4 ms·
The tiny holdout building in the middle of Macy’s is back in view
- ungreased0675 2mo agoThat building looks horrible, do people live there?
- q3k 2mo agoNo, they just shop there.
- hdgvhicv 2mo agoGround floor is a shop, pepper floors are basically empty.
- dotancohen 2mo ago^pepper^upper Though I have replaced pepper control arms on a vintage Mustang once. Rust does that.
- nephihaha 2mo agoI know. I was expecting something easier on the eye. Maybe a century of being behind billboards has wrecked it. The 1906/1907 photographs look much better.
- hinkley 2mo agoNeglect and dust. With the billboards up nobody not even the rain has been washing the facade.
- nkrisc 2mo agoBased on the pictures I can’t imagine anyone legally living there. I don’t know for sure, but I imagine usable windows are required for living spaces.
- timr 2mo agoEvery bedroom of a rental is required to have a window in New York. But in this part of town, the advertising rights alone probably vastly exceed any possible revenue from renting the building for residential use. It’s kind of like the tiny building in Times Square that has the ball on top. I don’t think people even realize there’s a building behind all of the billboards, but it was original New York Times building.
- nkrisc 2mo agoThat’s what I meant, but worded poorly: that for anyone to legally be living there it wouldn’t currently meet the standards. Renting any part of that building out is likely not worth the hassle compared to the ad revenue, as you noted.
- jen20 2mo ago> but it was original New York Times building. It was the second New York Times building! The original was on Park Row.
- bsammon 2mo ago> Every bedroom of a rental is required to have a window in New York. I don't think you meant this as specific as it sounds -- I suspect this requirement applies to coops, condos, and maybe even if you want to get official permission to use it as an owner-occupied single-family dwelling.
- timr 2mo agoThe rule is a residential rental rule. If you rent it out, the rule applies. The ownership structure does not matter. I think there's actually a parallel rule that theoretically applies to owner-occupied buildings, but for obvious reasons there's a lot less enforcement. Beyond real estate agents not listing an illegal bedroom as a bedroom, for example, nobody is going to hunt you down for using a non-bedroom as a sleeping place.
- lorreyfum 2mo ago
- UltraSane 2mo agoNot on the really rough looking floors. It has been used as a huge billboard for a very long time.
- mc32 2mo agoI was thinking the same question. It certainly looks unoccupied -I can’t imagine people living in the other side but then again it _could_ be very well maintained and decorated on the inside despite the eyesore looks on the outside. Moreover since the lower floors are commercial it must mean that at least the upper floors are keeping out the elements.
- wahnfrieden 2mo agoThere are several such buildings in NYC in prime real estate areas that are kept empty in order to prioritize billboard revenue.
- ianm218 2mo agoSource? My understanding is this is no longer true
- dylan604 2mo agoTFA as exhibit 1?
- ianm218 2mo agoHe said there are several others like this which I think is false, TFA wouldn’t be relevant.
- wahnfrieden 2mo agoThere are several that are either nearly or partly (several floors) empty
- ianm218 2mo agoI mean yeah its vacancy rate is like 20% in NYC… I asked for a source on buildings that are purposely vacant for advertising and it seems like that doesn’t actually exist
- wahnfrieden 2mo agoBuildings with mandated signage in Times Square keep the floors they cover vacant. You can look up sources yourself
- wahnfrieden 2mo agoOne Times Square is no longer fully empty (besides ground floor retail) you’re right that it is now just almost entirely empty as they’ve added an observation deck and a small visitors center/museum about the building as of January this year. Some other buildings in Times Square keep several floors empty to use for signage instead, a minimum of which is actually mandated by the city.
- amelius 2mo agoYou know your facade sucks when it looks better with a giant billboard covering it.
- codedokode 2mo agoIt just needs some minor cleaning and renovation.
- Terretta 2mo ago“Hidden by billboards for over 100 years, the tiny holdout building in the middle of Macy’s is back in view” Initial word of headline necessary for comprehension
- Barbing 2mo agoFixed (from “by billboards for over 100 years …” or something, previously)
- mbStavola 2mo agoI used to work one block from there. For years I got off at that station and walked past the building but had no idea it was hiding something like that. Amazing!
- dn3500 2mo agoThey have an odd definition of "middle".
- hdgvhicv 2mo agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Million_Dollar_Corner https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Million_Dollar_Corner In September 2021, Macy's accused the billboard's owner Kaufman Realty of negotiating to lease the space to an online retailer before Macy's most recent lease expired that August. Macy's claimed that the lessee was almost certainly Amazon and filed for an injunction preventing Kaufman from leasing the space to a competitor. Macy's claimed that a 1963 agreement prohibited such a lease "forever" and that an Amazon billboard would be highly visible during the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.
- kevinwang 2mo agoSo was the injunction successful?
