780 Third Avenue
(3 votes, average: 4.67 out of 5)
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The privately owned public and private spaces framing the three street sides of this brownish-red, polished granite-clad building, formerly known as the Wang building, are elegant, understated, and effective. There are no extravagant gestures here, just a compelling unity of design, materials, color, and geometry that calmly serve their apparent intention. Indeed, such unity makes it difficult, even for the trained eye, to determine, without the legally approved site plan in hand, the precise allocation of open space into urban plaza, sidewalk widening, and private property categories.
The spaces occupy most of the setback from the front lot lines on the west side of Third Avenue, on East 48th Street, and on East 49th Street. The sidewalk widening is adjacent and parallel to the public sidewalks along Third Avenue and East 49th Street. Because the public sidewalk and the sidewalk widening use the same granite and brick paving, however, the best visual clue for establishing the boundary line is south, where the eastern face of the Buchanan apartment building occupying the Third Avenue blockfront between East 47th and 48th Streets is built to the front lot line of that property. The northern boundary of the sidewalk widening is likewise discernible by glancing west to the nearest building facade. The southern boundary on East 48th Street matches up with the southwestern edge of 780 Third Avenue. Although installed by the building owner, the 14 trees growing out of the pavement on both Third Avenue and East 49th Street are located on the publicly owned sidewalk, and thus are designated street trees. Ironically these trees tend to undercut the value of the sidewalk widening, in that pedestrians appear to veer to the outside of these trees rather than taking full advantage of the widened space.
The other public space here is the L-shaped urban plaza wrapping around the building at the northwest corner of East 48th Street and Third Avenue. Five trees along the southern edge create a sense of enclosure. In the middle is a long rectangular polished granite slab, allowing seating on exterior and interior edges. Movable tables and chairs associated with the adjacent café are laid out between the granite bench and the building. The movable sign announces, “Outdoor Seating for Burke & Burke Customers Only. Thank You” and the open air café, indeed, has been approved by the City. Another granite bench built into the building wall to the west provides additional seating, next to the public space plaque and a swanky built-in litter receptacle. Another long rectangular polished granite slab and built-in wall bench are located on the East 49th Street side of the building, apparently satisfying the linear feet seating requirement attached to the urban plaza and sidewalk widening without, it seems, being located in either the urban plaza or the sidewalk widening. So where is the privately owned private space at 780 Third Avenue? It extends out from the building on much of its Third Avenue frontage and all of its East 49th Street frontage to the sidewalk widening.
This POPS at 780 Third Ave is zoned as 24 hr accessible. The building, however, has purposely planted ivy to hang over the cement benches on the 3rd Avenue facing side to dissuade people from sitting there. (And yes, it was purposely done, as the similar benches in the plaza on the sides of building are not obstructed.) Since it’s zoned as a POPS, the building has a responsibility to maintain the seating and keep it accessible.
I’ve lived in Turtle Bay for over 15 years and a growing number of people I’ve spoken to have become very concerned about the 780 3rd Ave building management’s failure to honor their obligations surrounding keeping all the designated seating in the public POPS plaza well maintained and accessible and the staff’s lies about where the public is allowed to sit.
All of the cement benches in the POPS are allocated to be used as public seating with 24 hr access, including the ones which the building has purposely tried to disguise and obstruct by growing ivy over them on the 3rd Ave facing portion of the plaza and some of the benches on the 49th facing portion. Some of you might recall that there was no ivy covering the 3rd Ave facing benches for several years after the plaza opened. There is ample documentation of this to be found both in the city’s documentation about the 780 3rd Ave POPS as well as the architect’s plans. See attached images. The ivy obstructs seating and if one is to push it aside, the bench is very soiled. The front desk personnel are going so far as to tell people who are sitting on the 3rd Avenue facing benches that they can’t sit there and need to move!
The matter has already been reported to the city by multiple people via the POPS complaint page however a friend just informed me that he received an email from 311 that the complaint was investigated and that no further action was necessary – which is disturbing in itself, as however investigated was clearly not aware of proper use and access specs of the POPS. Calls have also been made to the building management – (212) 319-8500 ext 125 – and they parrot some nonsense about how those aren’t even benches they are planters!!
I’d be very grateful if the Association could offer some assistance in this matter so that we can return the POPS to its intended use.
Kind regards,
Claudia
Dear Claudia, I am sorry to hear about this. APOPS is currently not in a position to help on these enforcement of legal obligations matters. When we are we will explore the situation. Thanks for letting us know. The public is the eyes and ears for enforcing POPS legal obligations. Jerold Kayden