Skip to Content
CityRealty Logo

New Developments in the News

NOVEMBER 2, 2009




Setbacks and delays in Ground Zero project; Historic districts may expand to include more history.

Developer Larry Silverstein expressed concern this week that change in the governor's office in New York or New Jersey would cause more setbacks in Ground Zero development progress. Silverstein and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey are in arbitration over finances for the project–though he sees himself committed to the project for 17years, calling that "an optimistic estimate."

The Landmarks Preservation Committee is thinking of extending Manhattan's SoHo and the Upper East Side historic districts, revisiting a proposal that first surfaced in 2006. The SoHo-Cast Iron Historic District was designated in 1973 and contains the world's largest concentration of Victorian full and partial cast-iron. Expansion of the Upper East Side Historic District would cover the area of Lexington Avenue between 63rd and 76th Street and a few blocks of row houses just to the east of the avenue. Additionally, the commission is considering the extension of the Greenwich Village historic district to the south, to recognize an area in which "perhaps the most impressive array of intact late-19th and early-20th Century tenements anywhere in the world" reside.