Second Avenue Subway
Angular Glass Tower May Bring 108 Dwellings to Far East Side
A new multi-use building is coming to the site of a Yeshiva University lecture hall. Although the design is still speculative, YIMBY notes the building on 34th Street between Second and Third avenues secured permits for an enlargement in December. As is, the Alex Forkosh-developed, C3D Architecture-designed building, will rise 23 stories and be topped with 108 apartments, with lower floors occupied by 6,000-square-feet of commercial space and 7,000-square-feet of community space. Forkosh's purchase of the site—in 2012 for $15.5 million—came with an interesting caveat: due to the perpetually under-construction Second Avenue subway, the MTA might have to seize a piece of the lot, presumably for an underground entrance. Well, in the long run, that ramps up the convenience of the site's far east side location, but with the rate at which the Second Avenue subway is plugging along and a 2016 finish date anticipated for the site, dwellers will most certainly be around for the clamor.
A guy proposed to his girlfriend on a tour of the perpetually-under-construction Second Avenue Subway. She said yes, and now, as the first recipients of the Second Avenue Subway Curse, the happy couple plans on being engaged for a few decades, then scheduling and postponing the wedding half a dozen times as they keep running out of funding. [NYP; previously]
2nd Ave Line Drives High Prices; Roomies Stay in 'Burg
Welcome to It Happened One Weekend, our weekly roundup of The New York Times real estate section...
1) Rich people. What are they spending millions of dollars on? What are they complaining about? This is What's Up With Rich People?
Long the territory of recent college grads and the occasional Nazi , the section east of Third Avenue on the Upper East Side is attracting more and more rich people. The penthouse at The Charles on First Avenue, for example, recently went into contract for $37.94 million, a neighborhood sales record and more than double the previous record of $17 million. What's driving this boom? Brokers speculate it's the prospect of the neighborhood-wide renaissance offered by the first Second Avenue subway line, which is set to open in late 2016 (yeah right). ["Higher Prices Migrate to Far Upper East Side;" photo via Scott Lynch/Curbed Photo Pool]
1) Rich people. What are they spending millions of dollars on? What are they complaining about? This is What's Up With Rich People?
Long the territory of recent college grads and the occasional Nazi , the section east of Third Avenue on the Upper East Side is attracting more and more rich people. The penthouse at The Charles on First Avenue, for example, recently went into contract for $37.94 million, a neighborhood sales record and more than double the previous record of $17 million. What's driving this boom? Brokers speculate it's the prospect of the neighborhood-wide renaissance offered by the first Second Avenue subway line, which is set to open in late 2016 (yeah right). ["Higher Prices Migrate to Far Upper East Side;" photo via Scott Lynch/Curbed Photo Pool]
With the completion of the the Second Avenue Subway just around the corner (whoops, jinxed it, never mind), property sales and prices have taken off in the surrounding area of the Upper East Side within the past six months. Retailers and residential developers alike are getting in on the action. Extell Development recently restarted a long-stalled project on Third Avenue between 94th and 95th and Anbau Enterprises plans to build a huge SHoP-designed condo building on First between 88th and 89th. [Crain's; previously]
See The Second Avenue Subway's Subterranean Progress
Every once in awhile, the MTA likes to release some photos of the Second Avenue Subway construction, as if to say, "Hey world, we promise that this is a thing that is still going on." Well, another batch has just surfaced, via the agency's surprisingly active Flickr account,
revealing updated glimpses of tunnels, scaffolding, tarps, and more in
the sections that will become the 86th Street and 96th Street stations. Progress is, in fact, being made?even rails have arrived!?and the work is apparently on schedule. UPDATE: Second Avenue Sags has some technical explanations for the images. Obviously, the project has been quite a saga.
After starting work in 2007, with three stations projected to open
December 2016, let's just say folks need any reassurance they can get
along the way.
Those ubiquitous gridded metal sidewalk grates?wind tunnel-producing, high heel-snapping, key-swallowing banes of pedestrians everywhere?won't afflict Second Avenue. There may be 39,000 of those grates around the city, but the new line will stay ventilated via "mechanical ventilating towers
near every air-conditioned station." How civilized! Their function as
gusty "natural" heaters on chilly days will be missed. [NYT; previously]1827 House on West 10th; Second Avenue Subway Info Center
UPPER EAST SIDE?Now that construction has been going on for, oh, six years, the MTA has decided it's time to open a brick-and-mortar information center for all things related to the Second Avenue Subway. It's located at 1628 Second Avenue between 84th and 85th Streets, and it will host exhibits, videos, and interactive maps to offer info about the new subway line. [CurbedWire Inbox; official]
Say goodbye to Second Avenue's "muck houses,"
the bulky white temporary structures at 69th and 72nd streets that have
occupied half the roadway while the initial stages of blasting and
station construction proceed underground. The WSJ reports that even though the first phase of the T line won't open to the public till 2016, the unsightly boxes?bemoaned by residents, ground-floor shops, and haters of truck traffic (a.k.a. everyone)?are nonethless being removed. [Metropolis; previously]UES Residents Sue MTA Over Second Avenue Subway, Again
Back in 2011, residents of the Yorkshire Towers at 315 East 86th Street filed suit against the MTA over the placement of a new entrance to the Second Avenue Subway.
