We had the misfortune to pay $800 a night to rent Olga Berg's apartment directly across the street from this site. Rotten of them to not inform us of the construction knowing we were bringing small children for a vacation only to wake at 5am (to our west coast clocks) to a cachophony of noise that continued all day. They had the nerve to act surprised when we complained and say it must be a "new phase" of construction.
29
Was it so important to mention how the noise stopped on religious holidays but not MLK Day and turn this sad inconsiderate story into something racist when there nothing racist about it?
3
My guess is the people complaining most vociferously are either living in rent control or rent stabilized apartments and can't afford to move as a result. Too bad.
When you have a below-market rate apartment, beggars can't be choosers.
7
Living anywhere in this local hardly makes all these neighbors “ beggars.” Nevertheless, no one should be subjected to such awful pollution by their neighbors who clearly don’t have a bit of concern for their future community. Noise and air pollution are regulated and the community may be able to sue, and tot limits on, all of it legally. Good luck to them. ( can the lawyer neighbor get her form to help?)
39
@Steve
Thank you for so succinctly giving voice to everything that is wrong with this country.
5
@Steve So I guess If I wanted to renovate the house next to yours, had workers start up the jackhammers at 7 a.m for months on end, stirring up dust and causing the street to be blocked for cars, you would be OK with it or just shrug yours shoulder so and elsewhere? SOmehow I think you would be outraged, and looking for some sort of legal recourse. But for similarly distressed residents on a block in NYC, you say too bad. Live with it or move. Perhaps you will find out schadenfreude means when it happens to you.
9
This is truly awful for the neighbors. We have similar problems in Boston: out of town parents buying and gutting lovely brownstones for their children to live in while they attend university. Naturally this requires digging out a space for underground parking! The neighbors really need to organize and fight back! In New York City, where honking one's car horn is not allowed because of excessive noise, jackhammering for several hours a day should be out of the question.
To the voodoo priestess and her husband: you must realize this act of aggression will come back to you. Enjoy it while you can. And maybe the next time you desire a 10,000 sf residence with an underground pool you should consider Connecticut!
10
Well...it was allowed to be done and obviously Permitted for Construction..not sure you could do something like this in say..Nantucket where the rules might be stricter. I'm sure it's an issue in many parts of the country and the world. In the future when the market for the property tanks or no one is interested in it...it will be torn down and turned into who knows what ..bothering whoever lives there at that future time. As they say...it's all about the Benjamins !
2
Mr. Bastid? Really? Surely this is an elaborate hoax à la Terry Southern's "The Magic Christian".
3
They live in Brussels because those rich French people ,like Bernar Arnault, LVMH ( Vuiton ,etc..) the Mulliez Family ( Auchan ), etc... don't pay any taxes in France like that.
8
I don't know. It seems kind of cool. Could be worse. Could be neighbors selling crack from their front stoop or committing gang-related homicides. I would schmooze so I could take a dip in the summer.
5
Dang. I just hate it when this happens ....
3
Simply find the couples cell phone numbers and call them and leave messages with live broadcasts of the construction. Every day.
12
About ten years ago, the NYT ridiculed the residents of Kew Gardens who opposed the construction of a 21-story hotel in a residential area. Rather than reflect our actual concerns about the short- and long-term impact on our community , the article smeared those opposing the project as NIMBY opponents of legitimate commercial development.
How rich that a NYT writer now wails about the abominable racket inflicted on his UWS block by wealthy newcomers who appear to have obtained authorization and permits to tear apart two buildings to indulge themselves with impractical luxuries, with no concern whatsoever for their neighbors.
Typical NYT elitism: when residents complain about development in Queens it’s NIMBYism; when UWS residents are subjected to construction racket because rich people want to install a basement pool, it’s a crime against humanity.
24
I lived in NYC for 33 years and about 2-3 years ago, 4 brownstones on my block/out behind my apartment were bought by nameless LLCs and immediately renovated. 2 were combined like the article, they are entering year 3 of work. The other 2 are currently under demolition, 2 years after starting, 1 year after promising to be complete within 12 months. I'm one of those sad-sack light sleepers who wakes at the slightest noise and works from home. I fought the landmark commission, the neighborhood association, sent letters to everyone I could and the city about the noise to no avail. There was no victory to be had for our block. It was definitely the last straw in a large vase of last straws.
Moved to Colorado 7 months ago and will never return. No sob story, no tiny violins or sympathy needed, but I'm never moving back to that cacophonous nightmare-burg again.
17
well written!....you sent me to the dictionary 3 times...and between those searches flowed a beautifully written story.
3
Worst. People. Ever.
How about they just agree to a rooftop pool instead?
6
Just a quick anecdote: I lived at 30 W 69st Street in the mid-late 80s . I was a struggling actor who would walk down to Joe Allen on Restaurant Row each day. I worked there as a waiter.
Now here's the kicker: My apt was an SRO . ( single room occupancy ) with the bathroom down the hall, and my rent was $150 /mo. I kid you not.
3
I live in an historic neighborhood in Portland, OR. Not only could someone not buy a house and do this kind of horrific renovation, I can't even put solar panels on my roof because they'd be seen from the street. Now I feel so much better about the super-protection of the historic district.
13
Some commenters have mentioned Trump or Bush and the GOP but last I checked, the Democratic Party controls New York City (and its development rules).
BTW, same thing happens in supposedly "progressive" places like Burlington, Vermont (also controlled by Democratic Party and with Democrats in the mayor's office). And not just prioritization of rich, out-of-state/out-of-community real estate developers (like Don Sinex) but assaults on people's property and health with severe noise at all hours, including late at night.
For example, Senator Patrick Leahy and Senator Bernie Sanders & Vermont Democratic Party all iron-clad in their support of Lockheed's budget-busting F35 fighter jet and basing it in Vermont's most densely populated area, regardless of negative impact to health and home values of their most vulnerable constituents. The US Air Force has acknowledged the projected noise from the military fighter jets is so bad that thousands and thousands of people will be in the F35's new "not suitable for residential use" zone. The response from Democrat Patrick Leahy and "progressive" Bernie Sanders? Refusal to meet with any of the thousands of impacted people while never missing a photo-op with Vermont Air National Guard.
Both political parties are completely captured by real estate developer and military industrial interests. The Democrats may be worse because they pretend otherwise.
7
From the photo, it looks as though work hasn't started on building the new, double-wide, 5 story house; so the poor neighboring souls are in for years' worth of additional assault, only without the excavation racket.
I lived for 3 years of identical abuse in the East 80's: absentee Euro owner who'd settled criminal securities fraud charges. (Dirty foreign or hedge fund money's often involved in these "Iceberg" projects.) The writer leaves out the twist that if the facade or house stands, all excavating equipment must fit through a front doorway which meant in our case only jackhammers could be used which prolonged the violence for years unlike midtown commercial buildings where they can get it over quickly by bringing in the big guns for lot excavation.
One has to live side-by-side with noise and development in a crowded city. But there has to be a balance. Only a corrupt and barbaric society, on the edge of which NYC teeters, allows such inhumane multi-year assault to occur on people trying to conduct their lives. The phenomena described in the article and experienced by other New Yorkers is not as life-changing and abusive as having a mugger in the 1960's or 70's jump out of the shadows and kill a family member as accurately depicted in "Death Wish" NYC of the Charles Bronson movies. But it's analogous to that, a close relative. It's emblematic of an abusive and intolerable urban state of affairs. Glad to have NYC in the rear-view mirror after 25 years.
13
Mr. Nick Jordan is my new hero!! Great quote.
Adds new meaning to the City that Doesn't Sleep.
4
Here in Texas there is an old saying, "Good fences make good neighbors". This takes it to another level, fer sure.
If you ask me the neighbors should be allowed free access to the pool for the same amount of time they were put out. All would be forgiven rather quickly I assume? Bet that won't happen though.
7
Please do not make any sweeping presumptions about the residents “up there.” Is West 69th Street between CPW & Columbus a blighted block in the (now gentrifying) South Bronx? Of course not. But it, like so many blocks in our city, is a messy, lumpy, compelling aggregate of many sorts of people - the vast majority of whom are part of what might broadly be described as “middle class.” Like most side-streets of the Upper West Side, there are likely many small apartments; some two-family or single family homes; a mix of mostly rentals and a few coöps. These are not entitled brats, as many commenters seem to assume. They are members of a community whose unwritten but tacitly agreed upon principles have included most significantly a willingness to recognize the needs of one’s neighbors and to try to do what is best for the block’s residents. This egregious, grotesque display of privilege (not to mention the despicably, unintentionally ironic blabberings of the owner about sensitivity to the universe) is profoundly un-New York and, at least until two years ago, un-American.
15
Whoever Jenna this should be hunted down, and physically restrained - hogtied - and forced to entire this 24/7.
2
"It’s about coming to terms with everyday existence in New York, where the rich run rampant and the rest of us have to deal with it".
People who live on W 69th Street between Central Park West & Columbus Ave are not "the rest of us". They are rich; many in dollars, but if not in dollars, certainly in real estate. This is just a story of the rich complaining about the super-rich disturbing their previously quiet, genteel, and wealthy neighborhood.
I mean, I feel for them - no one likes this kind of horrific disruption, and it would drive most people absolutely crazy (and not just the "intelligent" people, either) - but this is actually what "the rest of us have (had) to deal with" on a regular basis since we started to walk upright and wanted the most well-appointed caves that rocks could buy.
It used to be the millionaires that made life hell for everyone else (gentrification in it's original state); I guess those millionaires will just have to get used to their lives being made hell by the new, super gentrifiers: the billionaires.
8
a lot of disdain about a rich guy that is adding incredible value to the neighborhood and will pay (hopefully) dearly in taxes. Neighbors will always complain and will try to inject some sort of virtue words that they possess ("community", "acceptance", "sharing", "humbleness", etc) and imply that the other side lacks all those ("the greedy outsider", "inconsiderate", etc). Let's petition to have a methadone clinic or shelter established in their block and we'll see about those virtues. GO BIG POOL!
1
This guy is 64 and there's no mention of an elevator in the house. If you're going to spend $100 milllion, you might want to think ahead. If they live there at all, they might not be there for long.
3
I would like to hear more about the person who operates the jackhammer beginning at 8 AM. Probably after getting up at 4 AM in order to commute from a distant blue collar suburb. And then working all day in the construction zone with all of the dirt, debris, noise, and probably no respirator. Done at 6 PM, two hours back home, to get home at 8 or 9 with just enough time to see the kids and get to bed because it's back to the jackhammer at 8 AM the next day. Probably living from paycheck to paycheck.
From that perspective, the complaints of the neighbors about the noise seem trivial, at best.
13
@Paul
I don’t think that anyone is physically jackhammering. In the photo, you can see an hydraulic breaker on the end of the small excavator. I would think that operators get paid pretty well on even a presumably non-union job given the demand.
2
@Paul, I'm sure he has a horrible life, but that's his choice and he's profiting from this renovation. The neighbors have no choice.
8
This City has become intolerable with it's noise all over and our illustrious Mayor does nothing about it. It goes on all over, and you can't get anywhere above ground in a reasonable amount of time. I once had a chance to ask DeBlasio why this all had to go on at the same time and all he said, in sum and substance, was "what are you supposed to do when a developer is ready to start a project? " He's a real pay to play politician.When I asked about issuing permits to minimize the amount of disturbance he thought it was a good question and didn't answer it, going on to take someone else's question. Hope we don't vote for him for President.
5
Isn't this the purpose of getting very wealthy - so you can feel the pleasure of treating your less-capable (i.e. less ruthlessly greedy) neighbors like so much trash while you build you self-sufficient fortress to separate and protect yourself from these savages?
Of course they are right - looking into themselves they can see so much evidence that the main thing is to grab as much as possible and keep doing so. Aren't we all just greedy rats underneath it all, and they are only better at it? This isn't a sickness they have its a virtue - such wealth is a sign of God's favor, isn't it??
6
This is not only a big city problem but my guess it is happening all over in residential America. People without jobs are "flipping" houses like crazy here in AZ, many without any experience what so ever.
The house next door to us was low balled purchased and so began an endless remodeling for the next 20 months and counting. Thank God for dual paned windows! Jack hammering for days on end, pounding, compressors running for hours, dust and dirt fogging, and 10 months later and we thought it was finished. Wrong! The new owners didn't even move in for 3 months as they began the re-model of the re-model.
Can't have a house without a pool but the previous owners had it removed. No problem they can put in another. More jack hammering as they hit the old pool. Dust fogging because they didn't water it done enough. 4 months later and the 5 men working 6 days a week for 6 weeks got all the tile installed with generators running daily as tile has to be cut.
I feel like we live next door to the 80's film, "The Money Pit" because 2 weeks more was a favorite response to "when do you expect to be done?", "Two more weeks!", really! LOL I'm not holding my breath.
BTW these first time flippers walked away with over $260K profit and it was their first flip!
6
As my late father used to say, New York City is a nice place to be from...
4
About 20 years ago on West 83 street between Central Park West and Columbus Avenue a Famous New York comedienne bought a brown stone and had it converted to a garage. The Construction went on for about a year to reinforce the structure to hold several cars on two floors. There were a couple street level business right next door that I'm sure were hit hard by all the construction. ......... In New york If you have the Money you Win.
3
The admission by the "block organizers" that they were asleep at the switch says it all. In this day and age, everyone has to be super vigilant regarding the seemingly infinite ways others can and will degrade our lives, all following "rules" that never foresaw the greed and self-interest manifested by so many today.
In our Connecticut town, a lovely little swimming club on a lake wasn't on the ball and recently let an opportunity to acquire many acres of surrounding land for song go by. Now a mansion is being built as close to the property line as possible and the privacy of this swimming club for ordinary people is being ruined by wholesale clear cutting of the new neighbors' trees. Again, there is a lesson here for everyone.
9
NYC was handed over to every type of developer years ago...these people have deep pockets, and lots of lawyers. It's a losing battle- where is Jane Jacobs when we need her?! NYC isn't going to do a thing, they are more than willing to bend all the rules, alter their zoning laws etc. The rich rule.
But rest assured, I've heard of these "basement pools" wreaking havoc (esp. out in Flushing Queens) with their neigboring properties so if I lived on West 69th, I woud try to monitor this pool very closely - much can go wrong here.
10
Interesting article. The first thing that comes to mind is that it’s hard for me to have a lot of sympathy for people who can afford to own OR rent on 69th between CPW & Columbus Ave. There are thousands, if not millions of people living in substandard housing in NYC, and people living in $3m brownstones and $5k/month 1BR apartments are complaining because of an 18-month construction project that will ultimately raise their property values? Try living in the Amsterdam Houses a few blocks west, where the conditions are perpetually bleak and have been that way for 40 YEARS. The other problem I have with this piece is how the author slickly ‘otherizes’ the two owners of the property in question. Why did he feel the need to identify them as a ‘Haitian’-American and ‘Moroccan’-born Frenchman? Notice how he didn’t go into the ethnicities or heritage of the neighbors that were quoted? Wonder why their provenance wasn’t important to point out like it was for the bad guys in the story....
7
@YC Michel
After reading you comment, it seemed that you were very selective in pointing your fingers. Did it occur to you that the reporter may have tried to identify the owners, not to 'otherize' them, but to learn if they were citizens of other countries? Quite a number of rich foreigners, particularly Russians, have bought very expensive apartments, which are often rarely occupied. One of the aspects of real estate in NYC is the displacement of long-term tenants by landlords eager to capitalize in various way from this phenomenon. Donald Trump knows a lot about this practice. In addition, it doesn't sound like the violinist who was forced to leave or the professor are among the upper class. You write as if you know what the people suffering from this noise pollution, excess debris and other hardships pay for rent as well as the total sum of their assets. What would it take for you to emphasize with other human beings?
16
It’s an excellent observation to note the author mentions the ethnicity and background of the owners. Subtle and implicit hate-coding, and even the perception of it, enables others to do the same.
5
@YC Michel, because it's a story and that's how stories are written. These two are supposed to be the colorful "villains" and in my opinion, they are. The residents are victims and it seems to be all about what they do/did for a living. I care about that because I can relate to it. By the way, check out Beauvoir's twitter page. She's a self-proclaimed "spirit walker."
9
not sure if sympathy is warranted here: a) this with noise and construction is absolutely the norm in NYC, b) the affluent are being bothered by an even more affluent person, c) as long law and rules are followed GO BIG POOL!
4
I had two concrete guys over on Thursday to jackhammer out one single 3x4 concrete slab. It was awful for myself and for my dog. I can't imagine what these neighbors have been going through.
3
I have battled the noise from Icon Realty's 30 Story building being constructed across the street from my apartment on 80th Street and 2nd Ave. They once poured cement at 3 AM on a Saturday. The whole neighborhood was angry, but what to do? I found a simple and effective solution I have used successfully. NYC's Small Claims Court and suing for Negligence. I got nowhere with the DOB (until my City Councilmen, Ben Kallos, got involved), the NYPD cant help you with construction noise, it is out of their domain. I filed a dozen noise complaints with the DEP that yielded nothing (I never even heard back on one complaint). Ah but Small Claims Court works. Icon settled the day before we were due in front of a judge, and since then so has Rite Aid (who in penance for illegally stocking their store at 80th and 2nd at 1 AM for weeks "donated" $1,000 to All Souls Church's soup kitchen to settle). Since then I have filed a half dozen suits, all were settled out of court have yielded results. It cost $20 to sue in Small Claims Court, and thousands for a corporation to defend. The best part is, so far, everyone who I challenged has stopped completely.
16
I just couldn't do it. Look at all the pictures of the denizens of neighboring apartments. They're all squeezed in together, like animals in cages. No space, no forests, just concrete and sacrificial token saplings. I'd rather die than be forced to live like that...
5
Well hopefully this article will embarrass this couple and serve as a reminder to the super-rich. Maybe you can do whatever you want with all that money, but some of us will hate you for it.
3
Ms. Beauvoir has described herself as a mambo, or voodoo priestess; her life and her music are infused with her faith. “Erzulie,” it so happens, is a family of voodoo spirits. “We believe that all things around us have a soul, have a spirit, and participate in this world, so the tree, the wind, the air, wood, stones, animals, people — all of us share this earth,” she told the jazz podcast “Straight No Chaser” last fall. “And what’s difficult is when things get knocked out of balance because man believes he’s above everything else and refuses to respect the environment around him.”
This solidified my view of the super rich being totally ignorant and borderline insane. Money not only corrupts the mind, but the soul. Another great example that actions speak louder than words.
9
@Jack Is it no longer a liberal value to respect the right of other cultures to follow their traditions without being attacked as "totally ignorant and borderline insane?" Shame on you!
1
I love the photographs of Nick Jordan at his desk and Debby Brown sitting in her backyard. They are New Yorkers and they represent New York. Their obviously bored obscenely wealthy neighbors are neither and will probably only live there a few months each year and seldom use the pool!
3
A noiseless New York? Fuggedaboutit!
1
"Where the rich run rampant and the rest of us have to deal with it."
Please save us the hyperbole of the merely rich complaining about the ultra rich!
There are few residents of this block who would not be considered wealthy by comparison with the average NYC resident.
For example, the author of this piece owns not only a 2 bedroom apartment, but a waterfront house in Sag Harbor. (This public information obtained by 3 minutes of Google searching.)
Complain about construction noise, or even conspicuous consumption, if you like. But don't claim to be a victim of the rich, when you are rich yourself.
8
I live on W. 69th Street and I can tell you that living with this construction is even worse than the article describes. We appreciate everyone's support and well wishes. For updates on the situation (and check in on Dorian Gray) follow us on twitter and Instagram @SpiritW69ST
9
A basement swimming pool? I hope they like the smell of mold. Clearly the owners are not gifted at scenario analysis. And the neighbours should slap some new construction zoning laws together before the inevitable tearing OUT of the mildewing mess 5 years down the road.
9
I loathe the 1%. There is definitely something wrong with them psychologically. Local zoning should outlaw such excess.
3
@Pat, what's wrong with them, that you would actually 'loathe' them? They're just spoiled. Certainly not perfect. Are you? Am I?
2
Readers/commenters: I suggest that you read this column's twin on the front page of today's NYTimes called 'The Trickle-Down Economics of Trash Picking. The story concerns an Air Force veteran who supports himself by trash picking in San Francisco. Mark Zuckerberg's $10 million home is just 3 blocks from his single-window studio, and Mark's place a good spot to find discarded treasures. A Dickensian aura imbues our times with stories of the ultra wealthy and their dispossessed neighbors.
9
I grew up in New York and lived there my early adult life. I love the New York I knew. We didn't have enough money for theaters, so we would get SRO tickets for $1 and when there were empty seat, the ushers would move us to them. Museums were free and their beauty and culture was available to all income levels (please don't say admission is optional because nobody likes to be the one on line who cannot pay). There were choices; those who had a lot of money could afford a more expensive home or apartment and those who didn't could still buy a reasonably priced home and or find a reasonably priced apartment. Moving to a Manhattan meant setting aside a little more of your income for rent or getting an older or smaller apartment. It was not unattainable for someone on a teacher's salary.
I still consider myself a New Yorker even though I left the city over 37 years ago. It is ingrained as my identity. Sometimes I think about moving back, but when I read these articles and visit, I realize the NY I remember is gone. It's for the rich, and the poor and elderly live there because they have been able to or have to hold on. There is no room left for the middle class.
10
This neighborhood should have been organizing and non-stop petitioning their elected representatives, the building department, etc. I can't believe it took them so long to start fighting. And this sort of ultra-disruptive, luxury development should be outlawed city-wide. Where is the mayor and council on this?
5
@Overton Window. in the pockets of the real-estate industry, just like the governor and the legislature.
2
New York City should implement some kind of law that restricts how long a particular construction project can continue without completion before it must cease. Penalties will not do the trick, as money is no object to many of the people involved in these types of renovations. Because in theory, when something drags on like this, it disturbs so many things -- before long, the block will be entirely empty, and the reason for choosing to live there will no longer remain.
Now, this law may already exist. I am not an expert on such things. But I can recall more than a handful of construction projects in my neighborhood -- right outside my window, mind you -- that seemed to drag on for years, when they probably could have been completed in weeks, at most months. Instead, a contractor was bleeding some absentee owner dry, content that they'd never check up on things; what's more, they probably had no plans of ever living there anyway. So, it was just work for work's sake.
