Mayor Bloomberg has made many plays over his two-and-a-half terms at leaving a lasting physical legacy, but none really worked out. The maybe-too-short One World Trade isn't really his, the Jets stadium never happened (and neither did the Olympics), Atlantic Yards is enriching a few while alienating many of the locals—and don't even get us started on CityTime. So what's a billionaire from Boston to do? Well, according to the Daily News, try and rush through rezoning to rebuild the area around Grand Central taller! Sleeker! With less soul! Yup, views of the Chrysler Building could soon be but a memory.
"This would be a linchpin of his legacy," an anonymous source tells the tabloid of Bloomberg's plan to rezone the area bound by Fifth and Third Avenues and East 39th and 59th Streets to make it easier "for developers to knock down aging, too-small-for-the-big-time buildings and construct ultramodern towers — the bigger, the better."
The plan, which Bloomberg hinted at in his State of the City speech ("In the area around Grand Central, we’ll work with the City Council on a package of regulatory changes and incentives that will attract new investment, new companies and new jobs") is still being finalized before it gets shown to the public. Apparently, however, it will "increase the average building size by 20% to 30%." Which, yes, would allow some plots of land to reach up above the Chrysler Building's 77 stories.
On the one hand, a lot of the building stock in the area is actually pretty awful and probably should be replaced if the city wants to stay competitive. But, worrying ahead of ourselves, we really wish there were rules put in place to make sure the new buildings aren't worse than what they replace.