- dlgeek 2mo agoYou nerd-snipped me into digging through court records. The case was 655669/2021 in the New York County Supreme Court (the Supreme Court is the name for the first-tier courts in NY state). Docket: https://iapps.courts.state.ny.us/nyscef/DocumentList?docketId=_PLUS_thplENm7xkiGsCMUfxj4Q==&display=all&courtType=New%20York%20County%20Supreme%20Court&resultsPageNum=1 https://iapps.courts.state.ny.us/nyscef/DocumentList?docketI... The parties were in settlement talks and postponed the hearing on an injunction and then settled and dismissed.
- justincormack 2mo agoThe London version of this is Spiegelhalters, in the middle of the ornate facade https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wickhams_(department_store) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wickhams_(department_store)
- scottconover 2mo agoThat wiki photo is hilarious!
- rapnie 2mo agoAmsterdam's Victoria Hotel near Central Station also has a holdout embedded in its edifice. https://old.reddit.com/r/SpiteHouse/comments/of5cqh/in_the_centre_of_amsterdam_there_is_a_hotel_built/ https://old.reddit.com/r/SpiteHouse/comments/of5cqh/in_the_c...
- angulardragon03 2mo agoWow, I walk there all the time and I’ve never noticed
- talkin 2mo agoI didn’t see it for decades, only realized waaay too long into a Dutch movie: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3765078/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3765078/ (Publieke Werken). I cannot imagine how I was ever able to not see it immediately..
- egorfine 2mo agoIs it more profitable to lease the space for banners as opposed to lease the apartments to tenants?
- skinfaxi 2mo agoProbably since you don't have to deal with tenant issues for one.
- hinkley 2mo agoPeople underestimate the value of predictability.
- hiAndrewQuinn 2mo agoLand value tax solves this
- rr808 2mo agoNot really. looks like they pay nearly $2mil a year every year right now already. You can look up Block 810 Lot 40 here: https://a836-pts-access.nyc.gov/care/search/commonsearch.aspx?mode=persprop https://a836-pts-access.nyc.gov/care/search/commonsearch.asp...
- dyauspitr 2mo agoLand value tax is an evil concept. Having to pay for land you already own is insane. Also, people already pay property tax, why should there be an additional tax.
- wildzzz 2mo agoA land value tax would be instead of a property tax. It encourages owners to either develop or sell to someone else willing to develop. Although in this case, I don't think it would actually encourage anything as it's clearly being used. The bottom of the building is being used as a store and the rest of the structure is holding up billboards. Most of the building itself is probably worth very little (it does look uninhabitable) so property taxes are lower than what they'd be if the plot was actually occupied with apartments or offices. The actual value comes from what's nearby which is the giant Macy's that wants a big billboard. Land value taxes are meant to prevent people from having relatively empty plots, like a big estate or a vacant plot, but there's already something here. Maybe it's not being used to its full potential but that would involve figuring out what it would take to actually develop and the future income against what the LVT would be. A dilapidated building serving as a billboard structure (plus the Sunglass Hut lease) is easy money, why upset that?
- fnord77 2mo agoa farm. in manhattan sigh
- margalabargala 2mo agoWhy do you think "sheep meadow" in Central Park is called that? Do you think Manhattan has always been skyscrapers?
- fnord77 2mo agoyou misinterpreted me
- margalabargala 2mo agoAll I can do is the best interpretation of what you wrote. I fear you doom yourself to misinterpretation by failing to properly or correctly describe your thought. Why comment?
- quickthrowman 2mo agoI don’t understand. Do you think the Dutch came to Manhattan in the 1620s and found it fully built out with streets and skyscrapers?
- pimlottc 2mo agoMaybe they were just wistful? Hard to know with such a short comment.
- fnord77 2mo agoWow, people are completely misinterpreting my comment. I'm lamenting the loss of farms in manhattan.
- quickthrowman 2mo agoKinda hard to farm on land when it’s worth $1000-3000 a square foot like land is in Manhattan. I’m not even sure a vertically integrated coca plantation/cocaine refinery would be profitable with those property taxes and your gross margins would be 90%. At least there’s Central Park, that’s several hundreds of billions of dollars of real estate set aside for public use.
- bitwize 2mo agoMamdani should expropriate the building and do something charitable with it.
- Trasmatta 2mo agoIt's a nice Saturday afternoon, and I'm literally in Midtown right now, wandering around after walking down 5th Avenue (it's shut down to cars today for "Summer Streets"). Perfect chance to walk over and take a look at this. I love city oddities like this. EDIT: got a great view of it. Fascinating that this dilapidated structure has just been hiding in plain sight all these years.
- vancekai 2mo ago[dead]
- iambateman 2mo agoWhat do you call a building that can only be seen once in a hundred years? 99% Invisible.
- codedokode 2mo agoDon't you think that at the 1900s photo the city looks better? Look how wide were the sidewalks and how little cars were there. Also, I initially thought that large store building was not historical, but a modern one because its style doesn't look classical and rather as a parody to the classical buildings. I was surprised that it is more than 100 years old. Also, small buildings sandwitched between large ones like that look cute.
- cucumber3732842 2mo agoMan, can you imagine something like that in the current regulatory environment. The geniuses on all the various boards would block the Macys building on all sorts of asinine grounds because the carve out is odd and perhaps looks stupid. Or Macys would pay off the city to eminent domain the hold out.