3-to-1 on Upper East Side

...when Dr. Mitchell Blutt, a modern-day tycoon made rich on Wall Street, wanted a mansion of his own, he found Mr. Carnegie’s neighborhood, now known as Carnegie Hill, not surprisingly plumb out of space.

In Manhattan, a Plan to Turn 3 Landmark Homes Into One

To solve the problem, Dr. Blutt bought the two town houses directly east of his current home on East 90th Street, between Park and Madison Avenues, in order to combine the three Romanesque Revival, four-story town houses into one 17,000-square-foot dwelling. His plans have prompted protest from neighbors, who see an intrusion of a suburban-style “McMansion,” and from preservationists, who fear that they would destroy the character of the landmark-protected buildings.

Dr. Blutt had proposed a three-story rear-yard addition that would extend some 15 ½ feet beyond the buildings’ original rear walls. He also wanted to add more than 20 feet to the height of the buildings by adding a fifth floor, as well as a concrete bulkhead for a new elevator shaft.

“It’s an audacious proposal,” said Simeon Bankoff, the executive director of the Historic Districts Council, which works to preserve New York’s historic neighborhoods and buildings. “It’s the kind of thing that seems to be extraordinarily conspicuous consumption.”

If this were in Queens, it would already have been approved. And if it's good enough for Queens, it surely should be good enough for the Upper East Side.