If the city could limit the time of completion on these projects, I think we'd see a lot of change. So long as codes were met and corners weren't cut, everything would be done faster, more things would get built, and while I can't say everyone would be happy, they'd at least have less reason to complain..
What's described in this article is, frankly, unacceptable. By any standard.
7
If the couple really cared for the community charm they claim to cherish it is easy enough for them to pay Fink's relocation costs, Ms. Brown's headphones, and the various pets medication. To them this would only be pennies.
It seems in moulding the site to their every whim, they will have changed this lovely street in irreparable ways.
6
But we'll fight tooth and nail against socialism:
"Going forward, Ms. Vazquez said, 'we have to find a way to make sure this never happens to anybody again.'"
Not only do the wealthy have immensely more money that we do, they are allowed to make us miserable.
6
These are damages that compromise the enjoyment and use of property. Lawyer up.
14
Why do I suspect there would be greater objections if a orphanage was being built.
9
It may comfort the neighbors to know that indoor pools produce so much humidity that is hard to keep under control. The new owners will have a pretty big problem with mildew in a few years.
13
And I complain (endlessly) about the aural and psychic weight of the huge exhaust fan howling just above my head (on the roof of our building) around the clock, and having its origins in the sports bar, down on the ground floor.
Well, hereafter, I'll try & shut my mouth; you now have all my sympathies (and Ms. Fink, you have my heart; I wish you the very best of health now and forever).
5
Ten feet by sixty? That's not even a decent size pool. I swim 1,000 yards a day in a 25 yard (by 25 yard) pool and, since it's Parks and Recreation pool (crystal clear and with very few swimmers) and it doesn't cost me a dime... it's a pretty good deal. My suggestion? Move to Detroit.
10
Typical NIMBY syndrome. Isn't this the life you've chosen for yourself. If you really want quiet, the country awaits.
People have spent the past two centuries making cities more congested and compact and now they're complaining about noise? Isn't that inevitable when you pack so many sardines, sorry, people into such a small area? When the new Tappan Zee Bridge was under construction, there were few complaints about noise primarily because residents of that area were not packed on top of each other. Spread out, move upstate. You may enjoy the quiet. Then again, you might not.
2
A few years back we had a basement pool of our own in our NJ home. Then we fixed the sump pump.
21
Wow, I get a uniformed official at my door if my dog barks longer than 10 minutes.
19
Why do people want to live there? Admittedly, a commute to
Westchesteer County may mean less city nightlife and fewer top dining spots, but good grief!! Poor folk have to put up with rats, crime, crowding, etc. But, why do rich people want to? Oh, well...there's no accounting for taste...even if it's bad.
2
Do you think there is a point for many people, when they have so much money, hence power, that they don’t really care a bit about their fellow human beings. They want their cake and to eat it too. There’s nothing much you can do about it, barring revolution and hanging them from the nearest lamppost, and that’s never going to happen. Difference stimulates envy, and untold wealth hides it... only others envy those with infinite wealth.
4
Anyone who can afford a $100 million dollar brownstone has enough money to own a vacation home on a lake. Who needs a pool in Manhattan?
13
Does it really matter whether neighbors are rich? I have a middle class next-door neighbor who took two years to add a second floor to his house, Did the work himself, but it was plenty noisy. I’m not a big fan of bashing the rich. But that seems to be much in fashion these days. What would bother me more is that he didn’t live in the house while noisy work was done.
4
If you want a pool, move to the suburbs. In the city, find a gym with a pool. Don't tear up the city to build basement pools. As a pool owner, I know the maintenace issues and you don't want that in a basement. Plus it's going smell dank eventually, because mildew happens anywhere moisture lives for too long.
18
This is a serious problem in San Francisco, as well, where old concrete industrial buildings are being reworked into offices and condos faster than can easily be counted.
The decibel level from the jackhammering and concrete drilling is illegal for health reasons, but only in certain construction situations. The city codes lag the reality by decades, meaning that residents often have little recourse as someone jackhammers into their exterior walls.
The dangerous dust that the drilling generates must also by law be abated, but again only based on outdated scenarios.
In my neighborhood, people regularly flee the great places they just bought in order to escape the absolutely incessant noise. When one project finally ends, another starts up. And the city keeps those permits flowing.
11
I visited my beloved S.F. a few years ago and nearly cried. I have never seen so much construction in such a small area. I did not recognize the skyline. Silicon Valley has destroyed one of the most beautiful and magical cities in the U.S. Heartbreaking.
12
I am not a big fan of Bill Gates, one of the wealthiest men in the world, but when he built his monstrous home in Medina he also had neighbors to contend with and this is how he approached them:
"He paid for neighbors to have their cars and windows washed. He kept the streets clean and held a meeting to introduce residents to the building plans. The project manager visited residents to keep them informed on developments, and Gates paid for any damage to their homes. He allowed neighbors to tour the home, and one of the first parties he threw upon completion included neighbors."
I suppose some day, should the other property owners on West 69th choose to sell they will be able to say, well this is the street that contains one of the most expensive homes in Manhattan.... and then up their own prices accordingly just like Gate's neighbors have. Doesn't help the tenants but will help the owners or those who inherit those other properties.
Having left Manhattan back the 70's I still enjoy these stories of urban greed and the difficulties of maintaining the old neighborhoods. Human nature but on steroids.
Meanwhile on the other end of survival spectrum, as Neil Young put it, there are "people living in their shoes". I think about 70 thousand homeless New Yorkers might be willing to house sit for you until the noise abates and the biggest rooster on 69th Street finally comes home to roost...
But good luck to all affected and Blessings...
18
It's all about property rights. This land was founded on property rights! Go USA, deal with it!
6
That attitude is why we are in this mess.
16
I wouldn’t build that soapbox too high. We only became interested in property rights AFTER stealing land from the original owners. And what of the property rights to enjoy ones property without undue distress? Property rights proponents are oddly fixated only on “doing something” to their property, usually something that degrades the character of the land, but makes them money. What about the property rights of everyone your selfish act affects?
3
@DMS "We only became interested in property rights AFTER stealing land from the original owners."
I believe that the Native Americans never considered themselves to be "owners" of the land.
Why doesn't the Block Association hire another Voodoo priestess to put a curse on the owners?
28
“Schopenhauer argued that the higher your tolerance for noise, the lower your intelligence,” this is true in reality see Latent inhibition in one of Dr Shelley Carson’s writings. Anyway, intense noice for this length of time must affect psychological health of these residents. The owner should factor in and pay for the “damage” their greedy project have on these people.
6
The fact it took 75% of the article for the author to reveal that this is essentially a personal complaint is frankly amazing and hilarious. This might be the greatest UWS-bubble complaint I've ever heard.
11
Like Bob Dylan sang in It's All Right Ma ("I'm Only Bleeding"): "Money doesn't talk, it swears!"
4
From the picture, it seems they are close to finishing digging. The facade is only 10-15 foot away. If the neighbors are lucky the concrete should be ready before summer. :)
4
Wow...this article got me to thinking...I could use a basement pool in my house. Ha.
Unfortunately, my neighbors are either not around or too distant tbe bothered by the noise and dust. Where's the fun in that?
7
@rumple Rump, I got a used shovel if you want it.
1
The desert is lovely this time of year.
3
When are we going to rise up against the exceedingly self-centered filthy rich? Since they regard no one but themselves, why should we have to put up with their extreme disruptions to our peace and sanity? Not to mention all the other reasons.
This swimming pool inside a brownstone... Something they’ll probably use three times a year and grow tired of?
I can't help but think of the Czar in Russia, the Romanovs, whose “behavior “ sparked a revolution that changed the world. This project is a similar symptom of a serious malady in our own society. Just sayin’
21
Being from Utah this all sounds crazy to me, I cannot believe this is happening. Those poor people and animals. Someone should vandalize those awful individuals property every single day forever.
7
If you think vandalism is a solution, you are either 15 years-old or have no moral compass.
5
You have to love the Daily Mail for their pics.
The wife is a vodoo priest. So she says. I guess they don't do the YMCA.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6892891/Wealthy-couple-drive-Manhattan-neighbors-crazy-100M-basement-pool-jackhammering.html
4
Y'all wanted "The City" you got the city.
3
Is it truly not the time to start taxing wealth?
13
@Always Merry and Bright
No. Is it always about jealousy and hatred for the more successful folks? Why is stereotyping of the rich okay, but by race or gender not? And by the way, I am not at all rich.
4
I’m not jealous at all and not quite at the level of hate- YET, although I’ll readily admit to disgust. My life is full, someone loves me (and my purse does have a little padding). But, more to the point, there’s a show of ostentation and pointless accumulation that’s completely counter-productive to collective (does that word scare you?) living- and a residential neighborhood block is to a great extent something that’s clearly collective.
In any country, individual wealth is ‘allowed’ by the larger group and that group can (and should) disallow it when too many others are threatened by obvious inequality (and plain bad taste). When does wealth become immorality? As others here have suggested, let ‘em go to a Y.
There’s an obscenity to outrageous privilege like this and it should be curtailed by taxation which I think is quite civilized. Others might be in favor of what happened to Charles, Marie and Nicholas, but perhaps, taking their money would be more painful than taking their heads.
@VCuttolo
2
@Always Merry and Bright, the people in question are reportedly not necessarily United States citizens and nothing in the reporting indicates they intend to become so or to live in this new development full time. In fact, it is not even clear if this project is intended to become a hotel or will be a personal residence. Thus, changing United States policy on taxation may have zero impact on them. Reportedly, the gentleman is from Morocco and France and the lady is from Haiti.
On the other hand, perhaps New York City or New York state could try to change local real estate laws to discourage this? Canada has also reportedly had significant problems with very wealthy foreigners driving up real estate prices and allegedly not even living there and in some cases simply just laundering money from possibly criminal enterprise.
It is not to say there should not be different tax policy in the United States. It is just not clear it would have any impact on the people in this story at all.
1
How do you generate a change in the regulations? Who is ultimately responsible in the city government for the decision to allow this construction? Are there environmental rules about particulate matter and noise generated by such construction?What about the health department in terms of fumes generated? What can change? Human arrogance will not change.
11
It’s a huge problem on the SF peninsula too, there are four houses being razed and reconstructed on my block now. Every house sold gets torn down the day after. And our cities are run by developers. And with no local press corruption is rampant.
12
@Garrett Clay
San Carlos used to be a modest, pleasant town with affordable houses. I'm sorry to hear that it has gotten infected with mansionitis too.
3
I grew up at Central Park West and 63rd St. in the same neighborhood as this block-- at a time when respecting the rights of your neighbors was a strong consideration for any renovation work. Of course there were always jackhammers, garbage trucks, sirens, and strange noises in the night-- but never this level of disrespect. I now live in the small town of Fairfield, Iowa where quietness dominates the atmosphere in the most life-enhancing ways in a community intent on caring for the health and happiness of one's neighbors. ... I will always love my hometown and return to it happily every year, but there is a freedom from intrusion where I now live that's worth a whole lot.
13
And when the construction noise has finally ended, the recording studio noise begins.
4
This is who owns our country and most of the world now and judging from the comments below, a lot of people think this is the norm and OK or, at least impossible to prevent or regulate.
Perhaps they are right, we once decried the Robber Barons, but the way the majority of ultra rich and wanna be ultra rich are working at break neck speed to make the earth uninhabitable for all living things makes them seem like Boy Scouts.
8
@EhJude
Carnegie and Rockefeller, although robber barons while making their money, eventually turned to philanthropy. It's not clear that these ultra-rich people have ever heard the word. They certainly show no empathy for their neighbors.
5
Boy, does this make me value the peace and quiet of my little neighborhood in the San Fernando Valley area of Los Angeles. Something I often take for granted. Currently, as I sit in bed typing, all I hear are the taps of my fingers on the keys and the ticking of the clock. Maybe the occasional airplane flying overhead.
Good neighbors are hard to find, but we're lucky to have a cul-de-sac full of them. (Note to self: Tell my neighbors how much I love them today.)
I hope all of you on West 69th find peace soon. I suggest inviting the couple to one of your places to stay for a couple of weeks, so they can experience the madness first hand. They might even consider expediting the process. Or at at the very least send all of you a gift or two.
6
Do any of the community organizers have thoughts about a community organized contract for sound proofing? Block associations used to have tree plantings. Now it seems a discount on sound proofing rooms is in order.
Maybe they could lobby the council and even get regulations on the books to have a noise tax on sales and renovations over certain dollar amounts and decibel levels, the proceeds being passed through to those in a geographic decibel range for mitigation. How about a percent of the sale price added to a “noise escrow account” at the time of sale or prior to permitting?
4
Voodoo That’s all I need to know
8
Would it kill this family to go to the local YMCA?
125
@John McLaughlin John, it's like the Bonfire Of The Vanities, you have to insulate.
14
@John McLaughlin
Oh, stop. I wouldn't go to the local YMCA either, and my family has never been anything but middle class. Sorry, too many germs and fungi.
10
@John McLaughlin , Why would they want to leave their home, where their books and other resources are? I had a neighbor ask me to go to a hotel on Thanksgiving, so that he could violate City code and throw an outdoor party w/ DJ until 2 am. City says no outdoor music and no noise after 10 pm. I said no, that is why I own my home -- I have a fire pit that I light on Halloween and invite neighbors for s'mores (before 10pm).
And what about my neighbors that he didn't offer a hotel room to.
7
Read it and weep.
Wait till the kids start playing Marco Polo! They’ll miss the jack hammers.
3
Tom and Daisy Buchanan.
11
10 x 60 pool? Pathetic for someone who wants to swim. Why bother, except to say you've got a brownstone with a subterranean swimming pool?
6
Thank you Michael Phelps
2
President de Blasio, please help!!!
5
We two legged creatures all run rampant; two legged offenders run riot!
1
What a terrible waste of NYT space.
1
" formerly quiet " is analogous to unprecedented & unpresidential
New work=da but same message.
I feel your pain. I've lived in a London mews house for 20 years, and in that time, we have had perhaps five years without construction and excavations next door.
One problem is that UK houses are too small for humans (just like their garages are too small for cars) and local planning laws prohibit going up but are OK with going down.
The thing is - these created spaces are rarely pleasant. The water table here is so high and the climate so wet they are invariably damp and moldy within a few months. Brits still don't understand central heating, and only a new-age lefty climate-change believer would even know what a Heat Recovery Ventilator was. So they spend hundreds of thousands of pounds (if not millions) on spaces that will never be used. Just like the supercars you see parked on the streets here - covered in bird poo.
7
For those interested in the plans which are publicly available.
http://www.nyc.gov/html/mancb7/downloads/pdf_2/Sept%203%20-%2048-50%20West%2069th%20Street.pdf
6
The hypocrisy of Ms. Beauvoir is (literally) sickening..."we believe that all things around us have a soul, have a sprit...."
18
This is simply about two people who have amassed ridiculous amounts of money and who feel the need to spend it as garishly and ostentatiously as possible. It is obscene, and the municipality and politicians who allowed this to begin need to be held accountable. What kind of community do they want? What are the long-term ramifications of having an absurdly over-sized single-family dwelling that likely won't be lived in 90% of the time -- on the environment, its residents, and the city as a whole? If those questions are asked and answered with the heart and not with greed, then projects this absurd would never get off the ground.
28
“Millenniums”?
Well u rich but not ostentacious people should come live in Woodside CA where u must get OK from the town's council to build anything. Woodside is where Steve Jobs wanted to tear down his mansion and was denied.
4
This reminds me of rich people who feel they need to fly in private jets to avoid the riff raff. They feel it’s okay to burn a ton of jet fuel and pollute because they’re worth it. The owners of this house can go use a public pool like everyone else. They’re not worth all this trouble. There should be laws to prevent this stuff!
17
Sick.
The audacity of money and disregard for people and the environment.
10
Lot of NIMBYing going on here.
2
Sue the LLC for nuisance damages
5
Anyone who has not lived next to this constant level of noise cannot understand how truly damaging it is to one’s physical and psychological state. I have had the misfortune of experiencing this twice in my life. In one instance my entire household was ultimately driven out by the noise and vibrations that would sometimes knock objects from the shelves. I feel absolutely sympathetic with the neighbors affected by this, especially those who do not have the resources to relocate either temporarily or permanently. Even those who have that opportunity do not deserve this daily nightmare. Thank goodness there is a N.Y. Times reporter living close enough to report on this. Hopefully laws can be changed so that in the future other projects like this can be banned.
34
My mother, the logician and group theorist Verena Huber-Dyson (1923-2016) lived at 29 West 69th St in the early 1960s, did some of her best work there, parked her Morris Minor on the street out front, and always held a place for that block in her heart. Sounds like a noise that could wake the dead.
13
@GBD A Morris Minor is a Mini! Pulease, get it right.
I totally sympathize.
There should be zoning
laws that prohibit this
type of destruction/construction.
For what it’s worth, I just
went through that for 2 yrs.
in a previously quiet neighborhood
in West LA — subterranean digging
for a gym and theater. (People,
please go to the theaters and gyms
nearby). The walls of my house,
which is next door, are cracked.
The developers could care less.
I imagine this is going on in
many areas where “More” is
never enough, money
no object, no one cares about
the affect on the neighbors.
11
"I want to wake up in a city that never sleeps..."
Oh, maybe not.
From an outsider's perspective, the general chaos of Manhattan is a bug. To many residents, it appears to be a feature, something long tolerated and, without verbal acknowledgement, embraced. You want quiet? Move to Kansas.
Once years ago we had occasion to stay overnight on a high floor (I recall the number 27) of a hotel in mid-town. ALL NIGHT LONG that slam of giant garbage bins being loaded and unloaded kept me awake. BAM! went the strings of my ears followed by more baming and banging and the grinding of the motors to lift and place. A nightmare.
Awakened very early just before dawn (perhaps the noise subsided, causing me to wake up?) I looked out the window to the street below. I had imagined that the entirety of Manhattan had been emptied of garbage by this cacophonous carnival of banging. But no. The street below seemed to have enough waste material to "fill a line of dump trucks from here to Nova Scotia", to quote an old favorite movie.
Here's my take, in general, about noise and general chaos in New York: nothing is ever really done about it. "It's the city, get used to it!" Making changes would require feats of coordination among people who don't want to be coordinated, period. So, the unlivable city rolls on and they who suffer love it for the mess which they all manage, just manage, to survive.
Such a project as that on the upper west side should not be allowed for a private residence.
7
This isn’t an ordinary construction situation. W69th is a quiet residential block of buildings that are a century old. It’s a fully settled neighborhood. Disrupting the lives of literally thousands of people, pets and birds for a couple of disgustingly rich people to invade and build a damn swimming pool is abhorrent. If anyone should move out of the city, it’s these type of selfish people who don’t know how to live as part of the culture around them. Having lived on that block for >20 years, I can tell you: that isn’t the culture of W69th St.
34
@Doug Terry
Back in the old days, in the 19th century, NYC had a big noise problem. Part of it was from boats on the river. They did make changes. That is also why there is an ordinance against cars honking in NYC. As people become more aware of the damage to health from noise, there will be new laws to deal with it. It's articles like that that bring attention, and then change.
5
@Doug Terry - If you only know midtown Manhattan, you don't know Manhattan.
5
Today's online issue of the Daily Mail has pictures of these inconsiderate millionaires, dripping with arrogance, and an aerial view of the Upper West Side's own Big Dig. The NY Times seems to be tiptoeing around them, but I say name them and shame them.
16
A lot of NYCDOB activity going on:
http://a810-bisweb.nyc.gov/bisweb/PropertyProfileOverviewServlet?boro=1&block=1121&lot=55&go3=+GO+&requestid=0
2
New York schist is insanely hard and difficult to jack-hammer through. I worked at a building where they were cutting an new sub-sidewalk electrical vault, that was a fraction of the size fo this pool. The BIG and deafening tractor-mounted jackhammers were going for months.
I suspect that the contractor was willfully ignorant or less than honest about how how long this would take.
These super-basements are common in London, but there they are just digging in mud. As long as it does not collapse, there is little problem.
New York zoning needs to get serious about the impact of habitability on adjoining structures. There are quieter alternatives, including waterjets, diamond cutters, and hydraulic splitters. The noisy choices are just cheaper.
217
@Justin Starren
I can't imagine a more wasteful use of water than on a vanity project.
6
It's difficult to believe that these goings on, as multifaceted
and omni-obnoxious as they are, can be legal.
Aside from the invasive influence on the human element it seems impossible that this violent upheaval isn't a threat to the infrastructure, as well: water mains, sewerage pipes, electric and other cables, etc.
If the mysterious "Croesuses" want a swimming pool, there's
California. There's the"Y!''
Has "The Plutocracy," finally, bought the City of New York?
6
You gave the width and length of the pool, but not the depth!
4
@diogenes
Some other commenter here referenced the plans with a URL. The plans mention the pool, but don't actually show it, so the depth is unknown. I'm guessing it will reach about half way to China.
6
Is there news here?
I thought NYC was always under construction.
Seems that way when I visit.
2
Video surveillance is omnipresent these days so my suggestion would be to equip a drone with a nice hefty balloon full of slow-curing, black epoxy resin and have it smash into this building once its completed. You can start taking up a collection now.
2
I see there are people with there own problems writing in the comments. Please please remember that violation of the norms matters in direct proportion to the the exclusivity of those impacted. That is why New York could handle Trump Tower, but the White House cannot have a gangsta in residence.
The same is happening in my neighborhood except the ground breaking begins at 7am! Have faith, infuse yourselves with a bit of Erzulie, perhaps a Mambo Block Party is in store? Take a cue from The Witches of Eastwick & create a “48-50” Voodoo doll...time for a spirit uprising.
5
Violinist Gabrielle Fink moved and Dorian Gray, the miniature poodle is heavily sedated ... It's the end of times!
4
Oh the humanity!
1
Fight fire with fire. Hire a voodoo priestess and put a hoax on the property and its owners. Despicable doesn’t even begin to describe the egregious lack of consideration demonstrated.
4
May the names of the perpetrators of this disgraceful project be publicly seen as embodying the worst of narcissism and arrant disdain for their neighbors. I only hope that they are so welcomed on moving in day.
8
This could happen to anyone anywhere. I live in “the country”.
