Up next
Is iBuying Here to Stay?
Would the new structure improve on what it would replace — a pink stucco box that had originally been built to house servants? Here was the Pulitzer Prize-winning architecture critic Paul Goldberger, an Upper West Side neighbor of Mr. Ackman’s who has advised him on the project, to say that yes, of course it would.
How would integration play out with the building’s immediate neighbors? Fantastically. That was the opinion of Louise Mirrer, president of the New-York Historical Society, which is next door and an organization to which, it is worth noting, Mr. Ackman has been an enormously generous donor.
Soon enough the audience also heard from the venerable Betsy Gotbaum, who was president of the Historical Society in the 1990s, after she had served as the city’s first female parks commissioner and before she became public advocate, a background that seemed to swaddle Mr. Ackman’s agenda in the warmth of civic virtue. Was it possible to be blown away by the beauty of this proposal? Ms. Gotbaum was indeed “blown away,” as she put it, recalling how she and her colleagues at the Historical Society would snicker about the pink structure on the roof but were hamstrung to complain too much about it because the media executive Norman Pearlstine, a longtime trustee, lived there.
Mr. Pearlstine moved in when he became involved with Nancy Friday, the best-selling author and loopy analyst of sexual politics who bought the original apartment in the late 1970s and added on to it, at a time when writers might conceivably live in 13-room apartments off Central Park. The couple divorced in 2005 and Mr. Ackman bought the apartment after Friday died in the fall of 2017. Even her former caretaker appeared at the hearing to declare himself “spectacularly in favor’’ of Mr. Ackman’s proposal.
At the end of the hearing, the landmarks commission asked that Mr. Ackman and his architects come back with an amended plan that would scale back the second story of the penthouse. Although the committee could still turn him down, the enthusiasm its members displayed made that seem unlikely. Exactly how much good will there is for the project within the building itself is not especially clear. Mr. Ackman believes it is extensive; opponents estimate that there is a roughly even split. Recently a vacancy on the co-op board resulted in the election of an architect who is in favor of Mr. Ackman’s plan. The candidate who lost to her is not — some residents have asked for an audit of the vote.
Before the commissioners announced their decision, Mr. Ackman himself spoke, offering himself up as a benevolent rich person, an asset. Since the beginning of Covid he said, he had given approximately $100 million away, much of it to organizations that serve the interests of the city. Unlike many in his industry, he pointed out, he had not fled to Miami or Austin, Tex., to escape high taxes. He did not abandon a place he had been committed to for a long time. But did it have to be that way? If things didn’t work out, he said as graciously as he could, he could always pack his bags.
Source: | This article originally belongs to Nytimes.com
