Sunday, July 25, 2021

Seventh Avenue Holdout

 https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/07/arnold-gumowitz-1.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&w=1024

 

NY Post

 Steve Roth, the 80-year-old billionaire real estate mogul, has a dream.

With the blessing of Gov. Andrew Cuomo, he wants to raze much of the area around Penn Station and put up 10 skyscrapers.

But 92-year-old Arnold Gumowitz is ready to spoil the relative whippersnapper’s hopes.

The real-estate mogul owns 421 Seventh Avenue, an office building across from Madison Square Garden that will need to be demolished if Roth’s controversial glass and steel supertalls are to happen.

But Gumowitz doesn’t want to sell the 15-story structure that he bought 43 years ago. It’s where he runs his commercial real estate empire, and where he still comes to work with his son every day.

He also definitely doesn’t want it demolished by eminent domain, a possibility he just found out about recently when he saw plans for the project with a drawing of a roughly 80-story tower in place of his own building.

“I look for fairness but when someone attacks me, I respond,” Gumowitz told The Post. “This is a generational piece of property. This is also a piece of real New York. I also hate to see this area become another impersonal Hudson Yards with nothing but tall buildings and no sunlight.”

Because the state declared the area “blighted” a year ago, Roth’s Vornado Realty and the Empire State Development Corp (ESD) — the state agency directing the project for Cuomo — have the right to tear down certain blocks in the designated area. At least 200 people will lose their homes and 9,000 employees will be out of work if the project goes ahead.

Gumowitz’ building sits at a critical spot for the planned Empire Station project: it’s in an area where the state wants to build a subway entrance and enlarge the sidewalk.

State officials, while cagey about whether they’d take Gumowitz’s building by eminent domain, indicated in a recent community board hearing on the issue that it’s a card they could play if they had to.

But to employ eminent domain, the ESD’s plan would have to undergo another review process, and a public hearing, said an official who did not want to be named.

They could also acquire the building through a negotiated sale.

Good luck with that, said Evan Cooper, who has worked for AAG Management, Gumowitz’s real estate management company, for 23 years.

“Roth and this project are coming at Arnold like a speeding train,” Cooper said. “But what they don’t realize is that Arnold is the immovable object.”

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

“I’d hate to see the area become another impersonal Hudson Yards” Amen! I hope he can hold on to his building! A real estate mogul I can respect!

Anonymous said...

To first Anonymous who said:

❝Amen! I hope he can hold on to [sic] his building! A real estate mogul I can respect!❞

It won't really matter very much, now that post capitalism has destroyed ALL of New York City, and most of New York State by the 'Monetary Locusts' of the 1%, butressed by the rock bottom barbarism, savagery and relentless treachery of government sycophants, ALL of whom take their marching orders from entrenched, predatory, rapacious corporate boardroom anarchists——ironically the ONLY place where freedom and democracy now exist for which everyone else has continually paid the ULTIMATE, soul-crushing price.

❝Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters.❞ ——Benjamin Franklin

Anonymous said...

Good for him! Stand your ground and don't be bullied by others!

Anonymous said...

The area around Penn Station is already full of tall non-descript buildings and no sunlight. The new development would just mean they'd be replaced with even taller buildings. Hudson Yards is impersonal, but Penn Station is surrounded by nothing particularly endearing. Of all the places to do this kind of development, this is the right area - directly next to a major transit hub.

Anonymous said...

I feel the same way about my landlord- good luck getting me to move along

Anonymous said...

To first Anonymous who said:

❝Amen! I hope he can hold on to [sic] his building! A real estate mogul I can respect!❞

It won't really matter very much, now that post capitalism has destroyed ALL of New York City, and most of New York State by the 'Monetary Locusts' of the 1%, butressed by the rock bottom barbarism, savagery and relentless treachery of government sycophants, ALL of whom take their marching orders from entrenched, predatory, rapacious corporate boardroom anarchists——ironically the ONLY place where freedom and democracy now exist for which everyone else has continually paid the ULTIMATE, soul-crushing price.

❝Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters.❞ ——Benjamin Franklin

Adriatic hillbilly said...

Oh please like scumtoast Gumowitz is some kind of paragon of civic virtue. This is a classic pissing contest between two ancient "mochers" fighting over the shittiest part of midtown. In ten years their worthless heirs will be selling shit off to support their drug habits and serial divorces. I've seen it happen. All they'll say is "well, somebody's gotta spend uncle Arnold/Steve's money!"