My 2 neighbors sold their land to a developer who then took down every tree on the wooded 9 acres.
I have been living next to a 9 acre dirt pile with dump trucks, porta-pots, dumpsters, and 7 houses under construction (with 5 more planned) for the past 3 years.
There went the dark nights, the great horned owls, the fox, the turkey-roost walnut tree.
The town council approved it and it’s not my land. They get to do what they want.
At least it’s not a tire recycling business.....or so I tell myself.
146
@Bettyishere Boundary ? Waters truly sounds like a place that should be left alone by developers and desecrators in general. I do gain a tiny bit of peace with every sentiment expressed in favor of the disabuse of the promotion of development. We are now deep in the quandary between quality of life and the requisite "growth!" proclamation which would have us believe that we live by money alone.
13
@Bettyishere I understand. For no reason, it took the guy who filled in the small wetland next door, 5 years to do it. And only moments to silence the peepers. Despite my best efforts to involve alleged conservation people, the area was not considered "important" enough to warrant their involvement. Five years of watching fruit trees, wildflowers, and habitat being destroyed - for what? Five years of all manner of heavy equipment, the back-up beeping, the felling of trees. There was no reason to choose this site. The end result was a cardiac condition. And a trailer parked on the land.
26
These stories are heartbreaking. A developer has plans to put a silly number of condos (with parking, ugh) on a huge tree-filled lot behind a bunch of yards. The trees will come down, the birds will be evicted, an old well will be covered up, we'll get to live next to a construction site for a few years, rats will come in all of our houses, and someone will make a ton of money. Short-sighted and sad.
21
People aside, now is the time to care first about the pets. Perhaps, someone can come up with a mobile pet therapy business that can cater 24x7 for the wealthy, traumatized pets and help them soothe out all the noise and disruption. Park a few expensive RVs, board the pets for long naps, medication to take care of their IBS issues, sing some songs and some nice grooming.
1
@NParry
don't forget the obligatory 2 hour pet massage...with the default "happy ending".
2
Are you kidding me? I work five blocks from 69th. Ive worked in this neighborhood for twelve years. All of the people that live in this neighborhood are privileged in one way or another.
Everyone around here enjoys some degree of 'well to do'. Even the people in this article...a lawyer, a violinist, a broadway show director...are any of them millionaires? I have no idea, but they are all far better off than so many in this city. And they want to complain about an even wealthier person moving in and adding value to their property?
This is a neighborhood that nothing left to gentrify as it literally is exactly that. 1000% gentrified. Predominately white. Predominately upper middle class. And I feel almost no sympathy for any of them. The one thing I will give is leeway on the hazardous health concerns from dust. That is understandable and should be regulated. But everything else...no way.
Let any of these people spend a night in Brownsville Brooklyn and see if they will be ready to move back into their brownstone on the UWS. I bet each would keep the window open and hum along with the sound of the drilling after that.
7
@D- have you checked out the real estate in brownsville recently? there's been a ton of gentrification construction going on. they're renting 2 bedroom apartments for $3k a month now. it may not be west 69th street, but it's certainly yet another area that will eventually be on par with manhattan, price-wise.
"(Super)gentrification" is an ironic term, to my thinking. Surely "gentrification" should connote good manners, refinement, responsibility, and concern for others, particularly one's neighbours? All too often those with wealth behave as though money makes them immune to social obligations. I do not begrudge wealth earned through honest means, but I do strongly take issue with uncouth behaviour, such as that so blatantly displayed by Mr. Bastid and Ms. Beauvoir.
4
My husband owns a building on the south side of West 30th Street between 8th and 9th Avenues. Two-three years ago excavation began on our block to bring electric, water, gas, internet, and fiber optics to the Hudson Yards project.
The vibration caused leaks to develop in the gas lines of the buildings on the block. Con Ed sent a subcontractor to investigate, and it caused a gas shut-off in December, with heating restored at first on an emergency basis to the building, and full gas (to the cooking stoves) by April, at a cost of approximatey $50K, not to mention the inconvenience.
The Community Board did nothing, nor did other buildings on the block either complain or file a claim against either the City, Con Ed, or the contractors performing the work. I might add that Con Ed has a blanket hold-harmess agreement with the City for any excavations performed by it or its contractors.
This wasn't the case of a plutocrat's whims to build the successor to Karinhall, but of a general failure of municipal oversight.
6
There are 9 ECB violations in conjunction with this property, 2 of them are still open. The violations are primarily class 1 with a couple of them being class 2.
6
It “sounds” to me like the owners are trying to build a mini replica of the Roman city of Bath on the west coast of England. Most ill advised in Manhattan! The commentor who quoted The Greay Gatsby is right-on! Just because it’s feasible according to the architect, and the money is available doesn’t mean it’s a good idea. For Capitalism to work for the good of all it needs to be regulated. Worked that way great for years. We are witnessing our downfall. This building site is a metaphor for our times.
8
I was reading in The Guardian of this thing being done in London, under even older, fragile city homes by wealthy owners. A couple of prominent rock stars were neighbors in battle over it. It sounded outrageously presumptuous for British people, so I'm not surprised to see the practice taken up in NYC. Now that the super-wealthy begin to do obnoxious things to each other, as they have been doing to us "beneath them", maybe some enlightenment will begin to dawn amongst the very much overly entitled.
2
Noise pollution is the frontier of civility and not being heavily explored. There should be heavy fines for this conduct. Some day we will look back on noise pollution as an archaic,
unfortunate outgrowth of progress such as air and water pollution and not believe we could have been so naive.
7
Among the perks of great wealth are two which stand out; those with immense amounts of money not only learn to speak a different language, but also garner a type of selective hearing which filters out any criticism from those with less in their portfolio.
6
As a resident of 59th St and 9th Avenue I routinely walk 69th St to the park and it just isn’t all that noisy. Nor is it all that dusty. The residents of this block should check out the interminable construction on 9th Avenue in my neighborhood. But I once lived next to the El on Broadway and 125th St. while
a Columbia graduate student. Now that is noise and shaking and 24/7. Yes there is conspicuous consumption on 69th St. but building this pool is not the sole example of it. And that construction will soon come to end while the El rattles on.
4
All that obscene wealth from a hedge fund, which is apparently moving money around (with admitted expertise), protecting the wealth of the wealthy, and actually producing nothing.
17
In his work "On Liberty," John Stuart Mill said: "the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others."
When did the NYC Department of City Planning ever consider harm when approving this project?
Surely all politics is about resolving what is harm, with some the left saying one thing, others on the right another.
And some on the up thinking they can do what ever they can afford, while those on the down are told the same thing: "Let them dig too!" This is reminiscent of Anatole France who said: "In its majestic equality, the law forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, beg in the streets, and steal loaves of bread."
I think reasonable people would generally conclude that when you are alone and far away from others the determination of harm to others is quite different from living in extreme density in a city. Sure, one can do terrible, awful things alone in a field miles away from civilization, but they're usually made all the worse in a city.
Why are cities so much more liberal than those vast empty fields? Because they have a greater sense of what is harmful which is coded in society as a more liberal interpretation, politically speaking. Of course, this is a great irony, since this is a restriction on personal liberties, restrictions that conservatives in wide open spaces are loathe to impose.
8
I have read similar articles about this exact same problem in London. The should make the owners not just abate the noise but also the dust. The fie silicates in the dust cannot be healthy. The neighbors should demand the city test air quality for silica dust.
4
I lived in London until recently, and compared to what's been going on there for over a decade, the UWS project seems almost quaint in comparison. You think *one* basement-pool project is bad? Try hundreds.
While Manhattan is undeniably a city where the world's plutocrats secretly funnel money into eight-figure apartments under guise of LLCs, rarely with intentions of living in them, the UK's favorable tax laws for expats have transformed Central London into a primary home for the world's super-rich. Although the UK has significantly stronger protections for historic buildings -- unlike NYC's "Potemkin-like sops to local landmark laws," all Grade 1- and Grade 2-listed buildings in England require approvals for altering any part of an existing exterior *or* interior -- the one portion of such edifices to which local councils rarely oppose changes are their sublevels, given their invisibility from the outside.
As such, the global elite effectively compete with one another to see who can construct the largest, most utterly ridiculous subterranean additions. A standard swimming pool there would be practically low-rent; a multi-sub-level pool, spa and disco are more their tune, sometimes extending a full *three* levels below the existing structure. On one unusually long parcel near my flat, an oligarch built a full-size Olympic pool: 50 meters long, 25 meters wide, three meters deep, and ample room for chaises alongside.
Yes, the UWS situation really could be worse. Much worse.
6
A few years ago my upstairs neighbor renovated their apt even digging up old wooden floors throughout the apt. They moved out but we were left to deal with the noise. This went on for months. Had to buy my disabled husband those Bose earsets as well. As if that wasnt enough , last year they decided to install centrall air that meant days of drilling holes all along the side our our landmark brick building all near my first floor windows. knocking my husband and son out of sleep in the am for over a week. It was discussed that they would possibly be installing the central air but the extent of the project was never relayed.
3
It’s these types of stories why I love NYC. Not to take anything from the people enduring what must be terrible disruption to their lives......it in many ways, to me, a script to a dark comedy. Where is Tim Barton when you need him?
1
Face it, people, in TrumpLandia there are no protections. We are at the whim of the rich and America installed one of the worst of them to run this nation for the 1 percent.
27
@Richard M. Braun
I would think this would be more about de Blasiolandia or Cuomoville.
@Richard M. Braun
"America installed one of the worst"
Not America ! republicans in the electoral college installed the carnival barker. We The People voted for Mrs Clinton by nearly 3,000,000 more ballots.
3
NYC is far far far from anything Trump, it is Uber liberal ,
2
I occasionally read articles in the NYT that stay with me all day.
this is one of those articles. The very wealthy are very tone deaf --- not to be funny.
8
C'mon folks, pick yourself up by your bootstraps, work a little harder, do a little more, get a little better job, make a little more money and you can finally move away from that wretched part of town.
10
Money talks. I mean M O N E Y talks. Always has. This city is rampant with buildings that should have been stopped but weren't because some bajillionaire real estate "developer" found a way around the rules.
How can anyone talk about being spiritual when they have so little regard for their fellow creatures human and animal.
And, yes, if this were in Bed-Sty, it probably wouldn't be in the NYT, but because it is taking place in a neighborhood that has the money and the time to fight back, whatever may come of it could benefit the people in all the city's neighborhood that do not draw mega-millionaires.
I always want to ask people like the two that are behind the construction, were you ever not rich? Did you forget what it is like to be just an ordinary person? Have you ever thought that maybe you were being both selfish and arrogant?
The city should have said no. Money made it say yes. So much for "preservation."
18
Well, I’ll certainly think twice before I complain about MY neighbors! I extend condolences to anyone suffering through this.
147
I fear that this is one more indicator that NYC has reached a tipping point in its decline into a place where the cost of living far outweighs the benefits for all but the very wealthiest. I asked a former boss of mine what it was like living in Paris. He said it was filled with old, rich people who stayed in their apartments. In the 19th century, Paris was the heart of the art world. Those days are long gone.
NYC is well down the path to being a place where the people driving the creative vitality that has made it unique must find other places to live and grow. Creative people will find creative solutions. But NYC will no longer be their environment. New York's cultural institutions will calcify. The city will be forever diminished. I am sorry I never took advantage of opportunities to live in NYC in the past, but it now it is too late and the appeal of being a New Yorker is gone.
16
I've often wondered if others, like ourselves, offer the neighbours a small donation (relative to the costs of construction) for the inconvenience caused would help them with community cohesion in such circumstances. Because making such a nuisance of your building work before moving in clearly upsets the neighbours so much it will forever have a detrimental effect on any relationship with those neighbours. A couple of grand to each of the neighbours closest increased their tolerance enormously and in several cases isn't even accepted. I find it's the sincerity of your apology for the inconvenience you are causing them that makes the difference. Nothing says "sorry you cannot enjoy the peace of your own home" like a tiny percentage of the cost you are already paying out for construction.
6
The din in NYC has become more than a quality of life issue. It’s a matter of public health. Are public officials doing anything to address it? Or have they concluded that benefits outweigh costs costs? The public has a right to know where they stand and why.
Sure, projects like these provide an economic benefit to some, like the workers and suppliers. But there’s an economic cost, too. The article and comments show that people leave the neighborhood and the city bc of these nuisances.
9
This is a heartbreaking article. I lived at 50 and 51 W69 over my 25 years living in Manhattan. It’s a glorious block. The diversity of people one would encounter every day was one of the features of the location. When I left in 2010, things were changing rapidly. My heart breaks for my former neighbors and everyone who is enduring this misery. My dog wouldn’t have survived the noise. I’m in tears.
18
I also have lived on West 69th St for many years and all I can say is there goes the neighborhood !!!
12
The issue of the hardship borne by neighbors to a construction site in a densely populated urban environment is timeless. This NY Times article puts a populist spin on the issue by focusing on the construction for an uber-wealthy couple. I'm all for informing the public on the current state of income inequality and all its ramifications on our society. But what this article brings up - perhaps inadvertently - are important quality of life issues in densely populated urban environment where the powerless (i.e not uber-wealthy) endure the hardship caused by decisions made by uber-wealthy and elites. This includes hospitals, universities. major financial contributors to the coffers of elected officials, etc. Science has shown that stress correlates to the amount of control a human has on their world. Many in NYC feel they no longer have any say (control) over the destiny of their beloved city. NYC has always been expensive, it's always been crowded - but this sense of helplessness is growing each year.
17
Funny, none of the neighbors mention how much the value of their properties will soar when the work is done. Hmm. Can you say: "having it both ways"?
4
@c smith
Your observation seems to suggest that there is a price that can be paid that would offset the disruption to these people lives and well being.
Though you might live your live that way, not everyone else does.
18
Why on earth would you think the value of neighboring properties would “soar.” That’s not how it works in NYC. Each property has individual value, based on square footage and other variables, unaffected by a neighbor’s renovations. And many, many of the neighbors are renters, not owners. These neighbors are undergoing several years of daily trauma for no benefit. No one should be drilling below bedrock in NYC for a pool—likely destabilizing the foundation of other buildings. I see you live in Pittsburgh, but Manhattan is an island. Extraordinary privilege and general ignorance on the part of the new owners.
24
It’s a bit amusing that construction in New York City is worthy of such a lengthy news article, but I’m sure I would be annoyed if I was the one suffering through it.
3
4 in 10 Americans can not cover a $400.00 emergency expense yet these people literally wrecked the inside of a brownstone and are causing chaos in the neighborhood just so they can have a swimming pool. I would bet my entire life savings that these people don't know which month is Autism Awareness Month.
19
They paid how much for that tiny space in between a bunch of buildings on a crowded street? Man, I really don't get NYC. You're packed like sardines and you pay an insane amount for it. Why? Having lived my life in a city that is spread out and looks more like the desert it sprang from than a congested metropolis I will never understand New Yorkers and their madcap lifestyle. Your newspaper is the best though.
7
When I used to walk my dog in the West Village it was bliss except for the entitled rich people which meant everyone. They would walk down the tiny sidewalks talking on their phone, cappucino in one hand and a dog on the other. They wouldn't acknowledge anyone else. It was them. They were the only importance. You could tell by their phone conversations which revolved around "I" all the time. Joggers had to have the requisite all black skin tight clothes or supposedly you weren't allowed on the street. Sad really. Such a nice neighborhood ruined by "people".
15
Its called freedom and economic growth. Deal with it.
4
Same story on 16th street between 8th and 9th aves. Street torn up with month upon month of construction noise and disruption for 1 very wealthy and connected townhouse owner's swimming pool installation. Repulsive noblesse oblige.
8
Sending this to my neighbor who complains about our music. Then I'm digging a 250 foot deep basement.
3
You were all not paying attention when this went through the approval processes?
News alert: when people pay some $30 million to snap up nice old brownstones and it becomes known - before approval - that they were going to "join" the two structures, it was screaming for someone from your block group to ask some questions.
Of course that's going to be some luxe B&B. Or, hyper expensive rentals for people who jet into the city time to time.
The age of the owners ought to tip you off about who will be using the pool.
Alas, your quiet hood has been had because you all were too busy to sort out what they really intended to do. Honest mistake with bad consequences.
I feel for you. I was born near there. My memories are of the brownstones in these streets full of life - of normal people with regular jobs. Families. Friends. Relatives. I left before all this hyper wealth took over.
Good luck. I now live out in the country. I cant imagine the noise.
11
Or you could move to peaceful Montana and spend 4 years listening to your new neighbors demolish existing houses, tear out century-old trees, and build a 12,000 square foot monstrosity that looks like a schizophrenic Comfort Inn - starting with stone cutting at 6:15 am every blessed morning.
Count your blessings that you live in a place that believes in regulation.
11
Underground recording studio? I would remind the neighbors, revenge is a dish best served cold. If I were one of the immediate neighbors, I’d get the business card of the jackhammer company and tell them to expect multiple calls over the coming years for some minor jackhammering jobs that could be needed on a moment’s notice.
11
NYC -- and the country -- needs better rich people.
22
The City should put people on the Preservation Commission who bother to read an application in it's entirety. If the drilling for a pool was not in the application the work should cease and the owners should be sued, for a lot of money. The City has failed it's duty of care
5
My gosh, I completely sympathize with the residents here. The owners of the new place should cover the costs of the neighborhood's suffering, it should be part of the cost of altering the neighborhood's infrastructure. The city should have factored this in when issuing the permits. And the whole mess is just a microcosm of what the wealthy do to the rest of us on a daily basis all over. We're supposed to just 'Take It'. What a sham.
8
This is such a first world problem. While I sympathize with the noise, only privilege put this issue in the NYTimes.
5
I suspect if the city suddenly found itself able to silence all construction noise of this sort, the cost of construction would decline 10%. Half the fun of building is the freedom of making a ruckus. Don’t believe me? Ask a four year old boy with a drum set if he likes to bang on the drums.
Because these people have real jobs and adult responsibilities, they can’t make the noise themselves. The most they can afford is to pay others to enjoy the pleasure of it while trying to capture the essence of it vicariously through them. Maybe they can sneak a few minutes to open a window to listen for the sound of quaintly pounding jack hammers whispering through a faint, cool breeze to some balcony, isolated, high up and blocks away. How sad. They are the real victims in this story. The haters ought to be ashamed!
These poor souls are deserving of sympathy, even pity, not contempt and condemnation. Please people, show some humanity.
3
My neighbor construction damaged my home 3 times. In fact, we had to move out from our home, due to the damages their construction caused. Furthermore, we had to deal with mice. Just like here, they were behind a trust, and we never saw them until their home was almost finished. When we finally were able to track them and asked them to please ask their contractor to be more careful they called the police to intimidate us. By the way, just like here, they have money but most importantly connection. The husband used to be a judge and he is extremely connected to other politicians.
The wife accused the mailmen, who is trusted in the neighborhood and who has been working in our block for over 10 years, of stealing her mail. Now, the mailmen has to be tracked like a criminal.
We never got an apology.
15
This is what happens when you have places where the population density is 16,000 people per sq mile.
Do you still think it is great?
3
This is why we left Cobble Hill for Jackson Heights. much happier- these rich entitled folks just can't stop spending money on their brownstones. Our whole block on Clinton Street was cut off for days when a crane was brought in to hoist an AC unit onto someones brownstone roof. The traffic was insane. The city needs to step in. it's just not a way to live.
10
I live in that area now, snooty, snobby area. More money than common sense
1
That's the crane operator's fault. It shouldn't have taken "days" to hoist an AC onto the roof.
Besides, lots of people have central air conditioning. I do not. Do you?
FYI, There is a company that specializes in AC for historic homes; the ducts are the size of tennis balls. If my house were on a nicer block and worth the outlay . . . .
2
I have always thought that hypocrisy should be considered one of the 'deadly sins' and the hypocrisy demonstrated by the contrast between Ms. Beauvoir's banal statement ("We believe all things...blah, blah, blah) and her actions and disregard of her neighbors (I loved the point-by-point rebuttal) may be the apogee of it.
7
And, you can bet dollars to doughnuts they're neoliberals.
[I'm a progressive liberal, so they would be my natural enemy.]
2
People that have money will not spend their summers in their pool in Manhattan. The owners will probably use the pool once in a blue moon. This kind of addition should of been voted down.
8
There is a legal answer to this. It is the law of nuisance. Rather than pouting about not being able to work from home, the lawyer mentioned in the piece should go to the office and draft a complaint forthwith.
It is remarkable to hear the pouting by the well-connected. These people can shut this down if they choose to do so. Cry me a river.
5
Great article well written. Similar to the McMansions devouring the farms near Atlanta. Then came the condos. Bad neighbors don't care who they drive out. The author nailed it.
6
Someone, or a group of someones, need to find out where the owners of this project live, or are staying, and send out a dedicated decibel driven monster to interrupt their relaxation at all hours of the day and night. Only then will they be sympathetic to the plight of the nearby tenants of their supergentrification construction zone.
4
I am far more disturbed by the bile towards "plutocrats" contained in this article than I am about someone with a lot of money wanting a basement swimming pool.
This is ideological hate speech. It is neither news nor truly a discussion of the public policy of zoning or construction permits.
4
Yeah. Let the super rich do what they want. If it hurts others, who cares. Great country.
6
"Iceberg Homes" are quite common where there are height restrictions. London had 4,650 of them between 2012 and 2017.
Here's what the bigger ones look like:
https://architizer.com/blog/inspiration/collections/londons-basement-extensions/
Most law schools have law reviews for top students and faculty. Ask a few law schools to assign this noise abatement issue for an article.
Make sure to offer input about not responding to zoning notifications.
4
the rich complaining about the richer.
5
A violinist and a professor are not “rich. “
7
I’ll bet these owners march to ban plastic bags and fight global warming; or at least do in their Instagram accounts. New age phonies who don’t care about their neighbors, the City or anything else.
4
Every single person mentioned in this article sits in the lap of privilege.
And now some noise. Living like real people.
3
"and fumes, and dust, "
I don't know about noise but are there not laws about fumes and dust.
Quartz dust is toxic.
