From the Daily News:The iconic graffiti-caked Long Island City factory known as 5Pointz has been tagged for development, likely ending its run as a street-art mecca.
The building's owner, developer Jerry Wolkoff, said he met recently with city planning officials to discuss replacing it with two high-rise residential towers and up to 1,300 rental units.
Wolkoff wants to dramatically remake the entire block along Jackson Ave. that surrounds 5Pointz, where the No. 7 train rumbles past.
He plans to formally submit a proposal to the city within the next two weeks. The size and scope of the project are still being worked out.
Artists fear that Wolkoff's vision for the factory's future would snuff out one of the city's unique creative communities.
He told The News in an exclusive interview that his plans include a mix of shops and restaurants, a supermarket, an open-air concourse between the towers and a park. There would also be studio space for artists.
The city rezoned the block in a 2001 plan to spur redevelopment around Queens Plaza.
The change allows large-scale redevelopment. But Wolkoff's plans call for the taller of the two towers to rise some 40 stories, which will require a special permit and likely a zoning change.
That means the plans must be approved through the city's zoning and land-use review process.
Wolkoff said his $300 million project would revitalize the area and provide for thousands of construction jobs.
29 comments:
1300 rental units. That's exactly what that area needs.
Jerry Wolkoff has been slinging this same line of bullshit since I was connected with the old "Phun Phactory"...which preceded "5 Pointz"...well over 15 years ago!
Wolkoff is basically a commercial slumlord who does little to maintain any of his buildings.
There were some test wells bored there more a decade ago and I'll bet the engineers discovered that the land (which is swampy) won't support his current grandiose plans of a 40 story (?) building.
Walkoff is just pumping up the value of his real estate with a puff piece that this idiot reporter swallowed as a real story.
Lot's of luck obtaining a variance from the NYC Board of Standards and Appeals on this one Jerry.
Bah...BS is right.
Who'd want to live in a building that's right next to an "el" line?
5 Pointz will outlive Wolcoff.
How old is he now...in his mid 70s?
Is he going to build schools to fill those new kids it will house?
Let's not forget poor Nicole who tumbled about 40 feet to the pavement below...when Walcoff's poorly maintained exterior fire stairs suddenly collapsed beneath her.
I hope she's doing well.
Maybe she'll sue the cheap bastard and own the building herself!
Every couple of years Walcoff plants a PR piece in the press about his big plans for this site.
In this economy nobody sane would undertake such a project...let alone NYC supporting his pipe dream.
I hope he builds his "artists' studios" up to FDNY fire code this time (LOL)!
His previous carve-ups of the floors into individual artists spaces violated the law and the building was subsequently padlocked.
Those artists who had previously occupied those spaces were put out onto the street.
Uh...and Jerry...in true slumlord fashion...never gave them leases!
What if the old factory were refurbished and re-opened as a factory again? Wouldn't it be nice if development were to really create real manufacturing JOBS again?
refurbished and re-opened as a factory again?
It be great however the tree huggers and hippies wouldn't let them make anything worth buying.
Executone, Eico and Sonar radio built great equipment but come 1977 and Jimmy Carter and the EPA were killing them.
I had a part time job bench testing audio power amps for Executone.
Shea & Yankee stadiums, the military were big clients of industrial audio and RF equipment.
Judging from my last drive around Maspeth I would propose a baby diaper and antidepressant factory
Have no fear !
The ZOG calling the shots in NYC will let Walcoff do whatever he wants.
The pols in charge simply call greed and bad changes "progress" "looking to the future" it against their religion to go against each other.
Look at this Ed Koch bridge nonsense. ZOG are all about ruling & making monuments to themselves like the Egyptian kings off the Nile.
Same Sh_** from different aO's elected by stupid clueless NYC voters, most who don't own homes, pay taxes and don't have anything to loose
Joe said..."Executone, Eico and Sonar radio built great equipment but come 1977 and Jimmy Carter and the EPA were killing them."
Joe, come on, stop these cheap shots..they make you look silly.
Executone is still around but like Kliegl Bros. they moved to cheaper surroundings.
Eico (I still have an electronic switch of theirs) was done-in by a lack of public interest in kit-form electronics and turned to simply marketing imports from Asia.
As for Sonar, the last product I can find from them was intro'd in 1965..Carter was still a peanut farmer.
If the EPA which was signed into law by Nixon, were such a threat to LIC manufacturing, why did Eagle last 'till ten years ago? Why is their still a chrome plating operation in LIC?
What did-in the lunchpail set out there was foreign competition, high cost of space (landlords) high cost of living (landlords again) and to some extent the fact that many of these companies' executives and workers lived in the suburbs and gradually shifted their whole operations there.
Manufacturing in LIC is going in one way only -down.
MORE high rises that no one will move into in Long Island City. All paid for by OUR taxes syphoned into the pockets of criminals.
SMACK THESE PEOPLE IN THE FACE AND WAKE THEM THE FUCK UP ALREADY!
