Columbia University's Manhattanville campus has had a lot of excavation work done over the past couple of years but not much has been going up until now. Walking by the first lot just north of 125th Street and Broadway, we noticed that steel pilasters were finally being placed into the ground. There appears to still be a lot of work to be done but at least one of the planned towers will finally start taking shape. With that said, this still may be just part of the foundation work which has an finish date targeted for next fall so it is unclear if any more height will be added on passed this point:
LINK. Check out our past post for a rendering of a couple of the buildings planned:
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I see a lot of construction in Harlem, this morning 125th street had concrete trucks waiting on line at one development site. Good to see people employed at these construction sites, especially the day after President Obama’s reelection win last night. As President Obama said, “the best is yet to come”, same for Harlem.
ReplyDeleteHere Here! I really think the key to Harlem will be the continued expansion of and growth of midtown west, where offices are continuing to migrate. This means convenience on the express trains from 125th and 145th for people getting to work. When running properly it takes no time at all to get to Columbus Circle. This is a huge plus.
DeleteI think Harlem needs to also welcome more High Tech schools, industry, etc. We can close the digital divide here with presence of a Google uptown, or facebook. One area is the Mink building. The are between City College and Columbia is rip for High Tech and Research - bringing jobs to Harlem!
Securing middle class housing should be priority. It is the middle class leaving the city to raise families. Believe it or not, families making $200K year cannot afford the rent of a 3 bedroom apt in NYC unless it is a special middle class coop or condo. Bloomberg has been great in helping stop the leaking of middle class tax dollars from the city but more needs to be done.
Looking forward to 4 more years of progress in one of NYC's most amazing neighborhoods.
William, I agree that securing affordable housing should be a priority. But given the density of people who want to live in NYC, seems to me the only way to do that is to give the green light to lots of high-rise projects. Which it seems like a lot of people are reluctant to do!
DeleteMad Joy - I am a fan of High Rises. Although keeping historic buildings in tact and well preserved should be priority, there is no reason why empty lots that sit in Harlem right now cannot be transformed into tall condos or coops for middle/Upper middle class. There is a lot right now on corner of 146th and FDB that was going to be a similar development like the Hamilton and the community board rejected it because it was out of character for the income of the neighborhood. This is a difficult mindset to change and I think the city should plow ahead for these types of developments if we want to keep our middle class in NYC. Period.
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