3
This is simply what happens when you cram too many people into too little space. I would never live in New York City. I have visited there only twice. I have nothing against NYC itself, it is just too, too much. It is unnatural. It makes people crazy to live that close together, to have to listen to all that daily noise and be in constant competition for the smallest things. This is simply an extreme case of what is going on all the time, and what is spreading rapidly around the earth. This is all the madness of humanity. You have just uncovered a small sliver of it. It's not small to the people immediately affected, but it is a small sliver of the human madness that is going on out there and exponentially getting worse.
4
Violinist Fink moved and the miniature poodle Dorian Gray is heavily sedated.. Isn't this one of the 7 signs?
9
@Aaron best comment ever—haven’t laughed this hard in ages!
1
The neighborhood needs to hire a voodoo practitioner to put the hex on the entire job. Maybe a little of that “spirit medicine” the owners believe in will resolve the problem.
5
Very well-hidden at about the 1800 word mark of this 2600+ word piece is the fact that the article's writer -- a big name in the publishing industry -- is himself one of the complaining neighbors of the construction project.
Wouldn't journalistic honesty dictate that this fact be mentioned right at the top of the article? Or perhaps it should be simply labeled an op-ed.
In any event, I wonder if the noise, vibration and fumes from this project are any worse than at numerous other construction sites across the city -- or is it just that this particular, and extraordinarily wealthy, block is populated by people who have connections in the media world?
5
Agree that if author of the piece is directly affected by the construction that this should be in opinion section. Interestingly enough, Ethan who commented lives in the area states he was not aware the issue. So.....
1
My high school newspaper would have required better disclosure on the author’s part. This reads like click-bait from the NY Post.
2
Man's inhumanity to man: it never ceases to amaze me.
4
Apparently no religious practice protects a person from spiritual hypocrisy .
This from the priestess owner Mme Beauvoir; "We believe that all things around us have a soul, have a spirit... so the tree, the wind, the air, wood, stones, animals, people — all of us share this earth,” “And what’s difficult is when... man believes he’s above everything else and refuses to respect the environment around him.”
One would expect better from this cosmically connected priestess.
5
Just wait until "Keeping Up with the Joneses" kicks in.
1
I live nearby but was unaware of this horrible situation. I am available and ready to help take whatever action is necessary to protest this disgusting project. No way these plutocrats should be permitted to get away with this without pushback/punchback by concerned citizens. Please let me know how I can help in replies.
3
Stories like--so well-told and so infuriating--make me long for the Revolution or for a few entitled head to roll. And I am not normally a violent person.
2
Seems like a lot of mean, jealous people. I would rather the owner spend his money and create construction jobs than let it sit in a bank
Is this the only way to spend money?
2
@Zejee No but it is THEIR money
And they can’t think of others, their neighbors? Because they have money?
37 ft into bedrock.
What madness this?
What "neighbor" does this to neighbors?
Probably a 4th house for an oligarch.
Does he expect respect when he moves in?
I hope not.
7
If it were an "orphanage" instead of something so self-indulgent, they say it would be better. Ha! Better because they could have crushed it from the start.
5
Just because they can doesn't mean they should.
288
There were five construction projects within 1-1/2 blocks surrounding my home; the city approves building plans, issues permits, does inspections for code compliance but does not manage the noise, trash, illegal parking, trespassing, and damage to neighboring properties. The police become irritated with requests to enforce construction hours and a host of violations to our rights as homeowners. All the while my home incurred $20,000 in damage, surrounding neighbors were robbed, and one general contractor bullied and torment homeowners for sport. The only recourse is to sue...really? I have to let them damage my property and then wait for a court hearing 18 months based on the schedule? My city will always support construction because it equals increased tax revenue. Those of us who live through the carnage are considered "noise" to them. Council representatives ignore calls for help (and were outed from office recently). My state/city needs to implement better controls and complaint processes over general contractors as well as fine owners who fail to ensure that the neighbors' property rights are not violated.
5
Funny, I just had my second MRI. I told the tech I was not at all bothered by the incredible noise because I had lived in NYC years ago and it just sounded like a construction site. I lived in NY in the 70s and 80s in just the area written about. So sad. NYC sounds awful today.
2
Ms Beauvoir and Mr. Bastia get away with this because they can. It is our city government that accommodates and enables people like this. Investigate the agencies and individuals who issued the permits for this project.
If they want a pool that bad, move to the suburbs.
15
"Block organizers admit they napped as the project won approval ...."They just talked about putting two buildings together, and we just said O.K.”
One solution: a new law that applications must include anticipated decibel levels and their duration.
If the proposal had included "120 decibels, 8 hours/day for 6 months" it would not have sailed through, at least without mitigation.
To force accuracy, fines for violating the approved noise limits could be substantial---perhaps $1000/day for each person whose living quarters experience higher levels??
9
I hate to one up, but six months is nothing. We lived in a large apartment building across the inner courtyard of a school, where they were doing facade construction, and a whole host of other things. They had repeated permits to work from 4pm until midnight EVERY WEEKNIGHT FOR YEARS. Drilling, hammering, jackhammering, just plain yelling-- it went on nearly every weeknight, and some weekends, from 4pm until at least 10:30pm or so. Our bedrooms overlooked the area. We have a six-year-old. I'm telling you, it was crazy making. I put in 311 noise complaints, and contacted our attorney general several times to no avail. The city (buildings commission) seems to support construction, no matter who or what the situation. They do not care about quality of life. We lived like that for a year and a half because it was near our child's school and it was a good value place. But as soon as it made sense, we moved. Now we have construction with a HUGE building going up across from us, from 7pm until 6pm every day. They have violated permits and and all kinds of zoning laws, and yet, they build on. And when that building is completed, I'm sure another one will be just a block away. There is no peace in the city anymore. Creating an unlivable city is considered progress? I don't believe it. We can do better than this.
14
In the early 2000s, I was living in a Harlem apartment building that was beset by construction problems, seemingly morning, noon and night due to the building next door. The noise began at about 6:59 a.m. Monday-Friday and maybe 7:30 a.m. on the weekends. I once looked at my clock and saw that it was after 11 p.m. and construction noise could still be heard. Soon, we were experiencing problems with the boiler (cold showers, anyone?) and electricity, which affected the elevator, which was frequently out of service in a seven-story building that had a considerable amount of elderly residents. After ignored complaints, the tenants finally threatened a "Rent Strike" and some adjustments were finally made (including a looming rent increase, which caused me to move). Via Google maps, I checked out my old neighborhood and saw that there is an upscale building right next door to my former apartment building. Of course, in my building, we were not the well-heeled sort that could afford $400 Bose Noise Canceling headphones, so alas, there was no coverage of our plight in the New York Times. Oh well, what can one expect of New York City and The New York Times, right?
6
I will stop complaining about the noise if the new owners become a client of mine.
3
Toronto has over 95 cranes, more than big US cities combined but downtown, you can still find relative quiet on many low and middle income streets. I still remember how the noise in Manhattan permeated everything exception some of those brownstone blocks that people were lucky enough to live in. Try writing this article about the apartments at the corner of 7th and 14th street.
2
I have always found the newly rich to be in a open arms race with each other. This is what enabled Newport, Rhode Island, circa 1890's to grow from a modest farming community to a conspicuous display of wealth.
People, of all financial strata, tend to emulate and than do one better than their neighbor. Witness the trophy homes that popup next door to other trophy homes.
This is not a argument against wealth nor trophy homes. I would posit that human beings simply, for the most part, are not original thinkers and can only ape what the others are doing and do it on a more expensive scale.
8
The neighbors should seriously consider filing an appeal of their property taxes on the grounds that the noise, etc, of this nuisance has reduced the value of their properties. What would the sales price be with all the adjacent construction going on with potential buyers being fully aware of it? Surely it would be well less than the price without the nuisance.
If they win, the City can deal with the lost revenue. Perhaps that might get the City to do something to prevent future nuisances.
8
After reading this article as well as many of the associated comments, it is totally impossible for me to understand why any sane person would want to spend his/her life in such a situation.
I was last in NYC in 1973, and even then, as relatively quiet as it was, it was getting to be too much for me.
Of course, that's just my opinion, and everyone who lives there is entitled to theirs, but to me, it is absolute insanity.
6
My apartment faces an apartment complex across the street undergoing renovation. The foundation-shaking dynamite blasts began at 7am. Once those were completed, I awoke to the sound of jackhammering—interminable, continuous jackhammering. As work was done, the refuse bins would be filled, suddenly and loudly, by backhoes. This continued all day until the evening, for nearly two years.
These residents in the article at least have a break on the weekend. The construction firm in my case was issued "emergency" permits for every Saturday, and when they weren't issued these, they worked anyway. In fact they regularly violated agreed times, evidently doing whatever they pleased.
City inspectors, responding to the flood of 311 complaints from nearby residents, would show up days or weeks later during the middle of a weekday, miraculously find no violation, and leave. Very rarely I saw that small fines on the order of a speeding ticket were issued. Meanwhile, my only day of guaranteed freedom from the aural assault was Sunday.
They are finally done with exterior work now, but not without one final hour of jackhammering, for old time's sake, at 10:30pm.
11
Why isn't noise pollution, which this certainly is, be considered as toxic as if the builders polluted the water or air? That is the underlying issue.
20
It is not the top 1%, it is the top 20%. There is now more of them making the rules.
3
When I saw the headline I imagined the new owners were replicating a common practice in London, which is to install what they call cellars, under an existing house. This is a long and expensive process, even by the standards of one of the most expensive real estate markets on the planet.
The London city regulators check what is going on. While they regularly (and as far as I can tell often against the wishes of the neighbors) approve these “renovations” they also make sure that the original facades remain more or less intact.
At that point I had little sympathy for the neighbors, who gave the appearance of NIMBY whiners. However, there is more to the story.
About 10 lines in it became clear that the new owners here have retained just enough of the former facade to skate past the preservation laws, and have essentially demolished all of the pre-existing houses. While this may not meet the definition of criminal fraud, defrauding the city was clearly the intent.
Doubtless, when the excavation is completed, they will be traipsing over to the building permit office looking to construct something much more massive than what was there before.
11
Once again the rich are socialists when it comes to negative externalities. We all must share in it. Permit costs should require the rich to internalize all foreseeable costs and impositions on neighbors. Not just try to minimize those costs.
15
Or this rich couple could have gotten an exclusive club membership, minutes away and taken the short cab ride there for the 2x a year swim they probably require.
I lived next door to someone in Key West (briefly) who built an in ground pool at considerable expense when the excellent community, MLK pool, was available for free, after a 10 minute car ride. Yeah, the smell of diesel fumes in the morning! The irony is that the people who really love to swim go to a community pool that typically is free or inexpensive...at least mine is, with Medicare. But...we must all kowtow to the uber-wealthy. It's the American way.
15
I am surprised that New York doesn't have a general noise ordinance that requires an exception when exceeding maximum noise levels at adjoining facades or when exceeding daily noise budgets when excess noise is permitted. Or are there but no violations?
21
I live in a rural area and recently had fiber broadband installed. The company needed to install a pole to get the cable across the roadway opposite the house. The spot they chose was solid hard granite all the way down. They used a huge pneumatic drill that swung on an arm from a huge truck; that drill was extremely loud and the bit was huge - just wider than the base of the standard wood "telegraph" pole. But it took about five minutes to bore down about 2 meters making a huge cloud of dust on the way. If a similar (customized) system were used on W69th St it would have done the bulk of that "dig" in a week. They would have needed a capture/contain-and-filtering system to deal with the dust - this drill "powdered" the granite as it drilled. Jus' sayin'.
5
I'm sympathetic to the plight of the residents of this neighborhood. It's hard to believe that zoning restrictions, quality-of-life ordinances and landmark-preservation statutes failed to prevent, in this case, what common decency would not. I just wanted to sound a note of caution, however, to those hapless residents who are entertaining notions of fleeing the city for what they imagine may be a better quality of life in the country. I am a native New Yorker who left the city for peace and quiet and fresh air. I bought a house in the Town of Binghamton, just beyond the City of Binghamton's borders. It turned out that one of the properties just across the street from me is owned by a local developer. In order to save money on dumping fees for his projects, he decided to dump "fill" behind his house. For three years, there was a steady stream of dump trucks, every day when the weather was nice. Shortly after that ended, my road was overrun by tanker trucks carrying silica for fracking in Pennsylvania, a couple miles from here. Add to this the obnoxious roar of ATVs and motorcycles whenever it's nice out, and soon one finds oneself longing for the white-noise din of city life. Want fresh air? Forget about it: almost everyone here is constantly burning leaves, brush, and garbage. The air quality was better in Manhattan when I lived there. My point is that what Mr. Margolick describes here is not, unfortunately, unique to the city. Where people are, anti-social behavior is.
29
There's no such thing as bad publicity. I listened to Malou Beauvoir's music as a result of the article. She is a wonderful and unique singer.
4
This is happening in downtown Brooklyn also. Money has totally destroyed the character of many buildings and the social fabric itself. Regular middle class families feel like strangers in their own neighborhood. This is what the greedy developers wanted and the city council let it all happen and so far two mayors. Demonize the car finally, it’s important that the roads are clear so the elite can citi bike from their 10 mil homes.
8
I scratch my head when I people call cycling elitist. You don't have to be rich to own a bike or to ride Citibikes. It is one of the most egalitarian modes of transportation. Healthy and non-polluting too. Billionaires on bikes are not destroying the city.
12
@Sophocles
At this point in NYC, as housing is so expensive and regular people are forced out, the cyclists tend to be more affluent and younger - people who can afford to live just a short bike ride to work in Manhattan or Brooklyn.
(Ironically - in my building, the fervent cyclists are big users of ecommerce delivery- nearly daily deliveries of Amazon, Fresh Direct etc. which means vehicle use)
7
A 10X60 pool is not what you would call a swimming pool. Rather, it is a lap pool. It is not a place to play. It is a place to work out. The owner may have a special need for the pool. Swimming is low-impact exercise and may be the only exercise the owner can do. My brother took to a lap pool when he badly injured his hip.
Maybe there will be marble columns, as stated, but that makes little sense. People work out in a lap pool and seldom hang around. You see these pools in fitness clubs, and some hotels. They are never ornate. It is possible, for sure, that there are reasonable reasons the owner is building this pool. Didn't anybody think of that?
2
Wait are you saying a billionaire can’t make it to a club that has a pool? This is the cheaper option?
22
@Wendy
They will get a huge tax deduction for installing the pool by getting a medical note of back pain.
5
Won't anyone think of the millionaires?
2
The city ought to pass legislation making the owners of such construction liable for all inconvenience they cause: alternate housing for those who are elderly or ill, or work at home; medical bills; care for distressed animals.
If the mega rich can afford there noisy palaces, they surely have the resources to care for all those whose lives are so seriously disrupted.
25
I often wonder why NYC does not do more to limit noise pollution, now that it is common knowledge that too much noise can negatively affect health. How hard would it be to silence ice cream trucks, or to require mufflers on motorcycles, or to limit or prevent jackhammering on a residential block? Not hard at all.
15
I have a sub contractor for the department of transportation digging up Avenue C every day for months and months now, starting sometimes at 6:30-7:00 in the morning, including Saturdays and Sundays, any holiday included. Yes, someone contracted by the City of New York was drilling on MLK Day as well.
7
I live on 13th street in the East Village. Several years ago, I wealthy couple bought two adjoining brownstones next to my building. I guess it wasn't enough space for a single family, because they then added on to the backs of the buildings, which expanded them right past my windows. The noise was bad, but even worse is the wall that is now about 4 and a half feet from windows that used to let in lots of sunshine. Efforts to meet with them were answered with a form letter from their architect.
I truly don't care about how much they have, but I do care about what they took from me and my neighbors. Having the financial means to be extravagant does not absolve someone of unkindness and/or having a blatant disregard for anyone else around them. Maybe you take a little less for the sake of those around you. Maybe you don't dig through solid stone so you can have a swimming pool in your Manhattan apartment. Maybe you settle for a little less square footage so your neighbors can keep their windows. It's really just good ol' "Do unto others" thinking. And it belongs in all neighborhoods.
53
Sounds like the dreaded socialism to me.
1
If people have $100 million to renovate a home that is predicted to not be finished for three years, they should be able to afford the contractor increasing the number of workers on site to reduce the completion time.
I am a nurse and when I worked in peri-operative services, emergency surgeries or complex cases were quickly prepped in pre-op by two or more nurses collaborating (even if we had other non-urgent patients to also prep). The operating room staff also increased, as did the number of nurses initially assisting the patient in recovery room, all to reduce delay in care.
On a side note, regarding construction delays, on my drive to work for 10 or 12 hour shifts, I often pass road crews of men standing around while a few are repairing a small section of asphalt or digging a trench. These areas are left unfinished for days or longer, blocked by pylons and restricting traffic flow. Co-worker nurses and I joke that if nurses were temporarily employed as road crews, within 12 hours we would have those sections of asphalt repaired, the lane open with the division line freshly painted, and perhaps new landscaping planted along the curbs as a finishing touch.
29
This is one of the reason my wife and I sold our place in London. A renovation across the street has been going on for two years. The building has ceased, but only because a neighbor is taking them to court for code violations. Building here also starts at 8:00 AM, but workers arrive much earlier. I called them my Eastern European alarm clock. Nice guys, I got to know them quite well. The neighbors who own the place remain ghosts.
15
This issue speaks loudly to me, pun intended. I live in Seattle, Wa, which is a great city to raise a family. Unless that is if you live next door to a neighbor who is on their 15th year of self-renovation toward achieving an unfitting 4,000 sq.ft. single family home amidst the rest of the area with modest 1-2k sq ft homes, most of which with growing children. My husband and I had just married when we moved in. When I became pregnant, said neighbor was about six months in to digging his basement out himself with a bucket and shovel. At that point he told us he’d be finished before our son arrived. Needless to say, our son is now 13 and has endured years on end, without cease of jackhammers, bulldozers, heavy equipment, grinders, scaffolding, bricklayers and the lovely port o potty he planted in front of my front door Thanksgiving 5 years ago, which is still there. This situation has caused marriage strain, drowned out family dinners, no possible naps when the children were small and a very frustrated neighborhood. When I share my story, the crazy part is that most people have one of their own to share. This is simply not right and since there are no laws to protect ordinary citizens from the length or strain of these projects, things need to change. People, speak up to your city councils and leaders and just maybe we can be heard. It is certainly worth a movement to protect people’s rights to heath and peace in their own homes.
19
This story makes me so happy! Gentrification happens everywhere.
5
For heaven's sake, it's not "gentrification"; it's a renovation.
7
I am a middle class person who bought a house in Portland five years ago. About 18 months ago my elderly neighbor died. His daughters wanted to sell his house quickly, so they accepted a low cash offer. It turns out it was some rich people buying their lazy 30-something unemployed son a house. He stays up all night with bright lights on in his back yard, smokes outside our bedroom window at night, and has a loud (with amp) band practice 2-3 times/week. He seems bipolar.
Rich people with the ‘freedom’ to buy whatever they want are destroying other people’s lives all over the country.
32
No, this particular rich couple's son is an inconsiderate lout.
In Flatbush, my neighborhood, there are many inconsiderate, noise-producing louts who hang out on street corners and stroll the streets wafting a noxious marijuana stench as they go.
They are not rich.
People who routinely destroy the fabric of our city come in all creeds, colors, and socioeconomic strata.
5
No matter how atrocious the behavior of these owners (and the regulators who permit it), I think the fact that the author lives in the neighborhood and is personally annoyed disqualifies him from writing the article. How can he report objectively?
17
By that logic, which I don’t necessarily disagree with, why do we look to US news papers for our national news when we could read the foreign reporting of news in the states?
23
@Amanda I also frankly don't understand what does being a vodou priestess has to do with anything in the story. Construction happens everywhere and those ppl seem as bothered by the noise as they are about accepting foreigners in their neighborhood. Bizarre article to say the least! Borderline! There are more important stories.
By abstracting from his mere feelings and relying on facts and corroborating views. Otherwise, what hope is there for any of us?
1
The net worth of the owners of any of the innumerable, unavoidable construction sites in Manhattan is beside the point. The root problem is that, for a variety of reasons, quality of life is just not something people care about in New York.
Why should thundering garbage trucks come through out streets to collect trash at 3AM? Why is inconsiderate – or even reckless – driving tolerated as normal or inevitable? Why must we accept that any kind of construction should be done with complete disregard for its effect on those who live or work nearby?
These are not unavoidable trade offs in the service of a greater municipal good. The idea that garbage cannot possibly be collected, or a hole cannot possibly be dug without cachophonous noise and inconvenience to all nearby is false.
The real problem is that we New Yorkers cannot be bothered to prioritize our own best interests and to communicate those priorities to our elected representatives.
16
@BWW
Would that it were so simple! New Yorkers are super loud about their desires; their elected and unelected officials however are beholden to developers' and disposal companies' cash... so unchecked construction and 3 am garbage trucks are not going away anytime soon.
7
@BWW
Net worth is all this is about. Noise pollution, particulate pollution are citywide problems that go unnoticed because people without wealth are too busy working to fight the situation.
Lots and lots of garbage to be collected in a city of many millions.
It can't be done in just a few hours.
These guys have a hard job. And yes, their trucks are noisy.
The noise is the sound of men at work.
wait until he moves in for what, a few weeks per year, and has a chauffeured mercedes s series constantly parked outside, waiting for his highness to step out so he can go downtown for dinner.
20
Cruel, selfish, self-absorbed. They'll no doubt invite local public school students to swim during the day and host block parties! One quote says they are lovely people. If you get everything you want no matter the cost to others what reason is there to be unpleasant? They'll probably put it on the market three years after moving in.
24
Is this a joke? If they just pool parties for local kids, are they selfish?
But yes, they will turn over this house pronto.
1
@Geraldine Conrad You seem to know them.
NYC is interesting because of its interesting inhabitants. The city is slowly but surely being ruined by the uninteresting rich. Thank God you dodged the bullet of Amazon. I wish you luck in dealing with this terrible neighbor who is probably just one example of growing trend.
19
So the pool will be nearly twice the size of my apartment. That’s cute.
18
Ego Maniacs that will probably use the pool 5X at most !
7
Y'all live in an insufferable city.
8
and you're reading our paper
2
FYI trazodone is an antidepressant not a “tranquilizer.”
1
Trazadone is also commonly prescribed as a sleep aid. So, it has tranquilizing effects.