The solution is simple: let the graffiti artists pool their cash, start a non-profit corporation like MOMA and the Guggenheim, and buy the property from Jerry Wolkoff for establishing the museum.
Nope: Last LIC product from Sonar Radio was the FS-2340 in 1977.
It uses 12 tubes, 7 digital IC's and LED display for the frequency synthesizer.
The original blueprints it says R Robinson Sept 1976.
That design is long before the Japs had anything close aside the PLL02A chip they stole from Motorola.
I own one of these Sonar classics along with a G, H BR21, Collins R-390 (non A) and a Signal One.
FS2340:
http://www.yidio.com/vintage-sonar-tube-cb-radio-model-fs-2340-40-channel/id/1679404173
Graffiti artists pool their cash ?
Hip hoppers, welfare brats and bums have cash to buy whole city blocks ?
---and I'm the Pope !
You may as well include all these self titled indie musicians hawking crap on You-tube
Just another way to bring Pabst Blue Ribbon & marginally attractive white people with pale doughy skin to the neighborhood.
5 Pointz is the sole reason my son is on the right path! He went from failing almost everything to passing with good grades and even a 85 in Math! His worst subject. A few of the guys who frequent 5 Pointz are NYC SCHOOL TEACHERS...who paint! They actually sat with him and not only tutored him FOR FREE but showed him STRUCTURE. Just because they write on the building, DO NOT UNDER ESTIMATE THEIR EDUCATION.
Wait until the DEP tests that property.
It was the former site of the Neptune Water Meter Company.
Uh...open up a manhole cover in the rear ad-on portion of the building adjacent to the parking lot and see what you find.
Maybe gallons and gallons of a PCB cocktail mix that seeped into the ground over the past 100 years?
Adam, David & Jerry Wolcoff are biting off a little more than they can chew...even for the arrogantly rich egotistical SOBs that they are.
Can it be true that Jerry is a moocher off his wealthier wife's family money?
That he used her money to make his money as a commercial slum lord?
Rev. Archibald B.:
Nice pseudonym, Arch. You certainly sound like a holy man with your anti-semitic ARP raving.
By the way - it's "lose," not "loose."
There is already a garment FACTORY already occupying a third of the first floor at 5 Pointz.
The rest of it is largely unoccupied.
The rest are marginal businesses...
hot dog and coffee cart foodstuff vendors occupying the rear portion of the site.
It seems to be Wolcoff's intent to gouge prospective renters until their noses bleed.
That's why he has a high vacancy rate.
So he now wants to remedy all this by transforming the block.
I guess he hopes that some dumb hipsters will shell out bundles of cash each month to pay for their well located "luxurious" new apartments.
Between the clack and clang (horns blowing round the bend) of the #7 line and the Amtrack trains (whistles blowing at night) on both sides...it'll (LOL) be a real suck-sess!
Ya think Jerry Wolcoff will move into one of these new apartments he intends (LOL) on building that he thinks are so great?
Nah...he prefers parking his duff in the family's posh pre-war Park Avenue digs in Manhattan.
These new material constructed rentals will be strictly for suckers!
That crooked local community board will rubber stamp his project...wait 'n see!
Jerry Walcoff is so damn cheap he has his son working across the loading dock at 5 Pointz.
Ya think with all his dough he'd give his own blood a better location for his business?
He'll remain a cheapskate 'til the end!
What color Lincoln Towne Car does Jerry pull up in these days?
What color is his limo driver?
Call out the troops!
Storm the community board, borough hall and the BSA!
Put a million man ring around 5 Pointz
and picket Walcoff until he's afraid to visit without national guard back up!
And how many of those former condo and now rental units...are going begging for tenants in far better locations closer to the breathtaking East River view?
This is an all show and no blow game that's going on here.
I'll bet the owner flips the property.
D&B him! He hasn't that kind of money to build this pipe dream on his own.
He'll have to, at least, shop for partners.
I can see it now...
the twin towers of babble rise on Davis Street!
Pardon me while I take a dump.
My last laugh made me prairie dog.
@Joe: Yes you're right about the EPA, that and city taxes, regulations and union work rules destroyed the manufacturing base here.
@Anonymous# 11: Although started under Nixon, the EPA did take a few years to grow to a point where it began to have a serious (and now negative)impact on businesses.
Yes, you have a good point on the landlords but they're only a part of the problem. Businesses are moving to cheaper digs and gradually it's moving them out of the city and out of NYS. Not good.
This is the problem. Residential development without consideration of the jobs these new residents will work to make a living is ultimately unsustainable. The proof is all around us in the form of vacant apartments in these new buildings and stalled construction projects.
This is some GREED right here. If he thinks the economy has improved enough to where ANYONE will want to buy that shit, he's insane. (ok, maybe the hipsters will) And to bulldoze a symbol of the art and culture in LIC is seriously a tragedy. Change for the WORST.
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