Nobody wants to live there–44% of the units remain unsold. The gargantuan buildings sway in the wind. The apartments that sell are mostly used as occasional pied a terres by absentee owners. The apartments are deliberately under assessed by the city so the owners don’t have to pay what they actually should owe in taxes.
The scale and spirit of 57th street has been utterly crushed. Almost every low-rise building that’s not landmarked has come down, including the former Rizzoli and adjacent townhouses. Low-rise landmarks like Steinway Hall and the Art Students League have become doormats for the supersized towers that rise above them–the Landmarks Commission has been disabled. And there isn’t a jot of even “affordable” housing to be found.
And this is what the developers and the politicians they bully and bribe envision for all of Manhattan, and why they want the height restrictions–which allowed these behemoths to be built–to be lifted entirely. It’s open season on New York City.