UPDATE: 1 p.m. on Tuesday, January 30: The massive advertisement that recently went up on the building face of 720 West End Avenue, near West 95th Street, is illegal in multiple ways, according to a spokesperson from the Department of Buildings.
Following a DOB inspection on Tuesday morning, the city agency determined the sign at the address is illegal for the following three reasons.
- The sign being erected without a permit.
- The sign being unlawfully affixed to a protected structure (in this case, scaffold netting).
- The sign being over 20 feet above the curb level in a residential district.
DOB will issue violations to the property owner for the illegal sign later today or soon after, a spokesperson told West Side Rag.
The advertisement was still up as of Tuesday at 11 a.m.
The development team at 720 West End Avenue has not provided the Rag with a response to a request for comment.
Original Story
By Gus Saltonstall
If you live near West 95th Street and West End Avenue, you don’t need telling about the massive advertisement that recently went up on the property face of 720 West End Avenue.
The advertisement features a woman in red on top of the words “Up End the West End,” along with a website and QR code. The link brings you to a website promoting the new luxury building that will open in the spring of 2024 with 131 units.
While it is unclear exactly what it means to “Up End the West End,” the large-scale advertisement has hardly gone unnoticed by Upper West Siders. It is incredibly rare to see an advertisement on West End Avenue, let alone one that covers the entire building face.
“Is it even legal to hang a building-sized advertisement in a residential neighborhood?” one reader emailed West Side Rag quizzically. “This is an eyesore for sure.”
Other locals also contacted Upper West Side Councilmember Gale Brewer’s office with complaints, which in turn confirmed to the Rag that the councilmember is sending a “complaint letter” to city agencies about its legality.
The question of whether it is legal is a complicated one.
There is a long list of rules and regulations from the Department of Buildings (DOB) that have to do with the proper way to install an advertisement sign, with much of it related to the zoning district of the specific property determining the type of sign you can install and its corresponding size limits.
A spokesperson from the DOB did not have a concrete answer Monday morning about whether the advertisement at 720 West End Avenue is compliant, but the agency did confirm that a constituent reached out to the department’s Community Engagement Unit and the “location has been routed for inspection.”
That inspection will take place Tuesday morning, with an answer on the advertisement’s legality expected soon thereafter, the DOB spokesperson said.
“If this is legally permissible, it would be a horrible trend to start throughout our and other residential neighborhood,” an Upper West Sider, who preferred to remain nameless, told the Rag. “The sad part is that residential buildings without revenue-generating commercial space, were not able to resist the temptation to sell the advertising space to pad their coffers.”
The development team behind 720 West End Avenue did not immediately respond to West Side Rag’s request for comment.
Background on the Building
The 720 West End Avenue property is not new to headlines.
The building was formerly owned by The Salvation Army and served as the site for the Williams Residence Senior Home for decades. However, in 2014, protests and lawsuits were sparked after The Salvation Army filed to sell the building to luxury developer Brack Capital Real Estate for $108 million.
At the time, then Manhattan Borough President Brewer called the sale of the residence “a disgrace.”
The sale was postponed until 2015, but did eventually go through.
In 2021, though, the ownership of the building changed hands again when Brack Capital sold the building to Wafra Capital Partners for $165 million, according to Real Deal.
The building was vacant and gutted at the time of sale, meaning Wafra had a variety of options for the address.
It appears the option the developer went with is luxury condos.
“A grand welcome through a restored Renaissance Revival entrance sets the tone for a wide array of exceptional amenities, including on-site parking, basketball, squash, and much more,” reads the 720 West End Avenue website about the incoming building. “Explore the pre-war charm of West End Avenue and take in Hudson River views from new angles.”
There are not any active listings yet for apartments in the building.
Subscribe to WSR’s free email newsletter here.
Michael Gontar is the CEO of Intervest Capital (formerly known as Wafra). Worth reaching out directly.
Monet talks — Nobody walks
It’s a construction site. How is this any more of an eyesore?
A building with scaffolding fits in among other buildings (many with scaffolding) much better than a building sized tarp of red woman on a solid bright white rectangle
As someone who faces directly into this 17 story billboard. It is quite different.
This is so out of place! West End Avenue is not Times Square.
So very tacky . So the opposite of ‘elegant” as they advertise, truly vulgar.
