We welcome with open arms the Adams administration push, via its Department of City Planning and City Planning Commission, to rezone 42 blocks of Midtown to allow the development of 9,700 new homes, 2,900 of which will be earmarked as affordable for moderate- or lower-income New Yorkers. It’s common to count the number of apartments, less common to count the number of people who will live in them: We’re talking about homes for some 20,000 men, women and children.
Under the mayor, New York not long ago became a City of Yes (or, after a few substantial edits to the reform plan, “Yes, except”) thanks to a five-borough rezoning that will allow the construction of a little more housing in every neighborhood, adding up to about 80,000 units over 15 years. Ironically, though, this newly pro-housing-production city, which is still only scratching the surface of creating the apartments it needs, contains at its very heart a swath of Manhattan where, by law, housing currently can’t be built. How silly, how stupid.
The parts of Midtown now to allow residences include swaths between 35th and 40th Sts. just south of Bryant Park; between 34th and 41st Sts. west of Broadway; and two patches on either side of Sixth Ave. between 23rd and 31st Sts. Some people already live in these areas, but only because their buildings went up before the restrictive zoning currently in place was implemented in the mid-20th century.
While this already is and ought to remain a place for business, if demand calls for housing, there’s no better place to put it — as more than a dozen subway lines are right nearby.
So too would this rezoning open up uses for more commercial and light manufacturing, which is to say it has the potential to create precisely the kind of flexible, mixed-use neighborhood that has long been one of New York City’s most distinctive signatures.
The plan is one piece of a broader plan that Mayor Adams announced in his State of the City speech to produce many more homes in the slimmest and population-dense borough, where some 1.6 million people now live.
We interrupt this laudatory editorial to chide the State of New York, under then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo, for bigfooting the city by taking over control of a few blocks right in the middle of this swath, around Penn Station. Gov. Hochul should return control of that chunk of land to the city as soon as possible so that it can be integrated into the overall rezoning plan. Yes, Penn Station has special needs, and yes, the state has a special role to play there — but no, that doesn’t require sidelining the city. Especially since the state’s plans to work with real estate giant Vornado to build massive towers are dead in the water.
In the new congestion pricing era, in which work-from-home is a permanent feature of the economy, Manhattan’s future is in flux. The hope is that with fewer cars clogging its avenues and narrow side streets, it can thrive as a place where living, commerce, office space, cultural and educational and health care institutions and more coexist, creating more dynamic places where people want to live, work and visit.
It’s not a pipe dream. It’s a daydream that’s well within reach. Make it happen.