Clinton Residents Protest Planned
62-Story Tower
By George Spelvin

Invoking the memories of the late Joseph Papp and Colleen Dewhurst, the Manhattan Theater Club pulled out all the stops May 10, urging Community Board 5 to endorse a proposed 62-story tower at 47th Street and Eighth Avenue as part of a plan to restore the Biltmore Theater.

But residents of Clinton/Hell’s Kitchen west of Eighth Avenue said “wait a minute,” reminding the project’s proponents that they were also out on the streets with Papp, Dewhurst and others, marching to save endangered Broadway theaters in the mid-1980s. Many of those protesting the plan were from the performing arts: Papp and Dewhurst, they claimed, would think twice about saving a theater at the expense of a neighborhood where performing artists have often found affordable housing.

The plan is similar to the one used for the 90-story Trump World Tower on the East Side: Developers assemble contiguous building lots in order to “merge” the aggregate development rights into a massive bulk much larger than that normally allowed. In this case, the developer has merged 10 lots, and then increased the entire assemblage by 44% through a theater-rehabilitation zoning mechanism to reach the 62-story height.

Board 5 put off its vote until its June meeting, but the point was made that the huge tower would have an impact on the surrounding neighborhood. It would cast a shadow as far as Tenth Avenue, increase noise and traffic, and exacerbate the walling-in and secondary displacement in Clinton. Many Clinton neighborhood groups, elected officials and Met Council are saying, “save the theater, but not with a 62-story tower.”