Exactly. The developers could argue that the sheet/screen is protecting the public from construction debris.
If they argue that they should he made to take down the ad and replace it with a blank screen.
Technically speaking, they aren’t allowed to post ads on construction fences either.
they all have to be green with those little windows cut into them…
The ad creates an entirely different sort of hazard if/when it comes unmoored
I believe this is within a landmark district:
https://www.landmarkwest.org/map/
The Landmark Commission’s extremely onerous rules have made our building’s facade repair take 3x as long and cost 3x as much as they would absent these rules – which as meant out scaffold has been up for years.
Perhaps the Landmark Commission could direct its attention to real blights, like this huge advertisement,
while reconsidering the cost/benefit of its rules for facade repair.
Does Mayor Adams not have the authority to do something about Local Law 11 and the Landmark Commission’s rigid rules?
Local Law 11 needs to be revoked. Or at least extend the inspection periods to 10-15 years (from the end of any remedial work, not the date of last inspection).
In 2019 Erica Tishman was struck and killed by debris falling from a building near Times Square.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/woman-killed-times-squa
In 2015 a two year old child, Greta Greene, was struck and killed by falling masonry from Esplanade Manhattan, a home for older adults on West End Avenue between West 74th and West 75th Streets. Child’s grandmother, Susan Frierson, 60, sustained injuries but survived.
https://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/18/nyregion/girl-2-injured-by-falling-bricks-outside-manhattan-building.html
https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/child-critically-injured-falling-debris-manhattan/1339650/
Subsequent investigation uncovered NYC inspector lied about inspecting façade of building in question.
https://www.work4youlaw.com/blog/prosecutors-say-inspector-lied-about-visiting-building-where-falling-brick-killed-baby/
Between 2009 and 2014 nine persons died from being struck by failing bits of NYC buildings. Local Law 11 does not need to be weakened but strengthened and more importantly enforced.
Exactly. Most buildings have already gone through a couple cycles of facade inspection/repair that corrected a significant amount of dangerous conditions. The process should now be stretched out.
Do you think our so called mayor Adams even knows what Local Law 11 or the LPC are? Or that he would care about anything that affects real NYers? It’s time we put his ass to the curb and got ourselves a real mayor.
Honestly, if buildings are going to have to spend years shrouded waiting for landmark approvals, the least we could do is let them advertise. This looks better than 17 stories of gray shrouding.
The main problem is that if LPC does NOT put this through the additional requirements, you get really cheap looking repairs and other measures taken that ruin the whole look of the building.
Agreed, though. They take too long. It also does not help when there are so few people handling this in a city so large/old.
That’ll incentivize leaving the scaffolding up, though, won’t it?
the sign is gauche and, yes, much more out of character than “a construction site”. the building facade is in place on W. End, the construction on that side is all internal except for the construction elevator.
but that is not the main problem here. Gale Brewer was right that the sale and destruction of The Williams was “a disgrace”. The Williams had 400 units of affordable senior housing, much needed in the neighborhood. It is being replaced with 131 units of ultra=expensive housing. Many of those units, no doubt, will be pied-a-terres.
Not everyone has the powerful connections to live for decades paying a pittance in rent then buying their apartment for a ridiculously low price due to a crooked insider purchase deal.
We need new construction in this neighborhood to accommodate hard working and productive families willing to pay a fair price for their homes.
Destroying supportive housing for luxury developments is precisely what New York City should NOT be doing
There are plenty of other locations for supportive housing besides the most desired neighborhoods in Manhattan. They would be more affordable there.
No, not really.
Many working class families (and I mean all the way up to $250K gross income) can’t afford anything within an hour’s commute to the city anymore. It is even worse for those that can’t afford even that.
People do not give up supportive housing once they get it. Families have been using the same location for generations. There are MANY problems concerning this (not just LPC, but overdevelopment, foreign investment, rent control, deliberate vacancies, etc).
This was always a problem, but it got really bad the past decade or so, and it will hurt all of us when the people who keep NYC running can no longer afford to work here.
Looks nice and colorful against the otherwise dreary cityscape. It’ll come down soon enough.
I’m a bit at a loss as to the UWS residents that have “drunk the local electeds Kool-Aid” again.
Why folks are wasting time contacting their offices is a waste of time. Call DOB through 311 and have your neighbors do so as well. You can also do so through the 311 city website.
