Since it was proposed in 1929, the long-awaited Second Avenue subway line has been knocked off track by two financial crashes and one world war. Now, the massive transit project is facing another formidable adversary: residents of an Upper East Side co-op who have filed suit over the Metropolitan Transportation Authority's controversial plan to construct above-ground ventilation structures, which some say will blight the neighborhood and lower property values.
According to the Real Deal, residents of the co-op at 223 East 69th Street, where eight households would have their east-facing windows completely blocked by the ventilation structure, accuse the MTA of unlawfully altering the designs of the cooling towers. The suit claims the agency's 2004 Final Environmental Impact Statement promised that the ventilation structures "would typically be approximately the same size as a typical row house—25 feet wide, 75 feet deep, and four- to five-stories high, although some may be wider," and that they "could be designed to appear like a neighborhood row house in height, scale, materials and colors." But now the MTA is planning on building structures as tall as 10 stories with facades made from a "utilitarian mix of translucent white glass, steel louvers and ceramic tile."
"[I]f the MTA insists on moving forward with this design change, then it must conduct an additional public environmental review, including a full analysis of the facility's impacts on the buildings at 233 East 69th Street, and an evaluation of suitable mitigation measures or alternatives to avoid or minimize the facility's impacts to the greatest extent practicable," said attorney Michael D. Zarin, who estimated such a review could delay the project by an additional six months to one year. The MTA has said it must construct the above-ground structures, some of which require the use of eminent domain, because the sidewalk grates that ventilate most subway stations are no longer up to code.
