It’s a lot of money — and a big chunk of skyscraper — to dangle over a historic Manhattan art school.
The Art Students League, which counts Norman Rockwell, Jackson Pollock and Georgia O’Keeffe among its alumni, in Midtown is pushing its members to approve a $31.8 million deal with Extell that would allow part of a new 1,400-foot luxury tower (right) to be cantilevered over its West 57th Street building.
One mailing to members threatens that if they vote no, “We get Zilch! And a taller building next door.”
Not all league members are quick to jump on the cash, and some have formed a coalition to oppose the deal. The voting for 2,000 of the organization’s members will be finalized next week.
“It’s an enormous tower and a third of it is going to be hanging in the air above our building if the deal goes through,” said Richard Caraballo, a member who is leading the charge.
Among the group’s concerns are the safety of constructing the giant building next door, whether the League has conducted an independent engineering study on the construction’s impact and how the windfall will be used.
“Aesthetically, it’s the worst thing that came down the pike since Penn Station,” said Beth Kurtz, a lifetime Art Students League member. “A huge thing like that hanging over the roof offers great opportunity for damage. One tool dropping from that height would make the Art Students League uninhabitable.”The League said an engineering firm is monitoring sensors to ensure the building’s structural integrity. Some 5,000 students take classes at the school every year.
This would be the second Extell tower on the street. The developer’s One57 condo project — where a crane dangled dangerously 1,000 feet in the air after Superstorm Sandy — recently opened.
The latest project, known as the Nordstrom Tower because the department store will set up shop at the base, includes condos and a hotel.
Extell maintains that in order for the department store to have open floors and to provide for better condo layouts above, it needs to cantilever more than 40 floors of the apartments. The design would also allow for Central Park views for the luxe units.
The overhang would start about 300 feet up from the sidewalk and extend some 30 feet over the arts building, a 1892 French Renaissance-style landmark. The five-story building was designed by Henry Janeway Hardenbergh, the architect behind the Waldorf Astoria Hotel and the Dakota apartment building.
Extell President Gary Barnett told The Post the tower would go forward with or without the cantilever and noted it would “a terrible shame” for the ASL members “to walk away from that money.” Construction is supposed to take up to five years.
He was dismissive of safety concerns over the cantilever.
“Having a tall development project next to you, or within 20 feet of you or 20 feet over you, doesn’t make a difference,” he said. “If god forbid something falls off, it travels. It’s not going straight down.”
Extell already paid the ASL $23.1 million in 2005 to buy its air rights in order to make its tower taller.
Ira Goldberg, the ASL’s executive director, called the new Extell deal “a once in a lifetime opportunity” and said the cash will be used to “keep tuition low, modernize our facilities, add studio space and restore the soaring Vanderbilt gallery.