Depending on the issue our local elcteds may or may not aggressively act on your complaints. For example, bike recklessness complaints drop into a black hole.
Act for yourselves, no matter the issue and don’t rely on someone acting for you.
Imagine if every Local Law 11 or other construction project has a massive advertisement covering the front of the building. The UWS would look like Times Square with billboards up and down the sidewalks.
I think this would be an improvement to all the covered facades!
It soon may!! Zoning laws are being deregulated as we speak with the City of Yes-which was written largely by the real estate industry.
Not nice! It’s on a building shed.
This big advertisement is the least of the problems of this neighborhood!
How about the fact it was a SA residence for poor old people, now a condo building. Good luck to that karma for anybody who lives in the new shiny building
They will be haunted by all the old dead people.👻
I’m sure it’ll sell out fast to out-of-towners and a new crop of Wall Street strivers who know nothing about the neighborhood and will then complain they are afraid of the people who hang out on Broadway and the homeless shelters up the block on 95th St.
Welcome to the new UWS.
The SA residence wasn’t for poor old people. The Williams was for those over 55 who could afford to pay upwards of $2,100 a month for an apartment, two meals a day and weekly housekeeping. Rent depended on the size of the apartment and the floor it was on.
there are no “homeless shelters” on W. 95th between W End and Riverside, at least not now. There is a single building of permanent supportive housing for veterans, many of whom were formerly homeless. It is run by Harlem United and is a well run facility. It has been there for almost a decade. I am on the community advisory board and am glad it is there.
This is a gross abomination and typically sexist as well! Get rid of it!
Sexist how?
This is how you further destroy NY neighborhoods. And it simply doesn’t end. Just wait til the City of Yes deregulation of zoning laws goes into effect. Once beautiful residential neighborhoods and apartments where people live, sleep and raise their children will be cheek to jowl with businesses as their next door neighbors! Residential no longer means a residence. Hope you don’t have an agri business growing weed next door. Under DCP and the Mayor’s City of Yes that will be perfectly legal! And you’ll watch as NY residents exit this city in droves if they are able.
Isn’t the point of living in a city to have businesses conveniently located a few steps away from where one lives? I personally do not want to have to get in my car every time I need milk or light bulbs.
Read reply to UWS Dad.
What in the world are you talking about…. Everyone on the UWS has businesses as their next door neighbors, I love my neighborhood coffee shops & local business. This is what makes NYC special
I am not talking about businesses next door outside your building. I am talking about business inside your apartment building in other words in a residential apartment in your building. So you have say 100 apartments people live in in your building. It would be legal under the City of Yes for a number of those apartments to be businesses. Could be a hair or nail salon. Could be a business selling marijuana and growing it too. Could be a shoe repair place. No joke. In an apartment in your building. Read up on it!
UWS Dad,
Check out the details of “City of Yes”.
Among other things allows businesses on second floors of residential buildings.
So in theory, could have, lets’s say, NRA offices inside…..and lots of strangers coming through…..
Bars and restaurants would be be allowed in areas currently zoned as only residential.
And not as if the City has any ability or in inclination to protect residents
What areas are currently zoned as only residential & why should the city ban restaurants?
real dad,
For example various areas in the boroughs such as Forest Hills are zoned residential. Currently a restaurant or bar would only be allowed in the commercial streets – not plop in the middle of blocks with single family homes.
Another example would be West End Ave – currently can’t open a restaurant in a residential building there.
But obviously can open a restaurant just one block away on Broadway.
Many folks don’t want food places (trash and rats) where they live
Haven’t there been advertisements hanging from streetlamps for a few years already?
At least this one appears to be temporary.
This is way down the list of ‘blight’.
Do something about the homeless shelters first. Then bikes/scooters.
In the City of Yes if it is illegal the Mayor will make sure it is made legal. That is how it works now in the City of yes.
The slogan used has erotic overtones, if you consider up your end to be erotic.
Legality aside, the developer should be suing the graphic designer for creating an unreadable banner. Kudos to everyone who can figure the words out, and then interpret what they mean.
