Manhattanization of Long Island City continues, tallest apartment building yet now going up

More than 30 years ago, I attended a meeting of a Mr. Brody from the NYC Department of Development and  the heads of a group of big photo studios who had formed this alliance to trade notes and try to influence what the City was doing if they could...I did a newsletter for them, just a little sideline assignment for me, but it was an entrance into the big time world of photography in Manhattan..

That's just it, Manhattan, and concentrated in an area called the Photo District starting around East 23rd Street and Park Avenue South and spreading down mostly to the South and West of there...the City administration wanted to encourage these places to move outside of Midtown, to North of 96th Street in Manhattan and even out into Long Island City in Queens.

The "bible" of all this was ( and I believe still is) a publication called The Photo District News...which I assume now reports on all activity well outside of the traditional District itself...

At that time, and probably still, NYC had at least half the professional photographers in the United States, and practically all the big studios who did catalog photography for the major retailers like J.C. Penney etc.

Rents were spiraling upwards in the Park Avenue South area, and one of the largest studios, Vogue Wright was priced out ( space taken over by--what else-- the City itself, for a division of the City University's Baruch College)....they moved to Upper West Midtown; another big studio went over to Sixth Avenue and a newly renovated old loft style 19th Century building.

Well, apartment buildings and office towers have been rising in Long Island City for some time now ( while there has been less development of businesses North of 96th Street than the City had hoped for...while luxury housing on the other hand has spread North into Harlem as the people there well know).

I ran this photo on a Google Plus Circle site and someone questioned whether it was really Long Island City or not...he claimed he lived just East of LIC and he saw nothing like that.

I checked just to make sure I had not made some strange mistake ( which I have done in the course of my brilliant career)  --but no, this is Long Island City all right.

In fact, a very tall new apartment building is soon to join the other projects now there or underway or planned...

This from the internet:

Rockrose Development Corp. is expected to break ground on the tallest residential building in Queens later this year.
The company plans to build a 50-story tower in the Court Square area (43-25 Hunter Street) comprised of 975 units. No other building in Queens has this many units.
Rockrose President Justin Elghanayan has dubbed the firm’s latest project “Citigroup Tower’s Girlfriend” because of its proximity to the famous Court Square landmark. Seven dilapidated warehouses will be demolished to make way for the new project that is expected to be completed in 2016.
The building will be 907,000-sq feet, of which 30,000 sqf. will be dedicated to amenities including rooftop decks, library rooms and even a full court basketball court.
The company said that 80% of the rental units will be market rate while the remaining 20% will be affordable units.
Demolition of the 7 warehouses will create a 47,800-sq foot lot. Those buildings that will be demolished include: 25-25 44^th Drive; 43-25, 43-15, 43-11 and 43-09 on Hunter Street; and 27-02 and 27-06 on 43^rd Avenue.
The cost to construction new tower is estimated to be in the $400 million range.
Meanwhile, this summer, Rockrose will begin leasing its 709-unit Linc LIC, which is also in Court Square.