New Yorkers can’t stop complaining about their blocked views
New York City has many fine museums — it isn’t one. Yet.
But New York is the home of the nation’s second-dumbest urban political ecosystem (in this, if in nothing else, San Francisco excels all others), and so there is an effort afoot to impose new burdensome regulation upon, of all things, the city’s skyline.
The Municipal Art Society of New York has been pressing for more stringent regulation for a decade, while academics such as Jorge Otero-Pailos of Columbia’s historic preservation program have joined the chorus.
And, of course, there are eternally disgruntled New Yorkers themselves. A snarky New York Times essay recently reinvigorated the debate.
The same sort of people who 100 years ago were complaining about the Empire State Building are now complaining that somebody is ruining their view of the Empire State Building.
Being largely busybodies of a progressive bent, they are particularly irritated by new residential highrises, the sort of building Michael Kimmelman of the New York Times sneers at as “yet another anorexic supertall for squillionaires.”
Read the full article on the New York Post.