it (including tons of Mitchell lama and middle income housing in Queens, Bklyn and Manhattan) not to mention those private gated parking areas in every NYCHA project (no where else in Chelsea does anyone have that feature).
It also helps traffic flow when you are unloading. The writer does realize that most folks use them for cabs, uber, lyft. Yes we have rich people in New York, always have. You can visit other cities with a hallowed out tax base such as Newark, Camden and you decide which you prefer.
Yes our sidewalks are a sacred place and if you want to encourage all folks to walk them, then crack down on those using them as toilets, beds, lounging, aggressive begging, dealing and polluting.
Please stop making everything in New York into class war. They shouldnt be everywhere, but give me a break. Yet another opportunity to bash the rich and wax nostalgia about New York not being the same (cue the Duane Reades and Banks and hipster hate). Also, don't we all view ads in the NYT (real estate or jewelry or fashion or business) at prices that are out of reach for all but the tippy top?
A driveway is a nice perk (or vehicle entrance) is a nice perk for anyone who has it (including tons of Mitchell lama and middle income housing in Queens, Bklyn and Manhattan) not to mention those private gated parking areas in every NYCHA project (no where else in Chelsea does anyone have that feature).
It also helps traffic flow when you are unloading. The writer does realize that most folks use them for cabs, uber, lyft. Yes we have rich people in New York, always have. You can visit other cities with a hallowed out tax base such as Newark, Camden and you decide which you prefer.
Yes our sidewalks are a sacred place and if you want to encourage all folks to walk them, then crack down on those using them as toilets, beds, lounging, aggressive begging, dealing and polluting.
3
When I hunk that there are also homeless people in this same city, I do wonder.
1
Buildings with private driveways, porte-cochères and courtyards with interior entrances are fundamentally anti-urban, in my opinion, in that they turn their backs on the city, foster automotive lifestyles, and create insular us-versus-them compounds where the entire esthetic is precisely that of the prison inmate guarding his food tray with encircling arms.
They've become the homes of choice of many of the famous and infamous: robber-baron billionaires, oligarchs, self-dealing chief executives, celebrities, peripatetic one-percenters, self-appointed Masters of the Universe, along with their assorted heirs, exes, hangers-on and top-level henchmen: people variously avoiding journalists, paparazzi, fans, stalkers, enemies, process servers, demonstrators or any contact with normal, everyday life (such as their neighbors and fellow New Yorkers).
In contrast, a normal city street of normal buildings all lined up in a uniform street wall, with each building's entrance a normal door from the sidewalk, is democratic, and makes all of its residents equal participants in the life of the city: citizens, in other words.
But an inward-looking enclave only holds people apart, affixing opposing mindsets on those within -- and those without.
We need to remind ourselves that cities succeed when they explode, intermingle and redefine tribes, not when they segregate, insulate or reinforce them. So we must work harder toward the urban ideal: to synergize the best from everyone everywhere.
They've become the homes of choice of many of the famous and infamous: robber-baron billionaires, oligarchs, self-dealing chief executives, celebrities, peripatetic one-percenters, self-appointed Masters of the Universe, along with their assorted heirs, exes, hangers-on and top-level henchmen: people variously avoiding journalists, paparazzi, fans, stalkers, enemies, process servers, demonstrators or any contact with normal, everyday life (such as their neighbors and fellow New Yorkers).
In contrast, a normal city street of normal buildings all lined up in a uniform street wall, with each building's entrance a normal door from the sidewalk, is democratic, and makes all of its residents equal participants in the life of the city: citizens, in other words.
But an inward-looking enclave only holds people apart, affixing opposing mindsets on those within -- and those without.
We need to remind ourselves that cities succeed when they explode, intermingle and redefine tribes, not when they segregate, insulate or reinforce them. So we must work harder toward the urban ideal: to synergize the best from everyone everywhere.
5
So, are you suggesting that people need to open themselves up to paparazzi and stalkers and aggressive panhandling?
2
"Welcome to Manhattan in the new Gilded Age, where condos offer wealthy buyers not just decadent indulgences — A wine cellar! A stroller valet! — but also the privacy usually associated with a gated mansion in Greenwich, Connecticut."
Well, maybe. But this self-pitying rant, which puts words in people's mouths, and suggests that a gate is like a "big finger in people's faces," is pretty lame. What is this stuff: "You're on the wrong side of the green hedge" and "I'm better than you. I live in this luxury building with a giant gate that you can't come past."
