KATHARINE HEPBURN must be turning in her grave.
Shoddy construction by greedy moneymen is destroying the whole Turtle Bay area around Second Avenue, filling the neighborhood she loved with countless world-class-ugly buildings.
What they’ve done to Second Avenue in the last few years is criminal. Yesterday, it turned deadly.
Second Avenue from East 53rd Street to Dag Hammarskjold Park came under invasion by these animals about five years ago with the cooperation of the city, and what seems like rampant incompetence. Are there no rules that apply? No aesthetics, no safety that won’t be overlooked? Apparently not.
As a resident of the neighborhood, I’ve looked on with horror, distress, anger and outrage – as have my neighbors – at the rampant construction turning a once-graceful area into a canyon,
The once-lovely brownstones and typically New York four-story buildings that once housed the historic Thaddy Con’s Bar & Grill and even the Box Tree Restaurant right near Hepburn’s house were torn down with impunity.
In fact, when the Box Tree was torn down by the East 49th Street Development Corp. to build a high-rise, and the merchants and owners at the adjoining buildings on Second Avenue refused to sell, the backs of those buildings were cracked “by mistake” within the first few days of construction, rendering the buildings uninhabitable.
A 90-year-old woman and her dog were forced out. The contractors put her, the neighbors told me, in a motel in Queens, where she was separated from her dog, never to see him again. Hey – it was a small price to buy up the rest of Second Avenue, wasn’t it?
Now The Alexander, a monstrously large building, will take up the entire 49th Street corner and part of the avenue. From the pictures I see posted in the sales office, anyone who moves there will turn extremely good looking and walk around holding a wine glass.
Since this particular construction is a non-union job, the union protesters are out there all day – blowing their whistles at 7 a.m., which causes the cement trucks to start blowing their air horns to stop them. Nice.
Somehow, the workers are allowed to work most Saturdays, and one night even past 2 a.m. Why? Repeated calls to Community Board 6 didn’t help. Councilman Dan Garodnick wasn’t able to get anywhere either. Somehow, someway, they are all granted permits.
Shame on them, and shame on the city that has allowed all this miserable growth – and danger.
These cretins would have knocked down Rome’s Colosseum for a new high-rise if it was in Manhattan, too.