Are we really going to complain about a temporary advertisement on a development in a neighborhood plagued by a myriad of issues going unreported/resolved?! On west 95th street alone how about we talk about the constant booming music on the cars flying off the WSH onto the block, the unused dining sheds that create gridlock on 95th near Amsterdam, the constant loading zone of delivery trucks, garbage, the weed van on Broadway, Newton Hotel turned migrant shelter, the list goes on. Yes let’s rally about a temporary banner on a building that will hopefully be a positive force in the neighborhood.
Why does it have to be one issue or another?
Loud cars have nothing to do with overstated advertisement. They can both be handled at the same time, much like thinking and walking.
/cell phone use not included/
New York is now a cross between a gated community and a bank vault for foreign wealth. Tourists come en masse looking for something whose shell is all that still exists.
Yeah, that’s what a gated community and ritzy-ritz bank vaults look like. Grimy “cityscapes”, “dining” sheds, trash in the streets, dog feces on the sidewalks, passed out addicts all over the city, etc.
I’m sure tourists from around the world come en masse to look at dilapidated old SRO buildings
I don’t care about this temporary shroud over a construction site. Get rid of all the eye sore and river view blocking billboards on the West Side Highway in the 120’s, 130’s, 140’s. This is a residential area.
Of all the problems in the world, y’all are complaining about an ad on a building? Privaledged?
The sign is just another example of how rules don’t apply to the rich, the powerful and the violent. I’m tired of peole getting away with things.
The ad is clear – a building for privileged people
UWS Mama:
The ad definitely signals what the developers are seeking – the rich and privileged.
This is part of the messaging that developers use to pursue luxurification/hyper-gentrification and transform neighborhoods into places only for the rich and privileged.
You mean they’re counting on the market deciding what works in a given neighborhood? The best example of that is Battery Park City which was created where nothing existed before.
I can see this from Weehawken, NJ.
Seeing this banner was a shock. Totally out of place. I’m very glad, however, that the building is no longer sitting derelict and that nice apartments will be built. This area of the UWS needs major improvement and revitalization. Definitely a step in the right direction.
major improvement and revitalization? It’s a landmark district Trish
So? There are empty buildings and storefronts all over the W 90s. It’s markedly more depressed than anywhere else on the UWS. Hopefully more residents with money to spend will draw more commerce, or at least stop what’s left from leaving.
I think the building looks great! Can’t wait to see what the end result will be. In a matter of months the ad will be gone and people will find something else to complain about.
Well, new problems DO occur. So them NOT having something else to complain about would be abnormal.
Only when we are perfect will there be nothing else to complain about.
People do whatever they want anymore and never check with the City to see if their signage is legal or not. There is a lot of illegal signage all over the City: on the sidewalks, on buildings, on lampposts, etc. It’s a free-for-all.
What are the penalties of the violations that will be issued? Fines? If so, how much and by when do they have to be paid? What happens if they aren’t paid? Just asking because we have laws for scaffolding that remains up past permit dates and rarely does anything happen with or without violations issued.
The DOB should take it down. It is time for rules..all rules to be enforced.
Whatever folks say here- that it is illegal, ugly, sexist- I agree with it, but there are so many things that are wrong with our city right know, that I find this reaction exaggerated and frankly inadequate. I live not far from the corner of Amsterdam and W 94th St. The whole area is constantly covered with garbage and has rats. The owners of the businesses and landlords there never clean the sidewalk, and the city does not enforce it. And, of course, this is just one location. I have seen cities in third and forth world countries much cleaner than this. Tacky advertisement should be the least of our concerns.
Yes and no.
Again, just because it is less important than other issues does not mean it should be ignored.
Fires raging up and down 10th avenue should take precedence over dog walking rules, but things along this scale can be handled simultaneously.
Setting aesthetic concerns aside, we must consider the potential ramifications of allowing this type of advertising on blank walls and scaffolding nets. By permitting this, we may be setting a dangerous precedent, paving the way for commercial interests to capitalize on every blank surface available in our urban environment.
If this trend begins in the Upper West Side, what is to prevent it from spreading to Morningside and beyond, leading to a homogenized, Times Square-like aesthetic in our neighborhoods?
In the interest of maintaining the distinct character of our communities, we must be mindful of the consequences of opening these areas to unfettered advertising.
Check my walking zoom on NextDoor.
#pedzoomimg
It’s February 4th and the eye soar is still soaring!! And construction continues! This is the same DOB that the rest of us deal with?