It's not just high-end buildings that sport gates and in doing so offer their residents a modicum of security. All over Flatbush, people have gates: gated driveways, when they have driveways; gates to their houses; sometimes, holdovers from the 1980s, gates on their windows. Areas historically middle-class Jewish and now middle-class black are in their own, tidy ways, gated communities.
And no, you can't just wander past those gates. Not even in Flatbush.
It's not the end of the world.
Well, maybe. But this self-pitying rant, which puts words in people's mouths, and suggests that a gate is like a "big finger in people's faces," is pretty lame. What is this stuff: "You're on the wrong side of the green hedge" and "I'm better than you. I live in this luxury building with a giant gate that you can't come past."
It's not just high-end buildings that sport gates and in doing so offer their residents a modicum of security. All over Flatbush, people have gates: gated driveways, when they have driveways; gates to their houses; sometimes, holdovers from the 1980s, gates on their windows. Areas historically middle-class Jewish and now middle-class black are in their own, tidy ways, gated communities.
And no, you can't just wander past those gates. Not even in Flatbush.
It's not the end of the world.
4
"Some of these spaces could have instead housed a restaurant or a shop"...I love you guys at the NYTimes (mostly liberal and paid subscriber for many years) but hey lighten up a little, will you? Not every space needs to give a New Yorker a reason to walk down the street.
5
Welcome to the Age Of Trump.
2
In other news, Hurricane Harvey has claimed at least one life, thus far.
9
But you have to share! I mean other residents in your private enclave can drive up at the same time as you do, and you both might have to make accommodations! It's almost as bad as riding the subway! I would have to insist on a private elevator that takes you and your car to the front door of your luxury abode, where there is private enclosed parking of course. Building staff would include a detail team to keep your ride shiny, naturally you're expected to tip. When the Ferrari upstairs starts to leak oil on your Bentley, you do what any community member would do, you sue. You'll never have to worry about grass growing between the hand laid custom driveway of rare imported cobblestones, which would need to be self cleaning, probably integrated with the italian marble fountain central to your private circular porte-cochere. Hey, how about a pewter milk box and a gilded landing pad for the paperboy's drone? Amazon and UPS will need to jointly develop a new class of delivery vehicles to to insure minimal wear and tear while chaperoning the regular stream of useless garbage 2 or 3 times a day. If you buy in early your unit may have extra space for chickens and horses! You'll still have to share the helipad....hey, wait a minute...
8
I believe there's a condo building in NYC where each unit has an adjacent space for the owner's car.
4
Greed infected New York City:
I grew up in Brooklyn (Bed-Stuy actually. A predominantly Jewish neighborhood then) in the early fifties. My friends and I played in the streets as neighbors watched from their windows to monitor that we were okay. When I grew up and we moved to a more affluent neighborhood (Gravesend) and I started to go to Manhattan with friends, to Times Square to people watch, New York had the reputation of being a city of neighborhoods. We knew rich people lived among us in their own neighborhoods and could afford the $9.90 top price for a Broadway hit (Matinees were half-price!) but New York (Manhattan to us kids) seemed to define itself by the various neighborhoods with none dominating. Oh, and museums were free!
It seems now New York (Manhattan) is defining itself by the uber-rich and soon will become a gated community totally. Now walking down its streets there is a corporate feeling to all the businesses without the friendly "mom and pop" stores with individuality.
I'm not lamenting (too much); times change and the New York City I knew is gone. The place where I saw the original production of My Fair Lady and West Side Story for $4.45 on Saturday matinees (remember, half price) and a Family Circle seat at the Old Metropolitan Opera House cost $1.65 regardless which legendary singer was appearing.
When Carol Channing appeared in Hello Dolly, the price of admission was the same as any other musical on Broadway at the time.
My city is now a cash cow.
I grew up in Brooklyn (Bed-Stuy actually. A predominantly Jewish neighborhood then) in the early fifties. My friends and I played in the streets as neighbors watched from their windows to monitor that we were okay. When I grew up and we moved to a more affluent neighborhood (Gravesend) and I started to go to Manhattan with friends, to Times Square to people watch, New York had the reputation of being a city of neighborhoods. We knew rich people lived among us in their own neighborhoods and could afford the $9.90 top price for a Broadway hit (Matinees were half-price!) but New York (Manhattan to us kids) seemed to define itself by the various neighborhoods with none dominating. Oh, and museums were free!
