That building looks horrible, do people live there?
Ground floor is a shop, pepper floors are basically empty.
^pepper^upper
Though I have replaced pepper control arms on a vintage Mustang once. Rust does that.
The tiny holdout building in the middle of Macy’s is back in view
31–40 of 73 posts
Re: The tiny holdout building in the middle of Macy’s is back in view
#32a farm. in manhattan sigh
I don’t understand. Do you think the Dutch came to Manhattan in the 1620s and found it fully built out with streets and skyscrapers?
Re: The tiny holdout building in the middle of Macy’s is back in view
#33https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Million_Dollar_Corner In September 2021, Macy's accused the billboard's owner Kaufman Realty of negotiating to lease the space to an online retailer before Macy's most recent lease expired that August. Macy's claimed that the lessee was almost certainly Amazon and filed for an injunction preventing Kaufman from leasing the space to a competitor. Macy's claimed that a 1963 agreement prohi…
So was the injunction successful?
Re: The tiny holdout building in the middle of Macy’s is back in view
#34Earlier quoted context omitted.
Based on the pictures I can’t imagine anyone legally living there. I don’t know for sure, but I imagine usable windows are required for living spaces.
Every bedroom of a rental is required to have a window in New York. But in this part of town, the advertising rights alone probably vastly exceed any possible revenue from renting the building for residential use. It’s kind of like the tiny building in Times Square that has the ball on top. I don’t think people even realize there’s a building behind all of the billboards, but it was original New York Times building.
That’s what I meant, but worded poorly: that for anyone to legally be living there it wouldn’t currently meet the standards.
Renting any part of that building out is likely not worth the hassle compared to the ad revenue, as you noted.
Re: The tiny holdout building in the middle of Macy’s is back in view
#35a farm. in manhattan sigh
There are still farms in Manhattan and other parts of NYC. From the few I know off-hand:
- The Farm at the Javits Center (Hudson Yards) is a working rooftop farm, greenhouse, and has an orchard.
- On Randall’s Island there is a farm with raised beds, greenhouses, rice paddies, and also an orchard.
- Battery Urban Farm (Lower Manhattan) - not sure of this counts but its an operating educational farm that grows produce.
There are others.
Re: The tiny holdout building in the middle of Macy’s is back in view
#36Earlier quoted context omitted.
Based on the pictures I can’t imagine anyone legally living there. I don’t know for sure, but I imagine usable windows are required for living spaces.
Every bedroom of a rental is required to have a window in New York. But in this part of town, the advertising rights alone probably vastly exceed any possible revenue from renting the building for residential use. It’s kind of like the tiny building in Times Square that has the ball on top. I don’t think people even realize there’s a building behind all of the billboards, but it was original New York Times building.
> but it was original New York Times building.
It was the second New York Times building! The original was on Park Row.
Re: The tiny holdout building in the middle of Macy’s is back in view
#37Earlier quoted context omitted.
Land value tax solves this
Land value tax is an evil concept. Having to pay for land you already own is insane. Also, people already pay property tax, why should there be an additional tax.
A land value tax would be instead of a property tax. It encourages owners to either develop or sell to someone else willing to develop. Although in this case, I don't think it would actually encourage anything as it's clearly being used. The bottom of the building is being used as a store and the rest of the structure is holding up billboards. Most of the building itself is probably worth very little (it does look uninhabitable) so property taxes are lower than what they'd be if the plot was actually occupied with apartments or offices. The actual value comes from what's nearby which is the giant Macy's that wants a big billboard. Land value taxes are meant to prevent people from having relatively empty plots, like a big estate or a vacant plot, but there's already something here. Maybe it's not being used to its full potential but that would involve figuring out what it would take to actually develop and the future income against what the LVT would be. A dilapidated building serving as a billboard structure (plus the Sunglass Hut lease) is easy money, why upset that?
Re: The tiny holdout building in the middle of Macy’s is back in view
#38Mamdani should expropriate the building and do something charitable with it.
Re: The tiny holdout building in the middle of Macy’s is back in view
#39Earlier quoted context omitted.
Land value tax solves this
Land value tax is an evil concept. Having to pay for land you already own is insane. Also, people already pay property tax, why should there be an additional tax.
Not per se. In fact, land tax is extremely important to encourage things moving and economy growing.
It's the implementation that can be evil.
Re: The tiny holdout building in the middle of Macy’s is back in view
#40The London version of this is Spiegelhalters, in the middle of the ornate facade https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wickhams_(department_store)
Amsterdam's Victoria Hotel near Central Station also has a holdout embedded in its edifice. https://old.reddit.com/r/SpiteHouse/comments/of5cqh/in_the_c...
Wow, I walk there all the time and I’ve never noticed