The entrance in question would be located right outside the 698-unit,
21-story building, and the suit claimed that the MTA's environmental
review wasn't thorough enough. A judge ultimately dismissed the case
because it was brought past the statute of limitations (they had 180
days to file a lawsuit but they were eight months late). Now, however, the Daily News reports that the residents have sued the MTA again?for basically the same exact reasons. The new lawsuit, filed March 15, claims "the agency flouted its own guidelines and environmental review by proceeding with the plan for the stop on the long-delayed subway line." Hmm, sounds familiar. But the suit argues that the residents have "new information regarding the entrance and were unfairly stymied by the MTA." They want to prevent any work outside their building, which is already surrounded by sidewalk scaffolding, and they want the MTA to study a single-entrance plan.
· Upper East Side residents sue MTA over placement of entrance to Second Avenue Subway [NYDN]
· Lawsuits [Curbed]
Photo via NYDN
The MTA is creating an informational video about the Second Avenue subway,
and they asked New Yorkers living near the construction site?between
First and Third Avenues and 63rd and 105th Streets?to audition to be the
video's narrator. The finalists' voices are broadcast online, and
the public can vote for one man and one woman. There's an Aussie among
the bunch, but we think a New York accent would be more fitting. [NYP; online voting]Second Avenue Subway Photos; 225 Rector Place is 50% Sold
UPPER EAST SIDE?The MTA dropped a few dozen
new photographs by Patrick Cashin showing the latest work on the Second
Avenue Subway. The images show two areas: the 63rd Street station,
which is being expanded to accomodate the new line and the new 72nd
Street station. Inside the 86th Street cavern, the job is 42 percent
done and the North and South caverns have met. At 72nd Street, work is
nearly complete?workers are now filling out the raw rock of the cavern
with concrete filling. Click through for more photos. [MTA Flickr via Gothamist]
BATTERY PARK CITY?Related's condo at 225 Rector Place has sold its 100th unit in seven months, bringing the building to the 50 percent sold mark. The building unveiled model units by Jonathan Adler in November, and buyers have the option to recreated his stylings in their own homes, plus individual design consultations and special offers on some pieces. Remaining units include studios and one-bedroom, ranging in size from 550 to 961 square feet. Prices start at $500,000. [CurbedWire Inbox; previously]
BATTERY PARK CITY?Related's condo at 225 Rector Place has sold its 100th unit in seven months, bringing the building to the 50 percent sold mark. The building unveiled model units by Jonathan Adler in November, and buyers have the option to recreated his stylings in their own homes, plus individual design consultations and special offers on some pieces. Remaining units include studios and one-bedroom, ranging in size from 550 to 961 square feet. Prices start at $500,000. [CurbedWire Inbox; previously]
An
underground explosion at the Second Avenue Subway construction site on
72nd Street blew out windows and damaged sidewalks and buildings this
afternoon. An overloaded air compressor reportedly caused a hose to rupture, sending debris flying across 72nd Street. [NYP]
Working
90 feet below the ground, surrounded by massive rock-eating machines,
is not the easiest, let alone safest, office environment. As such, the sandhogs of the Second Avenue Subway tunnel now "seek divine sanction
for their risky work." A Catholic priest descended into the steamy
cavern Monday morning to bless the workers and sprinkle holy water on
the ground. [NYT]
What's it like under Second Avenue inside the freshly-dug subway tunnel? Photographer Richard Barnes, the man behind the lens of this story,
says it's "a completely different, bizarre world" that reminded him of a
film called "Quatermass and the Pit" from 1967. "In the film, they come
upon these alien skeletons as they're excavating in the London
Underground and they discover that Martians had landed there centuries
before. When I was down in the tunnels, I kept thinking of that movie. It really felt like we were on another planet." [NYT]In a Cavern Below Second Ave., Exploding & Moving the Earth
For all the complaints about the Second Avenue subway, from the delays to the construction commotion, there's no denying that what the 475 laborers are doing beneath Manhattan is impressive and even a little mindboggling. The massive tunnel-boring, rock-eating mechanical worms may do the heavy lifting, but there is still no way to mine a tunnel without sending men into it.
The Times recently went underground with these men, capturing their work on film and in photos. Testing the stability of the ground is crucial, and under 92nd Street, the crew encountered soil and crumbling rock, which, if they simply settled the ground and dug right through, it would collapse the buildings above. Instead, they had to freeze the earth by pumping a constant stream of minus-13 degrees calcium-chloride brine into the ground for 10 weeks. Only then could they cut the tunnel.
NEED
to
KNOW
Note to readers: I left the ad for the apartment on at the end of this story just to illustrate what real estate values are like these days.
In The Belly Of The Beast: 2nd Avenue Subway Construction
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