CityLand Profiles

Ronay Menschel and Adam Weinstein Talk About Affordable Housing

For the past two decades, Ronay Menschel and Adam Weinstein have led the Phipps Houses Group, New York City’s oldest and largest affordable housing provider. Founded in 1905 by Carnegie Steel’s Henry Phipps, the organization has built over 6,000 units, and currently manages 12,500 apartments, as well as community service centers, Head Start locations, vocational centers, and afterschool programs.

In the mid-1970s Ronay Menschel worked in Edward I. Koch’s Washington Congressional office and moved to … <Read More>

To attorney Paul Selver, the Market Matters Most

When asked to recall projects throughout his 35-year career, land use attorney Paul Selver’s discussion becomes a vivid narrative of how the economy translates into New York City’s physical changes. Selver sees 1977 as the point when developers started looking ahead for the first time; the 1981 to 1988 development boom coincided with the economy’s exuberance and ended with the stock market crash. To Selver, his current projects, like a six-block rezoning in Coney Island, … <Read More>

To David West, the Increased Sophistication of the Land Use Process Leads to Better Design

When architect David West joined Costas Kondylis and Parteners LLP in 1995, its founder suggested that he become the firm’s expert on the City’s zoning resolution. West, now a partner, shepherds the firm’s zoning analyses, responding to nearly 300 yearly requests regarding what a site’s zoning will allow and handling the firm’s appearances before BSA, Landmarks and the Planning Commission. In the past few years, he worked on the Plaza Hotel’s complicated conversion, the complex … <Read More>

Julie Menin, Manhattan’s CB 1 Chair, Talks About One of the City’s Fastest Growing Districts

Comprised of Battery Park City, the Financial District, South Street Seaport, and Tribeca, the neighborhoods of Manhattan Community Board 1 are in the midst of a period of tremendous growth and development. New apartment buildings are bringing thousands of new residents to the district. At the same time, large redevelopment projects, such as the World Trade Center, promise to return millions of square feet of office space along with expanded retail and cultural spaces. Under … <Read More>

Architect Lord Norman Foster Talks About His Addition to Madison Avenue

The first addition to New York’s skyline by Pritzker Prize-winning architect Lord Norman Foster opened in October 2006 with a red-carpeted gala attended by Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Governor George Pataki and Senator Charles Schumer. The building, Foster’s 42-story diamond-grid steel and glass addition to the Hearst Building, an individual landmark at Eighth Avenue and West 57th Street, won the 2006 Emporis Skyscraper Award, naming it the best skyscraper constructed in the world that year.

Last … <Read More>

David Paget Talks About Over 20 Years of Environmental Law in New York City

Since 1975, when New York State enacted the requirement that government agencies study the potential significant environmental impacts of land use projects, environmental studies have evolved from 20-page documents prepared by City employees into several thousand-page documents written by experts at a cost of millions. Attorney David Paget, who for more than 20 years has advised clients like the Empire State Development Corporation and Related Companies on environmental review compliance, talked to CityLand about his … <Read More>