Eliot Spitzer Gets City OK To Demolish UES 5th Ave Rental Building

UPPER EAST SIDE, NY — Former Governor Eliot Spitzer's family firm received formal consent from a city agency to demolish a building his family built in 1970 and replace it with a smaller, more contextual building.

The "luv guv" is planning to demolish his family's current 25-story, 46 unit rental building at 985 Fifth Ave., near East 79th Street, with a smaller, 19-story building containing only 26 units — the latest Upper East Side development to result in a net loss of residential units.

"It is perhaps a bit odd for me to be here today only because my family not only built the building that we're hoping to demolish," Spitzer said on Tuesday before the Landmarks Preservation Commission, "but we also hope to replace it with something that we think will be much more appropriate and contextual."

The commission gave the project a thumbs up, calling the project "exciting," and describing the prospect that it was economically viable to demolish and replace a Fifth Avenue apartment building as "fascinating."

The proposed as-of-right building replaces the 1970's structure, described during the hearing by a LPC member as the "antithesis" of the Fifth Avenue district, with a new building with detailed ornamentation, including multiple stories of rustication, ornate silver gilding and cornices to match neighboring early 20th century apartment buildings.

In keeping with other traditional ornamentations in the neighborhood, the building will have a number of animals designs, including a dog fountain and a fun squirrel service window cover that the designers hope will serve as an "amusement" to neighbors passing by.

But two neighborhood groups, including Friends of the Upper East Side and the Historic Districts Council, questioned the need to demolish the building in order to achieve what they agreed was a more appropriate and contextual facade.

“This a robust post-war structure that contains an immense amount of stored energy that should be added onto and not demolished," said Lucie Levine from the Historic Districts Council. "Given that the greenest buildings in the world are those that already exist, we see no compelling reason to take down one building and replace it with another.”

Nuha Ansari from Friends of the Upper East Side said that while the group appreciated "the effort to keep the design contextual, taking inspiration from the classic Fifth Avenue apartment buildings of the 1920s and 1930s," they couldn't ultimately support tearing down the existing building.

Spitzer, who resigned as Governor in 2008 following a prostitution scandal, found more support from LPC commissioners who were all pleased to see the former executive take action on his family's derided building.

“The existing building is non-contributing and frankly, I’m pleased to see it come down," said one of the LPC commissioners, Jeanne Lutfy, who praised the design of the new building.

Before the Spitzer family building, a number of mansions and townhouses filled that stretch of Fifth Avenue owned by wealthy families from the early 20th century, including the Brokaw family and the Stern family, according to the presentation.

At least one of the historic mansions, at 964 Fifth Ave., was demolished in 1965 — the same year that the Landmarks Preservation Commission was founded.

Correction: An earlier quote of the testimony from the Friends of the Upper East Side stated that the plans were an "inspiration," and has been corrected to state the group appreciated the "inspiration" the plans took from their neighbors.