It seems now New York (Manhattan) is defining itself by the uber-rich and soon will become a gated community totally. Now walking down its streets there is a corporate feeling to all the businesses without the friendly "mom and pop" stores with individuality.
I'm not lamenting (too much); times change and the New York City I knew is gone. The place where I saw the original production of My Fair Lady and West Side Story for $4.45 on Saturday matinees (remember, half price) and a Family Circle seat at the Old Metropolitan Opera House cost $1.65 regardless which legendary singer was appearing.
When Carol Channing appeared in Hello Dolly, the price of admission was the same as any other musical on Broadway at the time.
My city is now a cash cow.
16
I realized that after the nostalgic comment above, I didn't mention that there was an underbelly of ugly racism; we moved out of Bed-Stuy because the neighborhood was "changing." In the fifties, the African-American situation was benign as far as a 10-year old was concerned because it was understood they "knew their place" and everything was perfect.
The sixties changed everything as the inevitability of African-Americans started demanding their due rights.
Yes, to a young, middle-class Jewish boy, New York was a paradise but it wasn't until I got older when I realized the incredible pain that was swept under the rug as I was taking advantage of the 'great" city.
I still think greed is doing it in though.
The sixties changed everything as the inevitability of African-Americans started demanding their due rights.
Yes, to a young, middle-class Jewish boy, New York was a paradise but it wasn't until I got older when I realized the incredible pain that was swept under the rug as I was taking advantage of the 'great" city.
I still think greed is doing it in though.
13
Oh, puh-leeeeze. Have we truly arrived at a low which Orwell, Kirst or Baldwin would have decried? Unfortunately, the answer is a despicable "yes". We have the government we deserve and we are blindly and happily devolving our society to be its perfect match.
An even grosser image of this nonsense is the residential at 24th Street and Eleventh Avenue at which one can drive the vehicle from the street onto an elevator and actually into one's apartment so the paparazzi can be left in the dust. How wonderful to have a full tank of gas on the other side of the apartment wall!! How wonderful for one's neighbors to have the same throughout the building!! How grateful we should be to our political "leadership" to allow this, and other, deathtraps. The Fire Department should refuse to allow its members to go into such peril. But Firefighters, thankfully, would never refuse the call.
An even grosser image of this nonsense is the residential at 24th Street and Eleventh Avenue at which one can drive the vehicle from the street onto an elevator and actually into one's apartment so the paparazzi can be left in the dust. How wonderful to have a full tank of gas on the other side of the apartment wall!! How wonderful for one's neighbors to have the same throughout the building!! How grateful we should be to our political "leadership" to allow this, and other, deathtraps. The Fire Department should refuse to allow its members to go into such peril. But Firefighters, thankfully, would never refuse the call.
6
I live in a condo with a garage with designated parking spaces for the residents. Access is through a gate and provides security and unwanted access. It's very convenient. So, if developers can build condos with parking (which I think is now mandatory in downtown Jersey City) it keeps cars off the streets.
6
Anne,
I was born in Jersey City but I have spent my entire adulthood in Manhattan, although not in "car-friendly if not gawker-friendly buildings." Please do not compare the two as places to live. There is absolutley, positively no comparison, i.e., apples and oranges. Thank you.
I was born in Jersey City but I have spent my entire adulthood in Manhattan, although not in "car-friendly if not gawker-friendly buildings." Please do not compare the two as places to live. There is absolutley, positively no comparison, i.e., apples and oranges. Thank you.
4
Odd, they are both highly-populated urban areas, no?
1
Manhattan is (or at least always was) a community of neighborhoods meant for walking, exploring, and greeting passing neighbors and neighborhood shopkeepers who know your family.
Blocks with sealed gated garages have all the charm of walking along loading docks along the back of shopping malls (and of course all the chains moving in have all the charm of the rest of the shopping mall), and endanger pedestrians as cars zoom unexpectedly across sidewalks. Who would want to walk down that block?
These buildings damage the neighborhoods they insert themselves into.
Blocks with sealed gated garages have all the charm of walking along loading docks along the back of shopping malls (and of course all the chains moving in have all the charm of the rest of the shopping mall), and endanger pedestrians as cars zoom unexpectedly across sidewalks. Who would want to walk down that block?
