COMMENT OF THE DAY: MOVIN’ ON UP! “The Upper East Side of Manhattan was once all single family mansions and townhouses (after it was farmland). Most of them are now gone, replaced with highrises; some of the most expensive on Earth. I’m sure most people in West U, Southampton, Broad Acres, etc . can’t imagine Bissonnet, North, South, or Sunset being lined with highrises some day, but I’m equally sure that the residents of Fifth, Park, and Madison didn’t imagine it either.” [John, commenting on Ashby Highrise: The 9th Is the Time for Charm]
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“…but I’m equally sure that the residents of Fifth, Park, and Madison didn’t imagine it either.â€
They certainly didn’t imagine Marjorie Merriweather Post solving the problem of the noise on Fifth Avenue by tearing down her mansion and rebuilding it on top of an apartment building. Once they realized she could not only take a peaceful nap in the afternoons but was covering the upkeep on her mansion, now nine floors above Fifth Avenue, with the rent from the apartment building some of her neighbors tore down their mansions and rebuilt them on top of their own apartment buildings.
The problem here is not the traffic but the neighbors. Not sure how Marjorie Merriweather Post would have solved it had the neighbors been a problem on Fifth Avenue but I suspect she would have gotten a permit for a three-story mansion on top of an eight story closet and then merely decided she didn’t need such a big closet and turned the closet space into apartments. After she had gotten rid of the mayor and a law firm of course.
Well said.