5
Question: what kind of idiot would build an underground pool six blocks from the West Side Y?
27
Outrageous
8
What a story. I'm so happy I don't live in NYC.
Here's Malou Beauvoir's music, you can listen. She's got a great voice. I may buy her CD.
I hope she throws a big party for all these neighbors. This couple owes them something nice for making their lives a living hell.
https://www.maloubeauvoir.com/musicmaloubeauvoir
3
Wow. Not just a nice voice. Fabulous period. Thanks.
This is like my block on East 78th Street where someone described as "Bloomberg's accountant" has been building his dream house for 5 years. The year was trying to put together two extant townhouses for which permission was not granted. Then both were torn down, three basement blasted out (another 2 years) for a pool etc, and construction has been going on for another 2. Countless block closures for cranes etc and the NOISE the DUST!!! not to mention the marajuana fumes from the workers. It is still under wraps. The fact a 205 foot building is now going up next door (three more buildings bought and pulled down!) promises another 3+ years of pain for the block: at least "Bloomberg's accountant" will come to understand what he has made his neighbors endure? We had three building across the street turned into posh 151 before that for 3 years. I wish there were a way to limit the constriction any block must endure!
8
Two things:
First, people who are rich, French, and live in Brussels often do so not to pay taxes, so this may already give clues as to the future - as well as the present, the common good may well be the least of their worries.
Secondly, when we lived in Switzerland we found out the hard way that the Swiss have wonderful laws: as heavy renovations were undertaken in an adjacent semi- detached home - it was hell, I really feel for the New Yorkers in this story, we asked for compensation and did obtain about two months' rent for one year of extensive remodeling. The law considers that the property you are renting loses value when noise, dust, etc, caused by roadwork or construction happens nearby. I suppose that in turn landlords ask the builders for compensation too, which must act as a deterrent, if you are not too rich.
18
Extended jackhammering in the vicinity is a special kind of hell that I don’t think people can truly understand until they’ve endured it firsthand. A year ago I’d have little sympathy for these folks but after enduring the Granny Flat from Hell drilled into stone on our hillside, I get what they mean. It’s constant, hairpin, soul-cleaving aggravation and for what? Stupid vanity projects.
25
Interesting that the owners are French. In their country, this type of "renovation" would never be allowed in a historic neighborhood. I do wonder if the plan is to make it surreptitiously into a boutique hotel; otherwise why would someone go to all this bother and expense. Or maybe this is just conspicuous consumption run amuck.
26
I wish you were right about France. My father, a tenant fur 40 years in a historic Paris neighborhood, lost a court battle to get compensation when rich relatives of the Emir of Qatar bought a 40,000 sq ft building to turn it into a private residence. Unendfing drilling, cutting off utilities, removing the elevator so the only access was a 6 floor walk. According to the court, my father deserved no compensation. He tried to fight and was faced with new owners with bottomless funds and zero compassion for an octogenarian. And this was on only ONE of the many residences owned by this family in the city. Money talks.
11
Unbelievable. How can NYC allow this to happen? Ordinances, codes? People's lives are being ruined.
What thoughtless owners. No doubt they will be just as unconcerned about others when - or if - they ever move in.
22
the rich run rampant and the rest of us have to deal with it?
last time I checked the "rich" in NYC pay 82% of the taxes.
let's count our blessings that they are here, carrying the rest of us who have our hands out
3
Even if the rich paid ALL the taxes they would still need the rest of us to do the actual work. But, regardless, the article is not critical of rich people. It’s critical of the laws, which are meant to be for everyone’s benefit. No one can live with constant noise, not even the rich.
17
The rich pay the majority of taxes because they hoard the majority of the money. Tax revenue would be the same if the workers were paid more and the rich took less. This feudal system where we tenant farming serfs should be grateful to our lords in their brownstone castles on the hill isn't the only way things could be.
8
@Joe Yoh Hey man, I'd gladly pay more taxes if the rich will kindly let go of some of their money. Was life so terrible 30 years ago when the rich were taxed a bit more? Are the tax breaks for the rich really doing ANYONE any good, except maybe the heirs of the rich?
4
I don't understand this. I have enough difficulty putting a bay window in my own kitchen after going through 20 appeals with my local zoning board. Is there not any system in place in New York City where someone can deem that this is simply not allowed?
18
Living in an independent house seems much easier. What we do when buying a house is to look into "three homes across the street and two neighbors on both sides." If even one of them looks a bit strange, just give it up. This rule is said to work surprisingly well as it did for me some 40 years back.
3
It sounds someone who might stand up to NY developers might have a good platform to run for mayor / governor.
17
@JCAZ
There isn't a politician in NYS from Not Mario Cuomo on down who isn't in the pockets of the real estate industry, including all those from Upstate NY who really could not care less about NYC. What's even more appalling, is that they can all be bought for a few thousand dollars each, while the real estate goniffs stand to reap billions based upon their votes. Dumb and crooked, not a way to go through life.
9
AOC won in C.D. 14 by a landslide because she is not in the pockets of Big Real Estate, unlike Joe Crowley.
Mario Cuomo?
For over 4 years on 76th Street, we endured the worst sort of noise assault from those next to us who were renovating a brownstone. Over 2 years of jackhammering and after that a solid year of drilling. They would run to the back of the building and start drilling immediately at 8am on the other side of the brick wall from our bedroom. When you work at home or at night and have to sleep in the morning this kind of torture is complete. The owners next door had no interest in the lives of others. They several times violated the laws and were shut down. They had a dumpster out front that took up 2 parking spaces for OVER 4 years. These people had no respect or concern about their neighbors and yet they expected that from THEIR neighbors. They were among the most reprehensible people I have ever known.
37
With all that money and several floors available you would think they could build both pool and theater above ground. Consider the Marina Sands Hotel in Singapore with its rooftop infinity pool !
5
@ml
Er...Singapore is hot and humid, NYC is freezing half the year...that’s why they are building underground to manage the water temperature and swim indoors whenever they want. Those inconsiderate people.
1
I'm coming on to post a comment so that our numbers climb above 1000. The extravagant, wasteful and thoughtless spending of the super rich is one side of our lopsided economy, the other side reveals the ways our billionaires came by their wealth. It exposes how capitalism becomes autocracy and democracy becomes larceny; neighborhoods become gated communities and main streets become empty streets. Why continue, there are so many examples of the rigged and rotten results of the great gulf between regular folks and the .01 %, most of whom get away with paying little or no taxes at all. Our rotten president won't show his taxes and his blind sheep cheer him on. I haven't haven't had the misfortune of living near a billionaire tearing up the streets, but I gag at ads for handbags on sale for $3,460 and sheets sets for $2,700.
41
What a great publicity for these owners ! Now everyone in the world knows they have a pool ! Guess what - thanks to the neighbors their house price just jumped !
I can see their home become part of “Real Estate shows” trying to sell it for god knows how much more !
Sorry for the neighbors !
4
The class envy and snide remarks is just too funny. A neighborhood group asleep gets awakened by progress and now wants to turn back the clock. Maybe is these unengaged people were taxed at a higher rate they would care more about public policy. Even when the "1%" is carrying 75% of the tax burden, these losers continue to complain. I have no sympathy.
3
Did anyone ask for sympathy? Sounds like the neighbors are actually engaged enough to be working to change the laws not just for themselves but for future construction prohects. That sounds to me like real progress. Your progress is gutting two brownstones.
18
@Mark Singleton
Paying more taxes should not make one more inhumane nor have a superiority complex. It’s just pure decency.
9
Yeah if you have money you are entitled to make life miserable for your neighbors. Isn’t capitalism grand?!
2
So tired of reading about "billionaire hedge fund managers" that I've never heard of before.
How many can there be?
7
@Robert James
How many can there be?
2...as in 2 many.
2
I had to stop reading. Once again the nytimes is in conflict with the real. Politically potent holidays. Indeed how clever. MLK's birthday was never a holiday for me. About the time it was created we had about 12 paid holidays a year but to show you ridiculously big I mean potent I was we lost about half of them.
The real politically potent in nyc the civil servants get off on MLK day. the rest of us worked.
Great article. New York Times: Please bring back real, local reporting about New York, your paper's home town. Where did the local news section disappear to?
23
This is disgusting. These owners should be ashamed of themselves.
They are prime examples of the « out of balance » situation she described on her voodoo website. In that religion, everything in the world is connected. Does this woman, espousing that religion, image she is NOT connected? Does her religion exempt rich people from the consequences of their actions? I don’t think so. Does she?
17
Now THIS IS being an elite. Cry me a river.
2
OMG, the people living in $10 million flats are suffering. What shalt we do?
If you build an orphanage on the block they would complain it is dropping their property value and their children might mix with those undesired children. If you build a $100 million townhouse on the block that would raise their property value they complain about living next to someone wealthier. There is no pleasing this group of tiny capitalist. They shun the middle class but don’t want to see people more successful than themselves.
11
You must not have read the article. The unhappy people interviewed are renters. They are not benefiting from property values.
27
You misread something. The article mentioned an entire brownstone was sold for 10 or 11 million dollars. That’s potentially 10 apartments for middle class renters.
4
@TopOfTheHill
Paying $800 for apartment that would fetch $6500/month on the market. I’d say they are benefiting from increase in property value. You would say the value of the property do not affect them but think of it this way, if the market price drop down to $500/month, would they not call the landlord and negotiate a lower rent?
@Waste
Middle class don’t rent $1 million apartments. You’d need combined family income at $250,000 to afford rent at $6000/month
1
Why I would never live in NYC: Noise.
7
And his name?
Bastid.
You can't make this up.
24
HA, exactly what I thought. That BASTID.
Hey ! you live in Manhattan. Soak it in. If you need some quiet and a life, live elsewhere.
7
@Plato
Have some sympathy, we are talking extreme noise, ghost owners, laws skewed towards developers, unenforced noise and potential other violations, and lack of basic decency. How can they not take actions to minimize noise?
13
Hey @Plato not all New Yorkers are planted here from some far-off city for a job or school and could care less to move. Some of us were born here, have lived here for generations too. Our city and its noises are all in a day's work but decency and consideration for your neighbors is a universal issue...even in CT. Or no?
4
Hey you! Yes you. Thanks for the advice.
1
Jimmy Page going through same thing, read article https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6126979/X-Factor-judge-Robbie-Williams-ignites-bitter-feud-neighbour-Jimmy-Page-mega-mansion.html
People need to consider their impact on their surroundings. They should have to get a community consensus before landscape stripping and invasive renovations take place.
6
@eliz
I saw this article in the BBC.
Thanks.
Wondering where the mayor comes down on this. Oh wait I think I know in the pocket of the real estate developers . I'm going to research if they are contributors.
8
I just came back from a third world country where people don't have enough to eat. I have no sympathy for this nonsense.
14
And lucky for you you get to have peace and quiet now that you are back home. Good for you.
Another rich old white guy who made a fortune off of the earth's energy, marries a much younger woman who wants to be a recording star but lacks the talent. Where have we seen these tired self indulgent story lines before. Maybe make that your broadway play?
12
Disgraceful consumption.
Eat the rich.
19
@Matt A
Finally.
That sound? It's the world's smallest violin, on my shoulder, playing a maudlin song of sympathy. %1 World Problems. Millionaire$ complaining about the 10millionaire$ "there goes the neighborhood". If you live in one of the highest population density centers in the world, that continually keeps adding stacks of people upon people every year, despite outrageous property prices, I would temper my expectations about what is considered a "quiet neighborhood". I hear swimming laps is a good way to alleviate stress
3
A violinist and a professor are millionaires? Who knew.
Has anyone questioned the pain and suffering of the workers...who had to hand over all their wealth to make this guy rich in the first place?
Oh, yeah, and the construction workers who have to put up with their own cacophony made worse by all the hard concrete walls and rock below them.
5
Oh no! God save the New York Times writer who prefers silence and Tamar Gongadze "who has been given leave by her law firm to work from home but noise outside her balcony makes it impossible." A suggestion: why not work at your office if jackhammers want to toil alongside you each morning?
To "the neighbors whose lives have been upended over the past year — by the noise, and vibrations, and fumes, and dust, and traffic, and wires, and Port-a-Potties, and rats —" welcome to city living as the rest of us largely experience it. Feel grateful you ever considered your block quiet and residential. While living in Crown Heights for three years I was woken up nearly every night by domestic violence unfolding above me. Cops get called and cops leave. Just another Tuesday at 3am where friction is felt far beyond the offending 400 sq ft rental.
Cities are loud. What is truly off putting is that only the comfortably upper class -- who are feeling disregarded by the ultra rich -- get to make real, enduring noise about their predicament that is heard around the world, printed at feature story length in the leading national newspaper.
PS: A tip for dealing with rats. Get a pellet gun, a six pack, and a blog. That's really where this deep and annoying pool of self pity belongs.
5
@Margaret
You speak the truth.
They didn't invite you to Le Cirque! What absolute animals!
12
Too late to stop the building permit.
BUT the neighbors should keep an eye on the real estate taxes for this building. Will they reflect the investment of $100 million, or only an assessed value like the old buildings next door?
Go to
https://a836-pts-access.nyc.gov/care/search/commonsearch.aspx?mode=persprop
The "Block and Lot" is Manhattan, Block: 1121 Lot: 55
Also, to see all mortgages and deeds, go to
https://a836-acris.nyc.gov/DS/DocumentSearch/BBL
and enter Manhattan, Block: 1121 Lot: 55
16
May we please, please, please eat the rich?
15
The comments linking this to Trump might remember what he did to Bonwit Teller... vile follows vile.
10
@Religionistherootofallevil. I loved Bonwit Teller!!
I would bet they virtually never use the pool.
15
I'm shocked you wrote this whole piece but nobody took a microphone down there to record it!
7
The rich do not care.
8
Former NYer here-
Come to Boston!
Wait... on second thought, don't!
Rich white people problems. Oy vay.
3
Big deal ! This is an opportunity for neighbours to learn about equanimity and the power of concentration. Equanimity allows you to smoothly flow through the day without disturbance. Concentration allows you to focus on something of your choice regardless of what may be happening around you. in other words learn and practice self knowledge and self control.
Last but not least check this out
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.brickunderground.com/live/why-I-love-noise-NYC-second-avenue-building%3famp
1
Mindful consumerism? Um Bastid and Beauvoir , Narcissus called -wants the flower back. Oh wait, you tore it up and dumped it already.
2
Your right to swing your fist ends where your neighbor's nose begins, Pierre.
4
I'm hoping this neighborhood wakes up the city to make some zoning laws about digging down. I wouldn't want to be the neighbors with a hole next to my foundation.
7
London circa 2001
2
Would they be allowed to do this in one of the lovely residential sections of Paris?
I have a growing impression that America is turning into the wild west with no limits, especially if you are rich. Rules and laws for city and town boards, the college admissions process, and even security clearance in the White House are for the little people. Rich people need not abide.
Money talks far more than it used to in our society, and I hate to tell these rules-are-for-other-people wealthy arrogant ones, but there is such a thing as citizenship in every society.
The time is long overdue to rediscover it. It is based on the Enlightenment concept of the social contract and revolves around not only rights but also responsibilities, duty and obligation as a citizen. Oooh, how the rich hate that or simply believe such concepts do not apply to them personally.
13
I would have thought the same about Paris until my father's apartment building in the 7th was turned in a 40,000 sq ft private residence by the Qatari royal family. My dad lost in the courts and was kicked out after 40 years of being a tenant. Paris is just like every where else. Money and power talk.
7
Quit gripping and be thankful that plutocrats want to live here and invest here. They provide jobs, pay high taxes and ultimately keep the city alive and thriving. A little temporary noise and disruption is a small price to pay.
3
If one wishes to grovel at the feet of the ultra rich, be our guest.
The rest of us will choose to maintain person dignity and a sense of community obligation.
23
@Allen LOL you think people who treat others this way pay taxes? That's truly rich.
18
@Allen
tired of superheroes remodeling buildings in NYC. Thor must pay pied-a-terre tax (not resident of planet). Batmobile takes up TWO spots on street and scorches other cars.
2
I live in the Flatbush section of Midwood DEEP in Brooklyn; a diverse working class community about 1 hour from Manhattan on those rarer and rarer occasions when the subways are actually running on schedule. New apartment buildings are popping up like weeds with 500 sq. ft. studio apartments starting in the $400K range. It is totally absurd but they will quickly sell to the young gentrifiers whose parents can front the down payment. A neighborhood graffiti artist has been spraying the bases of lampposts with the phrase “THE RICH KILLD NEW YORK.” It’s true. New York is quickly becoming an impossible, out-of-reach city for the working and middle class people who built it.
30
This is everywhere I have lived in Mexico. There are so very many different ways to make noise with concrete.
8
NYC is a noisy city. I’ve lived in a few places undergoing the required every-five-year NYC Facade Inspection (FISP, formerly Local Law 11), with non-stop wall drilling, all day long, and each inspection lasting over a year.So I’m not sure the neighbors non-stop construction really makes it much worse. Best bet is to move somewhere quieter.
1
The Mayor Of NYC, NYCity Council, Department of Buildings, Department of Transportation and The Department, Department of Environmental Protection need to focus on these quality of life issues for NYC residents. Update the laws and enforce them.
19
Years ago, my aunt and uncle had a house in Seaview on Fire Island. Next door was a house that day trippers would rent. One night, the day trippers had a long loud party, and despite my aunt's request to keep the noise down, the day trippers refused. My aunt came up with a plan. She recorded the noise, and then early the next day when the day trippers were sleeping, she turned the recording up full blast facing their house. Residents near this building might consider doing the same to the new "lovely' people who own this house once they move in.
36
@June Yokell It's a great idea -- but you just know these owners will have triple-glazed windows and won't hear a thing. The obscenely rich don't have to deal with the world the way the rest of us do.
19
@June Yokell Brilliant!
Curious that some residents think (worry) that it might become a hotel...don't they have zoning in residential areas of NY?
Kind of would explain the whole pool thing though...
7
I lived through the second avenue subway construction. Suffice it to say, it was excruciating, loud and dirty but at least I now get to ride the Q and my apartment has gone up in value. I think this entire block has earned pool rights for life though I hardly think that they will ever be invited over.
14
@George I also lived through the second avenue subway construction. As you know, it was much worse than the project on west 69th since the MTA did not view itself as bound by laws that limit the times of the day during which construction could take place.
2
@George BINGO! George wins the prize for correct foreseeing of the no-pool-party-in-our-futures. PS: I am the husband of the "elderly man" who endured this through his last days. We also lived through other brownstone renovations on our block, but this current one dwarfs the effects the other projects had on our communal lives hands-down!
6
When the super-rich make the mistake of inconveniencing the merely rich they had better be careful that none of them write for or have friends who write for the New York Times.
How many poor and working class people in this city routinely endure months of deafening construction noise, diesel fumes and all the rest with not even the slightest notice by the Gray Lady?
I'm quite sympathetic to the plight of the denizens of West 69th Street, and have no doubt that every bit of the high dudgeon expressed here is deeply and sincerely felt. Such situations can cause the gentlest spirits to contemplate murder. Its hard not to feel some satisfaction in seeing the consequences of the inconsideration of the perversely privileged cataloged in such detail. And yet I can't shake the feeling that this level of public pleading is a service that the Times does not make available to the residents of this city on genuinely equal opportunity basis.
There are a lot of people being ground down and stripped of their dignity in this city who don't have a fraction of the cultural capital concentrated in the West 69th Street Block Association but who could really use a a tribune of this sort.
49
My sentiment exactly.
2
@Christopher
Hopefully it will trickle-down....?
Why anyone would want to live in NYC any more is well beyond me. I lived there in the early 80s, before gentrification, and it was vibrant, fun, and real. Now it's just sterile, self-conscious, corporate, and thoroughly blah, containing far too many boring people who have more money than sense. (What happened to CBGB basically sums up what has happened to the entire city.) What do people get in return, nowadays, for the noise, pollution, crowds, dirt, etc.? The NYC they think they live in has long gone.
14
@EB No, it's still pretty cool. I know which NYC I live in, and I have thought about leaving it - but I have never found a place that suits me better. I am glad your new place suits you, but different strokes for different folks!
8
@EB
Blech...the New York of the 80s is long dead. Good riddance.
Ms. Beauvoir's quote: “And what’s difficult is when things get knocked out of balance because man believes he’s above everything else and refuses to respect the environment around him.”
This is indeed rich, coming from an obscenely wealthy woman who with her husband is causing so much mayhem in this neighborhood. Perhaps knocking things out of balance doesn't matter, when one has oceans of money. The money certainly hasn't helped her in the self-awareness department.
26
White Suburban Boomers killed NYC in the 1980s, coming here and expecting to maintain the same level of materialistic consumer car culture by which they were raised in suburbia.
7
"White suburban boomers" ruined New York City?
I don't even know what that means.
And who ruined New York City in the 1970s and 1980s?
New York City is always being "ruined" by someone, but for many of us it is our home no matter who's ruining it. There is enough blame to go around.
7
Sounds like a boutique hotel in the making.
7
Ms. Brown should try experimenting with giving a CBD alternative to Dorian, or at least consult her veterinarian about it ...Trazadone 3x/day can't be healthy for any living creature no matter what the decibels.
4
I know this house firsthand. An elderly relative has lived across the street for 70 years and is very distressed. She is always coughing, due to the dust.
Inconspicuous consumption? Another example of how the Uber-wealthy do whatever they want, because they can, say they care...but don't, and everyone else suffers.
Is it really necessary to have a swimming pool in one's basement?
At the cost of the neighborhood's well-being? Disgusting.
59
@Philly girl. Sadder still, that our elected officials ALLOW the Uber-rich to do anything, while we commoners must play by the rules and endure the vagaries and whims of those with big money. I blame the government for allowing this spectacle (because of money) more than the inconsiderate jerks building it. We have laws because people don’t always “do the right thing” by others, caring first for themselves.
14
New York is going through its Ancient Rome Phase. We all know what comes after that.
27
@Tony Francis If NYC is ancient Rome, what will become Constantinople? Jersey City?
Another grand example of the 10% who are super rich having absolute disregard for the other 90% of the world. Each day I hope and pray for a rising revolution against the 10%.
22
It's more like the .01%... and the 99.9%
1
It may be possible to substitute the diesel compressor with an electric compressor.