These buildings damage the neighborhoods they insert themselves into.
25
In all honesty, having parking for residents in apartments in Manhattan is actually a good thing. This will mean less of them having to park on the streets especially since so many of them will find it annoying just to move it when certain parking rules go into effect that day. In some of these places, they actually pay extra to store their vehicles, so they aren't exactly included when they buy or rent the properties. Let's not forget that many housing projects even in Manhattan have parking for residents as well with their lots. Of course they won't have to worry about congestion pricing especially because they will most likely be living right in it and will only be charged if they actually enter it assuming that ever happens, though I doubt that even paying it will affect that as it will to everyone else who has lower incomes. Overall, there is still a need for parking whether some of you like it or not.
7
You are right that too much space is wasted on our streets with the eyesore of car storage, but with good public transportation, convenient to walk neighborhood shops, citibike and, if you are tired, taxis, you don't need to own a car if you live in Manhattan. 85% of us choose not to own a car.
17
The article does not address parking. Only drop-off. If any of these buildings incorporate parking spaces, we do not learn of it from this article. There is nothing about these entrances that appears to include an approach to a parking floor.
9
Keep in mind that majority of these apartments that include parking are for the rich, and many of them don't take public transportation on a regular basis. For them, they do rely on places to store their vehicles even if they are paying a lot for them especially when they can afford them. As much as you guys hate the car culture, there is still a need for it especially when it comes to parking. I don't see why some of you against apartments that tend to include parking minimums even if it means less will be using the streets. In many other cities in this country, much of them don't even allow for overnight parking, which is why there are zoning laws to have residential properties include such spaces, though this isn't the case for residential neighborhoods where fewer parking regulations exist. BTW, curb cuts, don't exactly destroy sidewalks at all. Please remember that many loading docks even in Manhattan have curb cuts as well to allow for commercial vehicles to pull in for loading and unloading of their cargo. Basically, the car culture is like the WNBA, because as much as you don't like it, this won't be going away any time in the near future.
2
unclear where the cars go - how does this compare to the standard Japanese high-rise parking - usually about 10 stories - where you just drive in - lock the car, push a button, and your car disappears up and elevator to be stored - get given a swipe card.
when you want it back - insert you card, push a button, wait a minute, it comes down, rotates, you unlock it, get in, and just drive it straight out !
too easy - typically attached to inner city hotels - going rate about 1000 yen or about US$9 per day.
when you want it back - insert you card, push a button, wait a minute, it comes down, rotates, you unlock it, get in, and just drive it straight out !
too easy - typically attached to inner city hotels - going rate about 1000 yen or about US$9 per day.
6
How do they get the right to have the cars cross over the public property of the sidewalk? Is it an easement or something? Walking down the sidewalk's hard enough in Manhattan. This will just add to the mess and decrease safety. And, as noted, the displacement of retail spaces means fewer "eyes on the street," reducing safety further. So if this can't be outlawed, it should at least be taxed to, as the economists would say, internalize the externality (make them pay for the negative effect on others).
23
If you get out of Manhattan, lots of buildings have entrances to their garages where cars ride over the sidewalk. The alternative to this would be a driveway with curbs where pedestrians would have to step down, cross the drive, and then step back up to the sidewalk. I suppose some sort of handicap ramp would have to be incorporated into the curbs.
5
"How do they get the right to have the cars cross over the public property of the sidewalk?"
Oh, please. What right do pedestrians have to use driveways as access points? Really.
BTW -- at the NYTimes HQ, is there underground parking for staff? Just asking ..
Oh, please. What right do pedestrians have to use driveways as access points? Really.
BTW -- at the NYTimes HQ, is there underground parking for staff? Just asking ..
4
Well, if the city can outlaw crossing "public property" why shouldn't that same school of thought apply to other places in the city? Why should tenants of a "for profit" apartment building have "free" access to cross public property to enter their building? Or if you own a home why should the taxpayers provide you with "free" access across that same public property? Or local businesses that have delivery doors for freight and goods - should they also be taxed or even have it taken away?
Just because the tenants of these buildings are rich doesn't mean they shouldn't be treated the same as other New Yorkers in something as simple as crossing a sidewalk.
Just because the tenants of these buildings are rich doesn't mean they shouldn't be treated the same as other New Yorkers in something as simple as crossing a sidewalk.
5