4
The couple whose shell corporation is building this nuisance have managed to evade the City's regulatory mechanisms to prevent this.
Shades of Goering's Karinhall...
3
I am not sure what the importance of this article is all about. We have suffered with trump for years the lies ,corruption the rich self importance. The world exists for rich white elites who lord over everyone else with there self importance. The great thing about New York they are a dime or dozen no cares unless you decide to cross the average person.
Real New Yorkers could care less because the rich are rude and self centered. They have destroyed the real essence of what it was to be a real New Yorker. That’s why this story is meaningless to real New Yorkers who have grown up on the city streets, who walk the streets we expect rich people to be out of touch because life is all about there needs and self importance.
Most rich people wouldn’t think of giving back to the five boroughs because it is all about there needs.
5
"Their" needs.
It has always been thus.
Lots of self-absorbed, irresponsible people in other social strata too. Lots of blame to go around.
1
I live on this block and am lucky to live on the back on my building. My neighbors on the front? They hear the drilling from the word go. This is a big deal, especially for the older residents.
Having read many of the comments, what I can't wrap my head around is the utter meanness expressed in many posts, as if upper west siders are crybabies and should not better than to complain.
There are occupational safety laws which recognize the power of sound, which can destroy as well as heal. That's what is happening here. Destruction of the health of those who live close to the construction site. This is no joke, and for commenters to make light of it only reveals the their lack of empathy, complete lack of understanding of the health issues involved, and the unquestioning attitude and acceptance of noise. I would advise them all to stand on the street in front of the building for an a whole day and see how they do. Then imagine that for more than a year.
66
A quarter of a billion dollar house. That alone is crass.
19
New construction should be like smoking cigarettes. You're free to indulge to your heart's content up to - and until - it infringes on other people's quality of life. No further.
21
They either need some voodoo or some lawyers. It sounds like a private nuisance to me.
5
With their money, couldn't they buy a Caribbean island? They're not building a pool: they're being rude.
21
seriously!
Curious – or appalling – to read some readers’ comments. A surprising number support the right of the super-rich to develop crazy czarist empires of wealth.
15
I am from a family of UWS siders over 100 years. I am DISGUSTED by what is allowed to happen. I am DISGUSTED by the DEMISE OF THE NEIGHBORHOOD. The EMPTY STORES, close of most small businesses. Does Mayor Diblasio have to deal with this every day? NO. Why is this even allowed? I am SO SICK and tired of the gentrification and loss of respect for human beings in this city. I am paying ridiculous taxes and FOR WHAT????????? The worst part is NOTHING will happen. NO action will be taken, no justice for the working people. These people who are causing this issue are BIG DONORS to NYC. That's the bottom line. Show some respect. Helen Rosenthal, WAKE UP AND DO SOMETHING! Period. If you wanted it stopped it would be stopped but you/ re afraid to rock the boat and lose this financial support. Bottom line.
20
"Block organizers admit they napped as the project won approval from the Landmarks Preservation Commission and the Department of Buildings."
Enough said.
5
Is there anything readers can do to help these neighbors?
14
What's the expression? "More dollars than sense?"
5
A variation I often use: “more money than taste.”
6
Given Malou Beauvoir is such a high priestess, why can't she make the noise disappear??
8
I’m curious about how many minutes of sun will grace the pool and also, what an ugly place to put it!
6
Sounds horrendous. These people who were driven to move need to be compensated as does everyone else whose quality of life has been severely impaired.
12
Can they sue this guy?
5
Voodoo priestess? More like priestess of selfish, ignorant behavior. Why not demonstrate some concern for the environment by giving each suffering neighbor some money for all their doctor bill, the cost of moving out, visits to the vet, prescriptions and other costs?
10
@Christi Yes, the neighbors are really suffering. I really feel bad for them. They may even be hungry! #Richpeopleproblem
Coming Attractions! "Plutocracy," the tragicomedy of the fictional future when an ultra-rich 0.1% become detached from their wealth base and become known as the Egreious... wait.
3
Suggestion for the "neighbors": No New York jury would convict.
We live on Schermerhorn and Clinton, in Brooklyn Heights. A developer bought a 3 (maybe 4?) family residence next door. They've been working for THREE years, most of that time being devoted to an underground garage. The noise. The vibration. The rats. It never ends.
And guess what? When they sell it, the people will start all over again because they don't want Carrara marble or recessed lighting—or their case is too big for the underground garage.
The only way to end these conspicuous renos is for the city to step in. Please. Please step in?
487
@Maude Gomez i've spent the past 30 years (literally, since 1989) moving from fort greene, to clinton hill to bed stuy, trying to flee gentrification construction. it's everywhere. the city doesn't care.
47
@cascia "gentrification construction". AKA, jobs, income growth and renewal. Some people call it progress.
9
@Maude Gomez - the City makes money from permits, it makes money from higher property taxes, and the politicians probably get "campaign contributions" from the wealthy people behind it all. How much do you think they care about you?
27
Would it be so hard for the Times to ask an acoustics expert to quantify the noise and a public health expert to explain why this situation poses a serious health hazard? And for the city to say how much noise is too much in order to protect other neighborhoods from disasters like this one?
27
In a prior comment, I mentioned a case law that was prevailing over the entire U.S. which originated in NYC, based on a couple's grief over construction noise. They lost.
It is true that due to that case law, no cases elsewhere in the U.S. regardless of jurisdiction prevents actions against those who generate damaging construction noise. Construction and planes come first, everywhere in the U.S. regardless of how their damaging noise.
That stated, the case law must be in conflict with newer 2005 NYC Noise Code Local Law 113. It apparently addresses the needs of residential occupants in and around construction in NYC. It was amended in May 2018, to lower the decibel level of allowed noise levels for after-hours and weekends.
Regarding the violinist, all particulate matter which is suspended in the air is dangerous to everyone.
In one of my most recent tenancies, my rental property owner decided to install "quartz" amoung other "upgrades". Workmen cut large slabs of it just outside my window, and across from my apartment door less than 3 feet.
The dust from Quartz (pseudo marble) is carcinogentic. It is banned in Europe in particular in Spain, where it originated. Thousands of Spanish workers have come down with lung cancer due to quartz.
lOsha will move to protect workers exposed to this dust, but tenants are at a complete loss. The laws have to change.
18
This account of the callous disregard for others by people so rich that they have no inclination or care about how what they do affects and disturbs others is a very good reason to jack the income tax rate on the rich back up to 70%.
And they mustn't complain, either. They would be getting off easy. The tax rate was 90% under Eisenhower, and we had decent roads, bridges, public transportation, and good schools
19
I teach from home and my roommate records audio books and writes music.
I can handle a little noise but she has to stop recording if a plane goes over.
If this happened to us we would both immediately lose our jobs.
This is not only a city thing either. If you live in the country a neighbor might decide to open a shooting range right next door.
Property has the rights in America. Money has rights. But not people.
22
This project is located in a Landmark district and required approval by the Landmark Preservation Commission. Most likely there would have been conditions concerning blasting etc. and damage to adjoining buildings. The owners are responsible for damage. There are also Department of Buildings requirements as to how close the excavation may be to adjoining buildings, most likely. There are issues as to excavating to property line without an access agreement from the adjoining property owners.
Maybe the owners will get pay back karma - a brownstone just one block north on70th Street was recently evacuated due to black mold through the entire single family townhouse, a condition often associated with basement swimming pools.
22
This seems like a first world problem, but that is most of NY so I suppose it merits coverage.
Doesn't NY have a Parks and Recreation Dept,. that has swimming pools open to all? If not, maybe it has a YMCA. If not, maybe a gym or two would supplant the option of putting a pool under a residence. There must be alternatives to the chosen option.
2
@Lazlo Toth What, and share space with the common man? Are you mad??
4
Several years ago, we had a nearly identical situation on Gramercy Park South. In addition to a 4 year long renovation, a "socialite" and her beer baron billionaire husband excavated under their brownstone for a pool. That was followed by the drilling of a 1500 foot deep geothermal well in front of the building, necessitating the construction of a 16 foot high plywood shed surrounding the drill rig and blocking the sidewalk. Trees were knocked down in the process. Of course they had already commandeered the parking lane on that side of the street, so pedestrians were forced out into the center of the street, with one lane left for traffic and no parking whatsoever. This went on for 2 months, delaying and inconveniencing countless thousands of pedestrians, motorists, and and bicyclists.
18
Aww pobrecitos. We live on a block of older apartments, a block away from Dolores Park and in the heart of techrification in San Francisco. Prime territory. We went through 2 years of wall-shaking renovation when an Google family moved in next door, tearing down everything but the street facade. Then an Apple family moved in to the other neghboring building, and their teardown was 3 years of 7-days a week construction. Neither household has any courtesy to say hello, let alone become good neighbors. My point is, cry me a river.
12
@Eartha Kitty
And you think that's ok?
8
Sometimes I really miss New York City and wish that I could move back there. I lived there for well over 50 years from the time I moved there at the age of 21 until I moved to Hawaii in 2007.
After reading this article, however, I am going out to sit on my lanai and enjoy the peace and quiet and my spectacular view of Kaneohe Bay and the adjacent mountains.
Hasta La Vista, baby.
13
My sister lived in a small basement suite in a brownstone on that same block of W.69th St in the late 70s and early 80s. It was a nice, relatively quite street of older apartment buildings, lived in by people who seemed to be mostly middle class.
The Dakota was nearby. I visited a few weeks before John Lennon was killed. In Cafe Creme, my sister's local coffee place on Columbus Avenue, the owner had taped photos of John, Yoko and Sean to the wall next to the register. It was their local, too.
It seemed like a real neighborhood, served by every shop and service residents might need. Gentrification lay far in the future, along with unimaginable assaults on the peace of mind of residents by belligerent plutocrats.
19
The Landmark Preservation Commissioner and the other city officials have not done their job. They have a responsibility to prevent things like this.
Much like police officers throughout New England, those entrusted with enforcement are letting citizens down. Why make zoning laws or traffic laws if there is no enforcement. It creates a situation where the populace begins to assume all laws can be flouted, since the very visible ones are ignored.
14
End the use of LLCs to hide the ownership of property in New York. How is it anyone’s right to be anonymous when owning property in New York? It is permitted because the real estate businesses are the most powerful people in New York property and LLCs help them make ever more money at the cost of neighborhoods having some control over their own destiny.
New Yorkers, contact your City Council members and tell them to change the laws and require the name of genuine human owners of New York City apartments and houses. LLCs can still own property but the names of the stakeholders must be made public.
24
Keep in mind while reading this that we were very close to passing a pied-à-terre tax in NYS this season: it would have made this type of vanity project less economically feasible long-term for expats looking to park their money, and it would have funded the MTA. Maybe the buildings would have sold for a little less, but maybe they would have been bought by people who actually want to live there and actually know their neighbors.
Instead the real estate industry blocked it in Albany, and our reps did a one-off transfer tax instead. If this makes you mad, go look up your reps in the state senate and assembly and their record with standing up to the real estate lobby!
24
Sorry, but WAAAAHHH. On my block alone over the past few years there have been 5 tear-down/rebuilds - not including single unit renovations, and not including the rip-and-replace of the sewer system that took the street mostly out-of-service for 3-4 months. House shook constantly from the demolition; parking was always unavailable due to construction equipment, dumpsters, you name it.
No sympathy from Brooklyn. Move to the country.
7
Fortunately, no one needs your sympathy. This article is about changing existing laws, not about sympathy (even if it is from lovely BK).
12
My thoughts exactly
I so feel for the neighborhood, I have experienced this too and it is awful especially unchecked. It is sad to see the interiors of two early 20th century brownstones ruined for trendy modernism. People often ask where the local preservation commissioners are with projects like these and I can tell you from experience that most only care about the facade. The reason is because the weak preservation laws in this nation only pertain to preserving mostly facades. So the interiors can often be demolished without thought. I do think that both local and federal preservation laws need to be strengthened so that when a structure is landmarked, the interior would be automatically included. That way more oversight can be exercised over renovations. This is basically a demolition/new construction project. As for the lost interiors, hate to seriously contemplate what was thrown out. Ultimately so un-green. Excellent reporting.
22
When I read articles like this I always think "karma, baby", you'll get yours.
10
@Edmund
...and when I read articles like this, i always think....with time, they'll be on to their next wasteful, self-indulgent, destructive and passing fancy, whether it be to the Hamptons, Montana, or next door to Trump in Palm Beach....never, ever to be satisfied, until it's too late for them.
6
@Edmund Edmund, that's just lazy thinking. 'Karma baby' never does a thing for humans, as you might conclude after reading any history book. If we want to build a better society, we need to organize and work at it.
1
Disgusting. And it's not just NYC. Ask the people who live on Mark Zuckerberg's block in SF what their lives are like.
9
@Anj Ask the people on Mark's block what their lives are like? Oh dear, I'm sure any construction he is doing interferes with their visit to their summer homes or winter trips abroad.
If Bill Gates goes crazy adding more bathrooms to his mansion, know who it bothers? Jeff Bezos who just lives a couple of doors down. I will light a candle for him if it happens.
3
My husband and I are always glad to spend a few days in NYC to visit our son, but due to the incessant loud construction noise absolutely everywhere, we are equally glad when we get to return home to the far western edge of Denver along the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, which are just across the street. (= Quiet.)
13
The owners sound wealthy enough that if they were Decent enough they could put the immediate neighbors up in temporary rental apartments. I’m amazed that with all of the blasting and digging that goes on in Manhattan the city doesn’t collapse into the subway systems. And, maybe there needs to be regulatory prohibitions on construction projects that so disrupt neighborhoods, Whether they are gentrified neighborhood or neighborhoods where mere mortals live
16
Troubling article -- and tremendous sympathy for the long-suffering neighbors. But was it truly necessary to include the lines, "Only on weekends and the holidays of the politically potent — Christmas and Rosh Hashana, for example, but not Martin Luther King’s Birthday — does it cease. " ? The holidays noted as belonging to the so-called politically potent are religious holidays. In contrast, many people do work on MLK day, as it is not a religious holiday. In fact, many of us choose to work at service activities on MLK to honor Rev. Dr. King's memory and legacy. That snide little phrase really detracted from a very moving article that accurately captured the problem.
19
How about a proposal for a new law that bans basement swimming pools or any specific renovation that would take longer then 3 months.
15
10 years ago, I lived in Hong Kong in a humble apt building, happily, until the pile driver across the street began pounding through my window every day for two months. I had neither enough money to entertain myself outside the apartment, nor the wait-it-out-edness(?) to stay inside. So I moved to NY. Same Same.
7
Construction noise laws need to change. There should be a very tight time limit on noise over a certain decibel level. Something like no more than 6 hours in any day and only between the hours of 9am - 5pm. That would still be horrible but bearable. Work would take longer but caveat emptor.
16
The Trumpublicans told us that slashing taxes for the uber rich would create jobs. It turns out most of the new workers are employed by the fat-cats burning through their windfalls.
If only their tax rebates had been a little larger (next year), they could have installed that combo underground helicopter pad/putting green they've been fantasizing about.
15
These folks admit they were "asleep at the wheel" when this thing was going through the process. I think it points to the importance of taking those approvals seriously and making sure you know what you're signing off on. One thing is for sure, that new neighbor will not feel very welcomed!
11
@Mark. I bet it becomes a boutique hotel and they never move in.
This article focuses on an uber wealthy couple living on a very wealthy block, but it is a story occuring throughout the city. I lived next to a construction site for several years. The foundation digging drove me away. I sublet my apartment and moved into a bedroom in a shared apartment after realizing my mental health was more important. Best decision I made. The 30 story plus apartment building under construction had two levels of parking and big box retail space in the sub-basement. Dynamite cuased damage to an adjacent residential building foundation and those residents were temporarly displaced. Now I can see my new neighbors on their third story grass lawn, but have never met one face to face.
7
It doesn’t sound like a very wealthy block. It sounds like a wonderful west side mix of artists, musicians, teachers and some wealth mixed in.
21
No one should get a permit to put in a swimming pool beneath a rowhouse or brownstone. If they want a 60' swimming pool in a non-existent basement - go somewhere else! And, new owners should pay 100% of the costs to make their construction safe for everyone else - ventilation, monitoring, noise control - whatever it takes.
I am not in NYC, but I had four rowhouses on my block being converted to condos over the last three years - zero regulation or tenting of toxic brick dust, no noise control, constant trash on the street due to dumping in their dumpsters. It's not just an inconvenience but a health hazard, this dust is from 1905 when the street was built, who knows what is in the mortar & plaster - you just touch it and it crumbles. If they can afford to buy & renovate the space on a desirable street, they can afford to take steps to minimize the health effects for other residents and passers-by. I have gotten by using earplugs, not opening my street windows for 3 years, and buying a high-end air filter.
34
Sue them, and gather all of your neighbors together in an association and sue them again harder!
6
most likely high in asbestos.
8
The brick dust and cement dust is carcinogenic: crystalline silica.
5
More historic houses leveled at the whim of the wealthy. They chose the block for its history which they promptly proceeded to destroy. Where was the LPC?
32
The relatively well-to-do complaining about the more well-to-do.
18
It’s really not about money. It’s about one family shattering the lives of many others.
12
@Wasted
Ultimately, it is an extreme version of a First World problem. I can care only so much.
2
@Lifelong Reader Nah, it's a bunch of life-long NY-ers watching their neighborhood change for the worse while temporarily becoming insufferably loud. So, it's a local problem with the larger ramification of poorly constructed zoning laws meant to satisfy developers and not the local inhabitants. "First Word problem" is a nice cliche when it's not echoed self-righteously.
2
It’s time to return to 90 tax rates. The 1% have too much money at the expense of working people.
34
@Class War.... and instantly the rich leave and profit motive is completely disincentivized.... and the tax burden gets passed off to the middle class.... and then we are all equal... equally poor.
1
@Mystery Lits Speaking of mysteries, maybe you can solve a conundrum for me. We're told the "job creators" will refuse to work if they're not paid a king's ransom. We're also told if we pay lower-income people a living wage, they will also refuse to work, that poverty and misery are what motivates them.
How can both be true?
4
God, How I ADORED New York in the 70's and 80's. Of course, I was young, in love, living from paycheck to paycheck, and trotting around town like a veritable Holly-Go-Lightly. (Yes, I had a cat, too!) Anything was possible. (I was skinny!) This was all happening to a soundtrack by Gershwin, with the laughs provided on Friday nights by Woody Allen's latest, with Saturdays and Sundays spent walking up and down the Avenues, taking it all in, discovering each and every neighborhood by foot, til I got home to our studio on 27th, exhausted but thrilled. It's distressing to see what Manhattan has become....so unlivable. It took 4 moves to four different states, and 40 years, for me to understand that the glorious Manhattan dream was gone....destroyed by the crassness, greed, and selfishness of the uberwealthy. And yet, I won't believe for one minute that Ms. Beauvoir and Mr. Bastid will be half as thrilled with their new mansion, as I was discovering Manhattan at 23. My greatest sadness is for those who do not have the ability to relocate to more peaceful surroundings. This kind of life destroys the soul.
84
The project may comply with New York City building codes. But, what about city, state and federal environmental regulations governing air and noise pollution? Not one lawsuit?
25
A lawsuit is very expensive.
It should be noted and understood that this form of annoyance (and sometimes harassment) happens every day in occupied Multiple Dwellings in NYC. It's not just about demolishing the entirety of a whole building. Landlords all over the city are doing interior gut renovations that can be just as disruptive (if not as long lasting per apartment).
My current landlord who purchased the building in 2016 has obtained 17 construction permits in a building with 50 units. He has done complete gut renovations in these units, dragging trash out through the public stairwells and leaving it in the courtyard for days (instead of setting up a shed, moving debris out through a chute, and getting a license to put a dumpster on the street, as the law requires).
Twice (that I know of - DEP can't always arrive at the right moments) he has contaminated the lobby of our building with lead paint dust because he is not doing lead paint abatements before renovating apartments that had been occupied for 40+ years. Once the measurements were over 15 times what the EPA considers safe. We have small children in our building.
Instead of putting in new subfloors, he has been mounting new floors on top of the old ones with gaps to account for the uneven old floors, meaning now you hear every footstep.
This kind of rampant abuse of the construction code is common and occurring everywhere and the DOB does nothing.
41
I know it sounds naive but I often wonder why constructions of private investors are allowed to disturb life sometimes for several years. Just think of congestions because of lane closure, never ending noise, dirt or even the simple truth that the new high rise covers the view and tales the sunlight for an entire neighborhood. And no one can do anything about it. No one gets any compensation.
24
On the upside, the amount of money being invested in NYC real estate insures that the one-percent will never allow the City to fall into into the financial ravages of 1975, if only to protect their investments.
On the downside, for us 99 percenters, the City becomes a little less livable every day. It’s the reason I moved out last year, after spending my first sixty-three years there.
29
@Kayemtee I guess it depends on your definition of ravages. That era was kind of renaissance for music and other art forms in New York. Now, well, it looks rich , and clean, and sterile in the areas where the uber rich " protect their investments. I'll take grunge and vitality any day.
16
@Maggie
I wasn’t suggesting that life for all of us wasn’t richer in the old days; I got a college education for free courtesy of the City University of New York. But my graduation was postponed for a month because the City was on the verge of bankruptcy. As much as the current mayor is trying his best to spend his way into trouble, the Uber rich won’t let him; they will protect what they have built or bought.
I’d like to go back to 1975 for a lot of reasons, and I agree with your point.
10
@Kayemtee. Good points. Thanks for your perspective.
2
Every town and city experiences such things, though obviously on a smaller scale than in the big city.
Some people with money feel that they are in pretty much every way more valuable than others, while in others' belief system, money provides the privilege of not damaging the environment and of not harming your neighbors.
I can understand why a person in economic difficulties might steal from their neighbors, might have to choose between their own health and well-being and that of others around them--though more often, I'm amazed at how, even under the greatest duress, they choose to cooperate, form community, and do their best.
I've had neighbors who dumped truckloads of construction debris into a swale that used to provide a way for water to drain into the ground. After that it went into neighbors homes, or out into the street and into Long Island Sound, full of mud and street chemicals.
They broke the law, they were fined (not enough, since they were relatively rich), and they permanently damaged the environment. Yes, local officials didn't do their jobs, or perhaps the municipality wasn't financially strong enough to fight court cases with rich folks.
But really, what is money for if it isn't to treat the environment and your neighbors better than you might otherwise be able to? People who do such damage aren't mega-rich to me. Somewhere deep down there is a poverty.
23
I live a few doors down from this construction and it has been disastrous. The city should never have issued the permit and they should be taking action to limit the impact on surrounding residents. The noise, pollution, and they shut the street to traffic every single day.
52
Record the sound now...
Then, everyone surrounding the building should hookup loudspeakers and blast the playback at random times when the new guys show up. Let 'em know what's it like and crowd source the funding. Lots of folk who have dealt with bad neighbors would love to donate just for the story telling rights!
51
This happens in the outer boroughs all the time maybe not quite to this level. But it happens, wheres the outrage?
12
The very definition of "first world problems."
11
Ahhhhh...how the NIMBY’s comes out when it doesn’t directly benefit them.
7
@SG1
I'm sure anyone on the block would be game to trade places with you for the duration. Are you willing to live in a construction zone SG1?
This isn't NIMBY at all. It's a noise catastrophe causing physical and psychological problems.
10
“Happiness and the absurd are two sons of the same earth. They are inseparable.”
- Albert Camus
5
Best hate-read all week. Thanks!
19
The neighbor's misery vs. owners' "happiness"--how to balance these two "life-styles"?
1 Allow construction work "discontinuously", few hours a day!
2 Give "passes/ permits" to the "neighbor-victims" to use the owner's future "felicity" ...pardon; facility!!
3 Punish the "Peace Breakers" who transgressed the law/ ethics/ the world-famous NY decency!!!
7
If you only allow work for a few hours a day you can’t be upset the the project lasts for many years! The hours required for the work to be done do not change.
2
Is it really a coincidence that the NY Times is running a luxurious SWIMMING POOL ad right in article (at least, in my electronic version)?
14
@Ess Good catch. Maybe Google's ad placement algorithms have a sense of irony.
3
What's the process for ensuring that no damage is done to the foundations of the neighboring buildings?
27
@Bob
An independent testing agency under the supervision of a licensed professional engineer must certify to the DOB that the foundation work including any underpinning of adjacent foundations has been performed in accordance with the design documents prepared by the projects engineer of record. The certification is required before issuance of a certificate of occupancy.
- a NY PE
3
Someone comes to my apartment every few months to check for cracks, damage, etc.
My neighbor sold his house and it got bought by a renovation company, who proceeded to work on renovating it for the next 2 months, including Christmas Day (from 6am to 9pm on Christmas Day).
I stayed out of their way. The house turned out fantastic!
3
Unfortunately on the lower east side a private museum was being made from a former ConEd substation. It took more than 2 years of jack hammering etc. Public officials were contacted about the noise and early start times. None of them considered it a problem and offered no help. One can only feel that lower income neighborhoods are given much less consideration than higher income ones
16
People who are that wealthy should be helping to advance urban construction technology. Their contractors should be required to invest in faster and quieter ways to get the job done. NY and other cities could start by gradually reducing the allotted time and the noise permitted for residential zone construction. Increased safety inspections should also be forced upon high-end remodelers to ensure no unsafe shortcuts are taken. This would allow regulated capitalism to do its job and the wealthy to pay their fair share via funding innovation. It's almost the 2020's, we should be able to figure this one out. Let's start solving our solvable problems instead of arguing past each other about them.
11
This happened on far west 80th street and also on east 71st street where a Russian oligarch pushed the front of his mansion several feet out onto the sidewalk creating a facade that looks like a giant mausoleum. The house on 80th never has a light on. It seems to be empty the vast majority to the time. I was amazed when it was under construction and there was nothing behind the facade just as shown in the picture in this story.
Surely something is very broken in the permitting and landmarking process that allows this to happen.
36
This is NYC! It would seem that all (most?) current residents decry the new arrivals to the neighborhoods and construction that prior generations decried their building and renovating. As the cliche goes, "It will be a great city whenever it gets finished."
9
I'm sure this person is getting tax abatements galore. In the meantime, charge me every time I come into the city during a peak hour, up my subway fare and increase the tolls.
I hope they enjoy their pool while the rest of us try and keep our head above water.
25
Witness the obscenity of excessive wealth. It makes victims of all the rest of us !
21
This article is everything I hate about New York: bougie eccentrics with six-figure incomes complaining about real estate developments for the super-rich. Give me back the grime and decay of the '70s and '80s.
New York City today is just a customs house for other people's culture.
20
There should be neighborhood covenants against this. If not, then perhaps another reason not to live in NYC.
6
I remember when disgraced former president nixon bought a house in the east 60s for the mid six figures, and remember thinking he got ripped off. I bet that amount won’t even cover the cost f those “floating” stairs.
That anyone has the money for a third or sixth house like this and somehow thinks of themselves as “spiritual” is absurd. They are so disconnected from reality that a serious sickness or death they can’t buy themselves out of is going to be a shocking introduction to reality. The great equalizer, death is. Of course I suppose a trendy architect will design a monstrosity of a monument for them, but ultimately your human existence isn’t even a blip to the universe, to it you are meaningless and invisible.
20
This is emblematic of the times we live in. Arroagance, greed, and government not doing it’s job.
19
I lived in Greenwich Village, on 5th Avenue, and the noise was shattering. Jack hammers at 7AM? Three women down the hall put in a staircase, and it was like the world was coming to an end!
7
The noise ricocheting off those concrete walls have to be maddening. I really feel for the neighbors, the violinist especially. What the heck. a swimming pool? Does one really need that and with marble columns ?. Absurd! Want to swim-Go to the YMCA, Coney Island. the pricey Private club. but to build one ? there oughtta be a law.
9
Eat the rich (and then swim in their pools).
24
@B. C. C., Brilliant! Thanks for the laugh
1
That extremely loud, vibrating cacophony is the sound of your property values rising.
10
God forbid that this happens to a person who works a grave yard shift and needs to sleep during the day!
426
@MNN Er, living on 69th between CPW and Columbus? I think it's all financial and corporate pod people up there.
13
@C'est la Blague
if you read the article, a lot of people mentioned are artists or retired artists...not “pod” people
29
@C'est la Blague
Please do not make any sweeping presumptions about the residents “up there.” Is West 69th Street between CPW & Columbus a blighted block in the (now gentrifying) South Bronx? Of course not. But it, like so many blocks in our city, is a messy, lumpy, compelling aggregate of many sorts of people - the vast majority of whom are part of what might broadly be described as “middle class.” Like most side-streets of the Upper West Side, there are likely many small apartments; some two-family or single family homes; a mix of mostly rentals and a few coöps. These are not entitled brats, as many commenters seem to assume. They are members of a community whose unwritten but tacitly agreed upon principles have included most significantly a willingness to recognize the needs of one’s neighbors and to try to do what is best for the block’s residents. This egregious, grotesque display of privilege (not to mention the despicably, unintentionally ironic blabberings of the owner about sensitivity to the universe) is profoundly un-New York and, at least until two years ago, un-American.
8
It seems that there are two CLASS 1 Hazard Violations on 50 West 69th Street, as well as a couple of ECB violations. Sadly the fines/fees related to these are likely couch-cushion change to the owners.
14
At some point- enough. There is such a disparity of living in NYC. The city has a strength it can use to further deny these kinds of billionaire projects. Say no. It’s not like these people can simply switch to another city. Where would they opt to go? NYC has an offer of experience that should allow a better balance of life. I lived in the city in the 70’s- we don’t have to return to that situation but we don’t have to have what is occurring now that the city has been priced out of reach for so many.
We should be able to strike a better balance.
6
There are innovative but proven ways to excavate solid rock which do not create the noise the neighborhood is being subjected too. Apparent progress would appear slower but based on what I have read overall excavation would have been completed well before this article was published. Apperently the owners and the contractors employed have no care about the neighborhood or health of residents. Perhaps that is on purpose, leading to further consolidation or just ignorance of excavation methods beyond circa1975.
10
My favourite former ex-mayor Bloomberg story was his promotion of 250 square foot apartments*. That to me was the utmost of hypocrisy! Meanwhile we read about some
$ 238,000,000.00 condo downtown and now this travesty. Quite soon there will only be millionaires and billionaires in NYC!
*https://www.wired.com/2013/01/adapt-nyc/
7
What else is new in NYC.... ?
What a city government...... .
They let 100 plus stories huge buildings to go up all over , award 100,000 Uber permits , welcome annually 80 Million tourists who let hundreds of thousands make a living , and then complain about congestion and noise....
Give me a break !
9
It's his house, it's legal, it's properly permitted, you live in New York, get over it
17
@Cazanoma I also love how people keep demonizing them because they're "rich." Folks, this is West 69th Street between Central Park West and Columbus Avenue; as far as I'm concerned, they're all rich! (I live in a rat-infested, drug-dealer occupied Harlem block that the NYPD neglects, and I say more power to these owners — it's their property.)
11
@Cazanoma
0.0001% rich dude is a menace to the neighborhood. I don't think anyone is bringing a plate of cookies over when they move in.
@HR Dear HR: speaking for myself -- the husband of the elderly man mentioned in the article, who died in January and who lived on the block since 1977 -- may I say that we are not rich. Far from it. We lived on his social security income and my entire smallish parental inheritance, as I nursed him 24/7 single-handedly in our rent-stabilized studio apartment through his last 5 1/2 years as a fully disabled person. Please do not make assumptions about your NYC neighbors, certainly not about us who lived our lives working in the arts and not-for-profit sectors who are at best lower-middle-class, and who are veterans of decades of the civil rights, women's rights, gay rights, anti poverty and anti war eras and struggles.
4
This couple ought to be ashamed for disrupting their neighbors lives in this way. Oh yeah, that's right, the rich have no shame. Only money. And the city failed miserably to protect its citizens well-being.
14
Look, I think that the rich people should pay a lot more taxes. In the 1960s my wealthy uncle complained bitterly about his taxes which in those days was way north of 70% of his considerable yearly income.
That said, I am disturbed also about the young men who double-park their cars and blast their music for three hours beginning at midnight, horse around and shout obscenities, and keep people who need to get up at 5AM and 6AM to go to work from sleeping.
If they were rich, would they be any more considerate? Not likely.
6
I love the picture of Dorian Gray.
15
People in NYC seem to have very short memories and are devoid of a knowledge of the history of this city. To that end, we're not an old European capital, we do not have old buildings in Manhattan--we don't keep the history around. Manhattan has a mansion in Wash Hts from 1765 and the 1766 St. Paul's Chapel in the financial district. Even the 1699 Old Stone House in Park Slope is really a 1933 remake after it was demolished in the late-1800s.
For better or wore the communities within New York are in constant flux. Sorry to the people who claim they cannot escape but that's what Florida is for.
9
Oh....the couple live "primarily in Brussels"...how typical. More ludicrous displays of excess, tasteless and absurd. May their 60' pool be the recreational area for New York's finest rat colony. How did it pass the Preservation Commission?? Residents stopped the completion of 90,000 sq.ft. atrocity of Mohamed Hadid in Bel Air, maybe they can do the same here?
20
Wow...seems like folks are ok with this type of gentrification when it happens to blacks and latinos in Brooklyn and Harlem. But when it's put into reverse and it's done to folks on West 69th Street...it's a whole different story. I'm here for this couple living their best life lol. Hey it will bring much needed value to the neighborhood LOL
16
@heidi. This type of renovation in Harlem? You’ve got to be kidding.
1
The situation in New York City is out of control. Constant construction and scaffolding adorns very single block. The constant noise and pollution ruins the quality of life for everyone in the surrounding areas. I live in TriBeCa and the roads are all ripped up and the construction of new “luxery” buildings goes on everyday and even on weekends. The laws regarding noise and days allows for construction are easily manipulated by construction companies and the rich. All they care about it making money on these new buildings. The City needs to do much more to limit the hours and days that construction can be conducted. It had made me want to flee the city for the peace and quiet of the suburbs.
8
How ironic. There would be no TriBeCa had it not been for the massive amount of construction that took place a few decades back.
3
@SG1
That is incorrect.
Tribeca - a name conferred by the real estate industry - was a mixture of residential, traditional commercial and government offices for decades, through 2001. A quiet pleasant area with old, low-rise buildings.
The hyper-gentrification started largely after 9/11 helped by tax credits intended to spur development.
The new high rises have destroyed the neighborhood.
4
To wit, the owners should have opted to put the pool on the roof. Zero jack-hammering, and a lovely view, and outdoor air and light by the rooftop pool. Some people just have no imagination, common sense, and respect for their neighbors.
12
I think you’re missing the fact that people in New York can only swim outdoors in summer.
4
@big John. And it could be an ice rink in winter. Win win!
8
When you have that kind of money, you can build a climate controlled enclosure around a roof top pool!
7
Nothing quite like being a bad neighbor before you even move in.
26
Yeah sure, I empathize, but let's keep in mind that the main reason why this story got coverage in the Times is because it happens to be affecting a staff writer. I recall a time when the NYT covered stories like this even in low-income neighbourhoods. Creeping elitism everywhere.
25
Not surprising . In the age of Trump you have to expect the notion that Trump has instilled in our society---that all benefits and goodies exist for whoever has the money--and the only right the poor have is to vote for the dictator-demagogue who builds walls or else they will be murdered by the invading migrants.
8
I spend the winter in a modest beach house on a Caribbean island, and keep the mile of sand to my right and left free of the daily accumulating trash the ocean brings. But beyond that arc the mansions of millionaires begin and the trash too, since they are almost never there. Money often equals noise and trash.
7
I suspect that the owners of the townhouse will refer to the indoor pool as "the Spa" - it is the new terminology of the over self indulgent ultra rich. "Pool" is too suburban a word for them (I visited one of these mega mansions recently in Paris and the owners said: "let's go down to the spa". Interestingly enough there was also "free floating elliptical stairs", the signature of a very sought after interior architect who may be behind the 69th street project as well...). Those houses are appalling.
8
The spelling of Mr. Bastid's name could itself undergo a little construction. All that it would require is the fairly easy elimination of the letter i and the equally noiseless insertion of an a and an r at the very end. No scaffolding, no jackhammering, no loss of minds or birdsong. Truly, now he would be living up to the name that he has been called by everyone on West 69th Street. And one he is deserving of.
jackhammering. No frazzled nerves. No loss of mind or birdsong.
5
With all these newly approved in-ground pools in the city, we're starting to sound like Beverly Hills lifestyle, a la NY mode.
3
What leaps out of this story for me was the fact that you can pay to have an old tree removed. That should not be legal, period.
31
This kind of behavior by the ultra rich is just going to get worse. New Yorkers of all income levels should have been out protesting in full force when luxury high rises started putting in two entrances, one for the rich tenants and a separate one for the low income residents. That was the beginning of the blatant, in your face, disregard of the rights of and disdain and contempt for people who are not rich. I was appalled and couldn't figure out why there were no demonstrations against this. Now most, if not all luxury buildings to this to the 20% of low income tenants. Shameful. And the behavior of the ultra rich is just going to get worse. They think they can do anything. Because, well, they can.
6
I guess it's true the rich aren't like the rest of us.
4
This behavior is appalling. At the very least, the owners should have sent letters and suitable checks to neighbors within earshot. That’s what one usually does: you’re going to have some work done on your property and it’s going to disturb the neighbors? Take some of the sting out of it by sending them a personal note with a suitable gift included. In this case a large check. To have not at least done that is, to say the least, so unsophisticated as to be downright tacky.
6
Stop calling the complaining neighbors one-percenters. Violinists and college professors are not in NYC’s 1%.
42
@Vmur no you're right, they're not NYC's %1...but in wider national/global context they are squarely in the %1.
2
Facade "preservation" is what pretty much destroyed much of Washington DC. It is not historic preservation, it is a kind of Disney-esque prettification. LIke the article says, a Potemkin window dressing.
12
When a few have the resources and influence
Is when the crowds with the pitchforks start
A coming.
5
This is really a NY story. The perils of living on top of each other. We love it and we hate it. I feel for the dog.
11
Of course I have read most of them because I live a few doors down though I am not in the new neighbors’ financial realm. I do remember the unexpected crash of a
lifetime ( in my experience ) which took 10 years off my life, I suspect. Now I know that it was what it sounded like - two houses collapsing. It really does wake you up and set you shaking and wondering. I still love NYC and always will. I also know that every building that has a swimming pool or a stream (many brownstones do ) in the basement has nothing but issues forever.
1
I hope these folks did their homework. Relatives sold a townhouse over on W 76th. The new owner ( a flipper) wanted to make the basement ceiling heights taller. What they found was there were underground “rivers” under that part of town.
8
Is this situation supposed to be unique in some way? It is the story of New York City. I live in Midtown West (formerly known as Hell's Kitchen), that rapidly growing, suddenly residential neighborhood of Manhattan. Have you heard of this little construction project in the neighborhood called Hudson Yards? Do you think that is being built quietly? And right next door there's the expansion of the Javits Center. You think you got noise? Don't even get me started.
And by the way - if they're bad neighbors even before they've moved in, don't expect any improvement after they get there. That goes for individual owners, like on 69th Street, as well as "collectives" like Hudson Yards. But really, there's nothing new about any of this.
4
Life in a metropolis like NYC will not be quite unless you are the a member of the 1% with a penthouse above the din.
As a resident of the east village living at 10 st and Ave C there is always infrastructure repair taking place. Which means Jack hammers starting at 8am at the latest.
And this intersection also seems to be a favorite of ambulance drivers with their deafening sirens at all hours.
So not to sound unsympathetic but no sympathy from this loyal NYT reader. Just the acceptance that this is what NYC is.
Love it or leave it. If you want quite, time for the burbs.
4
It is a myth that the burbs are quiet. Incessant leaf blowers, non stop barking dogs....
7
Sigh... I saw we outlaw guns, but allow trial by combat. Neighbors should be allowed to fight this guy if they want.
4
So what?
I am on a block that has 3 hi rise hotels built behind us and now a 43 story condo right next door to us it all was. or will be over one day and there is something called Mack's ear plugs ,they work well ,quieting noise eliminating headphones with music or your iPhone attached ,perfect! The law states they can make construction noise 7 am to 7pm...most folks are away at there day job,yes,no?
1
One would think a claimed progressive like de Blasio would be pushing laws to stop such nuisances and disruptions.
One would think...
1
The absence of peace is a scourge on the soul.
4
New York has been ruined by all this money.
6
No, New York exists because of it.
5
How many people does the Y serve? This is why revolutions start.
2
"It is as if a meteor, of the sort that killed off the dinosaurs, has struck — and the hole keeps deepening."
Not quite. The meteor that killed off the dinosaurs formed the Gulf of Mexico. Easy with over the top hyperbole.
4
So I am supposed to feel sorry for the crowd that disposed the previous residents of this neighborhood to make way for their 3-10M coops and condos because someone even wealthier is making noise?
9
"Only on weekends and the holidays of the politically potent — Christmas and Rosh Hashana, for example, but not Martin Luther King’s Birthday — does it cease."
Is this meant to imply that Martin Luther King Jr.'s Birthday is an African American holiday (and that African Americans are not "potentially potent)? I think the NYTimes's writing staff is about as out of touch as the wealthy they profile in this affected bemused tone.
5
I understood it as that they take only the rarest breaks from jackhammering, more meant to underscore the non-stop nature of the work.
6
This is all unnecessary.
Was it not pointed out to these people
that just six blocks away stands the
West Side YMCA...
...and they've got TWO pools.
13
@Fenn But you can't skinny-dip at the Y.
3
@ HR. With champagne.
1
Not-so-low key bias: "Only on weekends and the holidays of the politically potent — Christmas and Rosh Hashana, for example, but not Martin Luther King’s Birthday — does it cease." Ah, mainstream news.
3
The nouveau riche have no class.
How gaudy.
If they had any class at all they would have insisted on a salt water pool.
9
"where the rich run rampant and the rest of us have to deal with it."
There should be financial restitution to the abutters who have to deal with such stressful vibrations and constant noise pollution, whenever these vanity projects go on well past the original scope of the permits.
3
If this is the freedom that some say is what has made America great, I vote against it. I don't believe that money should be able to buy anything .- but that shows a profound ignorance of freedom by those who accumulate unseemly wealth.
Many, like me, resent the loss of living in a country that deals with the corruption of our legal system, our environment, our protection of the food we eat, the drugs we take, the schools that try to make hope possible for young people. On and On. On West 60th St? Pathetic. We have lost our way,
3
Well maybe they will let the kids in the neighborhood
swim in their pool.
6
Can’t they just teleport themselves to the Hamptons when they want to swim?
5
Clearly it's historic vandalism, keeping a one foot wide front facade while destroying the rest in order to build an iceberg obscenity should be illegal. We had this problem in London. https://www.businessinsider.com/london-bans-construction-of-iceberg-homes-for-the-rich-2014-12?r=US&IR=T
6
In my neighborhood, overzealous excavation caused an adjacent home to fall into the pit created by aggressive earth-movers so oversized they dwarfed the property. The Buildings Department provided no explanation, oversight or recourse after the fact. I understand a year of litigation ensued, with the victim property owner "settling." This all transpired across the street from where I live. I feel certain that, were a similar scenario to begin again, we'd be communicating with every conceivable agency, if only to establish a history for inevitable litigation.
3
“Her miniature poodle, Dorian Gray, has been even more affected: he’s taking Trazodone, a tranquilizer.”
Well that is just too much.
7
this is a blog post; fill the extravagant beauvoir pool with 69th street resident's buckets of self-pity. only the well-off would be given a bullhorn to complain this loudly about something nearly everyone in NY and other big cities is dealing with all the time already. if your block is no longer the quaintest and the best -- welcome to the world the rest of us call home.
4
@Margaret totally agree. This story is an embarrassment.
My first thought was I'd move it I lived close to the site. But then realized that most probably cannot, because who can they sell to, if they own, and if they're renting, they are probably in stabilized apartments, many of which are probably dirt cheap. Unless they are market rate renters, they are stuck, on one of Manhattan's best blocks. Something is wrong here.
5
The renovators should purchase nosie reduction headphones for everyone in the neighborhood and be forced to place an alexa in everyone of their rooms with the dropin feature on so they, too, can suffer from the racket.
3
Once the project is complete, I'm looking forward to reading the real story in the NYTs Sunday real estate section "The Hunt".
4
Voodoo enthusiasts? Just wait until all that noise awakens the spirits of the Native American previous occupants of Manhattan. Then those voodooists will have to call Ghostbusters.
5
I would love The New York Times to do an investigation on the wealthy property owners of very expensive New York City homes who have totally broken the NYC building code by confining their Nannies to rooms without windows, which means no natural light or fresh air.
11
these people will be the first to go in any dystopia. I suprised they don't get apoplectic when the wind blows. Poor babies. The real story here is why anyone would need a one hundred million dollar home. Sheeesh.
4
I got high blood pressure just reading this story. What selfish people those owners are!
12
I live in north Brooklyn and the amount of noise during the day from construction on my residential block is excruciating. The city authorities seem to not take complaints seriously, with them “attempting” to access locked buildings once and then simply leaving without trying again.
NYC is an incredibly development and landlord friendly city. Which is one big reason why I’m leaving it! As a former western state resident, it’s been pretty shocking to live here and to see what people can get away with in terms of building development and horrific building conditions.
8
The saddest part in all of this is the glorious historic details that have been lost. If you look at the listing for 48 W 69th on Trulia you'll see—such a gorgeous prewar home! Why buy it if you just want to gut the whole thing and build some brand-new monstrosity?
16
Two years ago, a huge multinational company bought our old, purpose-built rental apartment building. Ever since, they've been 'renovating' (drastically remodelling) each apartment as it becomes available.
For the remodelled apartments, the landlord wants the amount of rent that usually gets you a private condo rental in a building with swimming pool, twenty-four hour security and underground parking. Why pay that much to rent in a building without those amenities...but enough noise, dust, and service interruptions to drive you round the bend ?
So far, not a single remodelled apartment has been rented out. But the landlord keeps on gutting apartments...
Great business model...
There is such a thing as being too rich. Something happens to people's brains when they're awash in money.
16
The spelling of Mr. Bastid's name could itself undergo a little construction. All that it would require is the fairly easy elimination of the letter i and the equally noiseless insertion of an a and an r at the very end. No scaffolding, no jackhammering, no loss of minds or birdsong. Truly, now he would be living up to the name that he has been called by so many on West 69th Street for such a long time. And one he is deserving of.
9
Before anyone is allowed to accumulate a net worth over $10
million they should be required to go before an approval board of homeless, disabled and injured military veterans.
The single question before the Board, where the majority rules, is
has the applicant shown a history of playing well with others. When they want to achieve a net worth of $100 million they should be required to go back before such a Board and each time thereafter when they seek to add a zero to their net worth they must seek Board approval and demonstrate a continued ability to play well with others.
8
Someone who claims to believe in the souls of every organic thing that "share this wear" while carelessly contributing to so much disharmony and natural destruction is doing far worse than virtue signaling. Good luck to all involved.
16
@CLW You must be kidding?! We are speaking of NY CITY here. Not Montana. Construction happens every where. If they did not want any construction they should have made sure prior to those ppl getting the necessary permits. I have zero pity.
This is the story of every (formerly) middle-class neighborhood in my city, as developers and investors mow down our small houses to build low-quality high-cost mini-mansions on our (formerly) quiet streets. The sound of construction, the diesel fumes, and the blocked off streets would be easier to take if the residents could stay here. But people moving into Denver to make buckets of money in marijuana or tech are displacing families who've been here for decades. Firefighters, teachers, etc. who have been saving to buy a home for 20 years no longer can live in this city. The developer who demolished the beautiful little 1930s home next to mine (and a maple tree just as old) let water sit in the dug foundation for days, which seeped into my basement, flooding it. He boasted that he was "revitalizing" my neighborhood. I didn't know we were dead to begin with. There's not enough accountability where our homes and communities are concerned, whether it's noise, destroying communities to make a buck, or careless investors who see our neighborhoods as just another way to enrich themselves.
20
" challenging the well-being of the people who live there."
I guess their Bernie Sanders fund-raisers might be interrupted.
2
Did you read the article? Their whole lives are disrupted. Not sure why that requires snark.
6
@AnnaT It's NY CITY! it comes with the territory.
Noise pollution is a public harm, and it isn't just the selfish wealthy elites who create it.
Take a look at how the FAA approves jet superhighway flight paths that destroy the air quality and peace and quiet of neighborhoods.
Listen to the 125 decibels of noise, and breathe in the horrendous amounts of toxins from needless internal combustion machines like leaf blowers, weed whackers, jet skis, etc.
Listen to other people blasting their "music" on beaches, in their cars and other public spaces.
Being rich changes a person's heart and conscience so they're less capable of empathy and ethics.
But noise pollution is embedded in our industrial capitalist society.
When's the last time you heard birdsong or wind whispering in trees?
14
Well ain’t this lovely, a hierarchy amongst the coddled rich. So the big fish can buy the rights to a jackhammer and the poor amongst that crowd is howling loud. Absolutely delighted. Please do suffer. Here in planet middle-class, the the $60 noise cancelling headphones I buy for my daughter who is super sensitive to noise, suddenly seems rather economical. And the dogs in our neighborhood sleep through any noise thrown their way. And we think we are all the same species....no way.
6
This is precisely when, and why, things so often turn violent...people are driven to their brink because of a lack of basic consideration. If I were the owners, I'd begin watching my back at every corner.
7
Noise pollution presents serious cardiovascular risk. This should never have been allowed.
16
How in the world did this get by city zoning? Who in the city approved the plans? I realize that large buildings can go down quite deep, but this is a small enclosed area. How can this be safe? How can this not possibly damage other century old properties. Time for a class action against the city.
30
You know, you’re being really hard on these people. How can one survive in that house without an underground swimming pool? Could you?! Put yourself in their shoes for a minute. Yes they could give that money to charity or towards a political party that supports education and healthcare, but their life after that!!! Hm?!!
6
ON East 41st Street I am accosted by incessant ear splitting giant jackhammers and drills chipping their way through the bedrock to the center of the earth every day of the work week, not holidays except Christmas. The super said in beginning of December it would be a couple of months, then three months later, a couple of weeks. Now that lying sneeze says its my building's fault because they cannot go through our basement. Seriously! I am a wreck. I cannot abide noise and am the closest apartment. I don't know if I can find an apartment to move to as the rents would be too high. I am desperately broken, depressed and shattered. I am old and a professor in CUNY. Not rich and a former founding loft tenant who was evicted by the gentrifier set when the laws of the City of NY would not protect us. Life is brutal.
29
Sue the new neighbors for moving and relocation costs and medical. They are responsible for causing the problems.
19
I was once woken up early by construction noises at a short term rental in Palm Springs. My friend, who arranged the stay, complained to the crew working across the street. A few hours later, she got an envelope with $1000 in hundreds. I guess you just have to be in the right place at the right time.
14
@Mary -- don't expect even a cent from this couple!
They should be forced to stay at their construction site 24/7. Then things would change.
3
Maybe you have this all wrong. The garish sights and sounds of monster construction add to a neighborhood's real estate value.
1
I'm so glad I don't have to deal with this problem ... mainly because i can't afford to live on the Upper West Side anyway.
4
If there is any justification in carrying out actions that hew to the saying: don’t get mad, get even, this, and other examples like it, is it. I’ll leave it to your imaginations to fill in the details. They are endless. Civil disobedience is what it will take to stop the .001%.
9
The article states that "the project won approval from the Landmarks Preservation Commission and the Department of Buildings." I have three questions/observations:
1) Was "the project" accurately described in the representations that the owners made to those entities? Such representations are a matter of public record. Did the author of the article look for them? Did the author try to verify their transparency?
2) If the project was accurately described, then the "block organizers" indeed "napped" through the process. I doubt very much that simply describing the project as "putting two buildings together" would have been accepted by either the Landmarks Preservation Commission or the Department of Buildings. If the owners were planning to gut the buildings and dig 30+ feet into Manhattan's bedrock, then they would have had to disclose those plans. Since no one has obtained a "cease and desist" order, I suspect that the representations were appropriate. But, it would be good to know that The Times had looked into that.
3) Did the local Community Board approve the "renovation?" If so, what was the rationale? If not, why were they not advised and consulted?
If the owners indeed proceeded in a proper manner, then this is not so much about the "whim of plutocrats" as it is about the lack of vigilance by a range of players, from immediate neighbors to appointed officials.
30
8 am stretching into the summer? Boo boo. Cry me a river. Try coming to my neighborhood, the landmarked West Village, where a building with a sunken parking garage has been plunging into the earth and rising several stories above it, disturbing sleep and destroying sleep, air quality, views and property values for two years now with no end in sight, starting at 7 am. Last weekend they worked through the weekend, starting at 8 and 9 am—the first of 4-10 “necessary” weekends that will take place throughout March, April, June and July. We weren’t informed till we were halfway into that weekend about these necessary 7 day work weeks. Because the human beings who live around these construction sites are just ... well ... unnecessary. As they told us about light studies at the community board meeting, “we’re not required to do that, so we didn’t.”
And our mayor claims to be progressive and for the people? We’ve been sold out to the highest bidder. It’s disgusting.
32
@AnnNYC
City officials never live next to these projects so they feel free to exercise their authority to disrupt the lives of the people who they are supposed to represent who do.
The only way to change this is for the people to vote to change the priorities that must be served to include only limited disruption of peaceful and quiet enjoyment of homes or completely funded temporary relocations.
If the property owners cannot pay for the impacts that they make upon others, then society should have no obligation to let them do so.
12
@AnnNYC -- and this mayor of yours is considering running for president! Wow!
2
To the barricades! And no, not the ones that border the construction site.
12
Interestingly, it’s not the only pool-in-a-townhouse on the Upper West Side. There’s another one on west 81.
3
Oh the humanity! Disturbing the indifferencet and tranquility of the rich and privileged. Sing sorrow of sorrows.
And in San Francisco's this same class protests the building of a homeless shelter in their vicinity.
7
The suburbanization of New York continues and man, it’s getting B-O-R-I-N-G-!
10
It's unfortunate that so many people are being affected by this, BUT...if there was ever a candidate for a first-world problem, this is it
2
In our rent-controlled apartment in San Franciso where we lived for many years, the landlord had many thousands of reasons for us to move. Over the course of a few months, virtually every apartment around us, turned over -- and the construction began to upscale them all to accomodate newly prosperous techies. Almost all the new residents were women, typically aged 25 - 28, who, predictably, would move on when a relationship matured enough with another technie to purchase a home. This rate of change guaranteed the 1) the apartments about us would be maintained at or close to market rate, and 2) we would be enveloped in noise for years to come.
It's a Hobbesian, Hobbesian, Hobbesian, Hobbesian World.
15
While I feel for the surrounding tenants affected, after all no one should have to endure the physical and emotional torment that extreme exhaustion can cause, it's difficult to reconcile the privilege with the problem. Maybe because I'm relatively poor (certainly relative to those who can afford to live in the 60s on the Upper West Side). The birds stopped singing complained one resident. Do you realize how many buildings in New York City have unresolved faults in their central gas piping? You're lucky. You can't convince me you don't have the resources to move. You shouldn't have to but the simple fact of the matter is they have a right to do what they're doing, as is the nature of any city. Maybe they shouldn't have the right. I don't know. I'm hesitant to lean on principle. It's difficult to formulate a solid opinion on this one. Maybe it's the jackhammer, power saw, and ambulance siren blaring outside my window
3
The Landmarks Preservation Commission should not allow old houses in historic districts to be totally demolished except for the eleven-inch-thick front facade. What kind of preservation is that?
23
That noise? Renovation of a primary school across my building (404 East 66 street) done with public money took two years longer than planned, and probably many many more tens of millions than budgeted. The work was going on every night with loud noises and lights, sometimes after 11pm. I was thinking I was going crazy. There was no quiet evening for many many months. And by the way, the work did not stop for Rosh Hashana or Yom Kippur (school closed, Spanish speaking workers did not care. They were payed double salaries on the evenings and holidays and their conversations was often heard in the apartments in our building). Nor has the work on that school has been finished judging by it's looks. People on our building, elderly, and those with young kids, and those with nervous breakdowns have complained with no success from city council...
6
Elsewhere such a degree of disturbance might be the basis for a nuisance suit, but apparently not in NYC.
4
It's been calculated that a property value increases by 10% of the cost of a neighboring renovation. That may be of small consolation to the renters, but the adjacent building owners are probably quite happy.
The renters would be well advised to research how their former neighbors were evicted, because their landlord surely already has.
2
The only fitting celebration of the eventual occupation of the finished residence/hotel can be multiple serenades of recorded bag-pipe music, delivered over many months, at random intervals, scheduled by the long-suffering neighbors, who may choose to be elsewhere.
17
Complaining about construction noise in Manhattan? Seriously? The entitled tone if this article is crazy. Construction is loud, and that’s just the way it is. If you want a shorter construction day the project will last longer - it’s a zero sum game. That noise is the sound of construction progress. Peace and quiet is the sound of nothing getting done. That’s life. Are people not aware that construction does not in fact last forever, but may last a year or so? The part that takes the longest during any project is always the foundation and it often looks like nothing is happening until the above ground portion (the fast and easy part) springs into view. Remember how long the WTC was just a big hole, until suddenly the towers’ steel started going up a floor per week?
1
@Andrew This is not the worldtrade center, and it has been a few years with no end in sight.
I would be furious.
My sympathy ends where the aggrieved residents' entitlement begins. This sentiment, for example:
"Going forward, Ms. Vazquez said, “we have to find a way to make sure this never happens to anybody again. We should be the last residential block this ever happens to.” That the couple followed the law, she said, proves only that that law must change."
"We should be the last block this ever happens to," why precisely? Does this person realize that huge numbers of people have been displaced by gentrification in neighborhoods across the city? Forced out by money's prerogatives.
This country worships money and this is what money does. It must be tough to find out that your money isn't enough to protect you from those with bigger bank accounts.
14
I really feel sorry for the neighbors who are suffering, but I have to tell you, the developers want to reshape NYC and therefore reshape its makeup. Developers are like vultures, they lay in wait for the first parcel of land to becomes available. A piece of land that can be turned into green space? Nope, Central Park is enough, let's build another ugly, glass luxury high rise. A beautiful Beaux-Arts style building, part of the city's past waiting to be transformed to something every resident can enjoy is available. Nope, tear it down, or keep part of it, and turn it to another high-rise luxury rental. I'm surprised NY still has a Landmarks and Preservation department because there aren't many landmarks left.
And who can afford the rents at Hudson Yards? Not an NYC school teacher, a policeman or a fireman. They can work in the city, they can eat in the city, or even shop in the city, but live in the city, no can do, out you go to a two-hour commute somewhere in suburbia.
I personally don't have a dog in this fight. I left the city long ago but visit often. I guess a lot of New Yorkers grin and bear it because they love the city so much they can't leave. To those folk, I hope your elected officials will find a way to make the city more livable for you and your families, but I tell you, it looks bleak.
19
This article comes off as very privileged and self-serving. Just because a nytimes reporter lives nearby, and is suffering from the sound, it gets an article?! And as a result, two people who are legally allowed to do their construction get publicly shamed and their names and address nationally exposed.
Shame on the reporter for resorting to petty tactics and abusing a position of influence to attack a neighbor out of spite. Not everyone has access to the same megaphone, and the editor should have thought this through.
19
@J--yup, yup I agree. Thought it was cute how she slipped that fact in rather quietly but thinking it would add to the validity of the story. For shame, for shame on her.
7
@J Totally agree. They did not do their due diligence and now they are upset and are ready to take down the "vodou priestess" who as you said got the permits LEGALLY. yeah I see right through this article. Wrong on so many levels. It should have been an article on construction laws in the city but instead it was a hit piece on the owners. Disgusting!
@J Sounds like you're buddies with this obscenely wealthy, selfish couple. I would not be able to live with myself if my construction destroyed people's lives in this way. SHAME ON THEM
I feel so sorry for these filthy rich snobs getting a little "noise treatment" Meanwhile, 30% of Americans can't afford to see a dentist!! What a lopsided country.
10
@Norman
I personally know two people who live across the street in the same building, separate apartments, ages 93 and 98. They are single, live alone in walk-ups.They both have lived there for 70 years. They are NOT "filthy rich" snobs. They moved into that neighborhood in the very late 1940's and worked well into their 80's. They cannot and could not afford to live elsewhere. This is their neighborhood.
BTW, their health care costs are extremely high too b/c most doctors in NYC do not accept Medicare.
4
@Philly girl These 2 people you mentioned (bless their hearts) are they representative of the neighborhood? Because the way I see it it's mostly privileged people complaining about more privileged (foreigners) "others" while failing to have done their due diligence. A hit piece (personal and shaming) on neighbors who got their permits legally is not a good use of NY times space. humble opinion! that frankly classless wrath (vodou priestess and all...)should have been directed at NY construction laws since the problem happens all over the city.
How much more obscene can the 1% be? It used to be the wealth was discreet -- now we have the grotesque abuse of being rich and making us put up with these whims. Disgusting!
5
Reading this article was painful. Full of clipped thoughts and missing antecedents. I had to read paragraphs more than once to understand what was being conveyed. I would expect better from a writer in the NYT. For instance, how can two of the neighbor's balconies be "right over" the pit? I hope this kind of (chic?) writing is not a trend.
10
Upper East Side residents lived through ten years of jackhammering and blasting during subway construction. It was hell. But at least we got a new subway out of it. Construction is a fact of life in New York. If you don't like it, move to the suburbs.
2
I'm sending everyone on that suffering block the most garish inner tubes to be found, flip flops with oversized plastic flowers on the toe divider and Budweiser beach towels and you all should show up the first day that pool is opened....
814
@JV,
They possibly won't not even live there, after all, they knew what they were doing was so uncool that they hid behind layers of anonymity.
25
@JV,
And I'll throw in a case of Borat-inspired bathing suits for the guys.
20
I detect the beginnings of a new building frenzy here. In landmark neighborhoods such as this, zoning will prevent you from building too high, but is there an ordinance about how low you can go? I doubt it. Pretty soon, owners will be selling their subterranean rights until the city is interlaced underground like an ant colony, populated by pasty-faced plutocrats. Is this how the Eloi and the Morlocks first started out?
2
If higher noise tolerance is associated with lower intelligence, is lower noise tolerance associated with higher intelligence? :) i left Manhattan for the hinterlands 30 years ago, never been happier.
2
@Katherine Lundy
Yes, it's funny how urbanists always tout city living as being the crucible of innovation because of its very density, yet it's the density and its concomitant, disruptive noise that causes 99% of all ideas to be stillborn.
3
Rather than have so many resources, and so much wealth, causing this couple to waste their idle, all-too-plentiful leisure time and energy on personal prestige projects ala Sadam's Iraqi palaces (he didn't live in them or use the pool either) how about this-
The rich, more than most, need societies not fraying from neglect and greed - their wealth depends on it ultimately.
The fact is wealth depends on the rest of society doing well. The better we're all doing, the better the economy, the better we all do.
Especially the rich.
Let's help them achieve that goal.
Take some of that excess money from them and improve the lot of people in the middle and bottom.
This genteel couple will feel good, reap benefits and won't waste time and money on nonsense like this project.
Supreme Court Justice Louis D. Brandeis- "We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both."
Schopenhauer- "the higher your tolerance for noise, the lower your intelligence.”
Our high tolerance for wealth inequality is what shows low intelligence.
It messes up our country.
A society fraying at its edges will soon affect the entire fabric.
7
That’s capitalism for ya. That’s how it works. Making bank is now how we value people. Being poor is seen as being justified for some sort of moral failing. Worship the rich, promote consumerism, & shame the poor - the nee american dream.
3
This is outrageous and there ought to be limits on what people are allowed to do in the name of turning their brownstones into 5 star resorts in St. Tropez. If you require spa like conditions in your home, then go buy land in Idaho and jack hammer away. Have some consideration for the fact that you are living on a relatively small island that is home to not just you, but over 8 million others!
17
It's been a long time since I was in journalism school or in the business. But 27 paragraphs seems an awful long stretch before an author discloses his personal interest in the story. Or maybe basic editorial practices have changed.
12
Several high rises were built around the same time at each end of the block where I lived in Manhattan. The rats on the street were horrendous. Packs would run down the street at night. Trash bags would shake as rats feasted inside them. It did not abate until construction on the new buildings grew above ground and reached the 9th or 10th floors.
4
The author should have noted his connection to the block where this construction is occurring much sooner in the article. Once I found out that the author is also being "serenaded," this read more like a letter of complaint to the largest possible audience, rather than a news article.
14
Oh no! The one percent is being disturbed by the .1 percent! Consider my pearls as clutched as a string of pearls can be clutched! Oh no!
9
Jesus said: If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me
When he heard this, he became very sad, because he was very wealthy. Jesus looked at him and said, "How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of heaven! Indeed, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of heaven.
2
Sounds horrible. However, I have another concern. Aren't opinion pieces supposed to be clearly labeled?
6
"man believes he’s above everything else and refuses to respect the environment around him."
As do this couple. Judge them by their deeds.
4
This was an interesting article to me, a non-city dweller.
Unfortunately, the snide comment about "holidays of the politically potent" in the third paragraph set a tone that interfered with my enjoyment. I spent the rest of the article with a sense of anticipation of another snide comment - and I was not disappointed. But it was just one more illustration that today's "journalists" cannot keep their emotions out of their reporting.
7
I live on another UWS Manhattan block near a brownstone construction project that seems to be going on endlessly, whether left for months as a vacant lot with construction material hanging out the window, or suddenly visited by loud construction workers who can see straight into the entirety of my one bedroom apartment. Conversation with neighbors reveals that this has been going on at this particular building for 11 years and counting. I have to ask -- what is going on with the Department of Buildings? Stop giving permits to and approving projects that ruin the character of the street and the quality of life for everyone who lives there.
5
This is beyond belief.
Can’t we tax these guys in a way that will make them cry uncle?
Civility and this type of crass wealth don’t seem to go together. What percentage of the borough residents will object to a punitive tax on this? I bet less them 1 in 10000 ör less. So?
8
This may seem like an odd question but why would someone who obviously has enough money to do whatever they want, wherever they want, whenever they want spend tens of millions of dollars to swim in a basement?
21
@walt amses - You'd think they could have just bought a lake somewhere.
2