Text and photo by Daniel Krieger
According to West Side Rag’s current Openings & Closings, New York Sports Club, the chain fitness center that has served Upper West Siders since 1993, is closing on March 5th. In an email to members obtained by WSR, the reason is “the property owner’s long-term plans for the building.”
The gym is located on the second floor of a commercial building on the corner of Broadway and 80th Street, whose facade is emblazoned with red New York Sports Club letters and banners. NYSC is the latest business to close in a series of departures from the building, which first became visible to the public two years ago when Verizon, FedEx, and Canine Styles each left within a period of months. And many tenants inside the building have been leaving as well.
As far as the “long-term plans for the building,” that matter is being disputed in court, which WSR covered in a story that ran in July, 2023. The case involves the co-owners of the property at 2231 Broadway — the Zabars and the Friedlands — who disagree about the fate of the building. According to a complaint filed by the Friedlands in July, 2022, the Friedlands want to sell the building to erect a residential high-rise, while the Zabars oppose the plan and wish to preserve the historic building, built in 1899.
The dispute comes down to an oral agreement made by the two families when they purchased the building in 1979, with an understanding “that we would exclusively operate the property commercially for as long our families were connected to the property,” according to Stanley Zabar’s affidavit filed in response in September, 2022. However, according to the Zabars, the Friedlands violated that oral agreement. The Friedlands claim that that agreement is unenforceable.
Zabar’s affidavit states that in 2019 the gross annual rent was nearly $5 million. But two years later, the revenue had fallen by nearly 40% and with the departure of more tenants over the last few years, has continued falling. According to Zabar’s affidavit, this effort goes back to 2016 when William Friedland, the son of Lawrence, who is a principal at the firm, said he wanted to develop the property “as a residential tower.” Zabar said he wasn’t interested, but then, he claims, the Friedlands began devaluing the property by gradually emptying it out without his knowledge. Since the initial complaint was filed in 2022, the two parties have been unable to reach a settlement.
According to the transcript of a recent hearing, which took place on December 9, 2024, the lawyers vigorously presented their arguments and claims against each other before the judge, who is trying to figure out how the law can be applied to the elaborate ins and outs of the complex case. And although the Zabars do not want a forced sale of the property, their lawyer said that in the event of a forced sale, which may be inevitable, they want to keep intact the small three-story adjacent building on the site where they run their mail-order operation, which they claim accounts for 25 percent of their revenue.
The Friedlands, however, want to develop the entire site. In response, the judge said “it would be simpler not to have that little building in between these buildings, but I don’t know the answer to that.”
The judge ended the hearing by encouraging both parties to proceed with discovery to gather more evidence before he made his ruling and said there is “not a lot of concrete guidance in a situation like this. So it is something I want to mull a bit,” adding that he will issue a ruling as soon as possible.
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Unless I’m mistaken, an unenforceable agreement is still an agreement. Either William Friedland is disputing the reality of such an agreement or he is without honor. Which is it?
Agreed! If no agreement period, why say no ‘enforceable agreement?
probably without honor1
We need a neighborhood petition to be started. I’m with the Zabars on this one. We don’t need to lose another historic building to see another modern highrise go up. The Friedlands are clearly emptying the building to devalue it. Shady move on their part. I’m grateful to the Zabar family for wanting to preserve the building.
I agree wholeheartedly with those who wish to save Zabars! We NEED to PRESERVE our historic buildings! Paris is the most beautiful city in the world because it has lovingly preserved its glorious buildings, including plaques to remind us of who has lived in them! Likewise Rome… PLEASE let’s support the Landmarks Commission and lobby to keep alive the visual history of this most precious city in the land! These buildings offer us sites of memory, continuity, and great beauty. They remind us of times when the human hand was trained in the arts of sculptural decoration and when craftsmanship was cherished. We all benefit aesthetically and spiritually from these buildings. SAVE THEM, please!
This is not about saving the Zabars building. It’s about another fairly ugly building across the street that attracts a lot of homeless people on both the Bdwy & W80th sides.
and not to mention the wretched cart man who kept tearing down the signs of the hostages last year..over and over until new walls were put up. And laughing about it. Agree about the men who spend the day sleeping at that corner & in the doorways, last week I turned the corner onto Broadway from 80th and luckily did not step on the man sprawled out into the sidewalk.
IF you understand that the Zabar brothers are 90 and how tax laws work you’ll understand why they want to sit on the property for now. It’s not about ‘preservation,’ it’s about ‘stepped up basis at death.’
Sell today? Capital gains tax and in a few years, sadly, estate tax.
Wait until they pass? No capital gains tax.
You mean support Landmark West on the UWS who has fought to preserve most of the historic buildings that exist on the UWS. The Landmarks Preservation Commission has done less and less in that regard for the last 10 years. They’ve been infiltrated by the real estate industry pushing out seasoned preservationists in favor of REBNY lobbyists.
Landmarkwest.org
We desperately need more high rises and 70%+ of the neighborhood is already landmarked. You may think the neighborhood does not need any new housing if you haven’t moved any time recently and don’t plan to any time soon, but young people (which really includes anyone under 55 at this point) and families are getting absolutely crushed by the housing crisis. Please try to preserve the future of our neighborhood as an affordable and diverse place to live and not just preserve its architectural past as a museum to be looked at.
We “desperately need” more highrises?!
I hear you and understand your concern and hope for the future of the neighborhood. The reality is developers do not erect these buildings to alleviate the shortage and the high cost of housing. They build to take advantage of the market and get themselves a piece of the pie. New residential buildings will only cater to high income buyers/renters who are willing to shell out a million dollars for a 1 bedroom. We live on an island. The amount of developable real estate is finite. Unfortunately, this equates to it beinging an unaffordable option for many.
And how are developers different than other businesspeople whose goals are to make a profit? Is a farmer interested in the shortage and high cost of food on the UWS? Developers are for-profit entities like any other.
Any high rise residential tower that the Friedlands develop on the site will be utterly unaffordable to the young people and middle-class families who are being “crushed.” Tearing down an historic building that has long housed a diverse collection of small businesses (I once attended an art school there) and replacing it with another boring-but-expensive tower will help destroy the unique character of the UWS without providing a solution to the housing problem. Lose-lose.
Who are you to determine what the “unique character” of the neighborhood should be?
It’s an old and decrepit building. There’s nothing particularly attractive about it. It has no historic significance.
If the owners want to replace it with a shiny, clean and modern tower then I’m all for it!
NYC is a work in progress. It is constantly changing. Get used to it.
But the owners don’t want to replace it with a shiny, clean and modern tower. Half of the owners do, Zabars want to keep it as is
Who are you to call out anyone else in these comments?
That’s the way commenting works. If one can’t take their comments being called out, then maybe they shouldn’t post comments.
This is the circular reasoning that perpetuates the housing crisis. We can’t build new housing because it won’t be affordable (the definition of affordable is always changing and never enough), so we don’t build any new housing, so the housing crisis continues.
The fact is that new housing is not really any more expensive than old housing. Housing that you bought or started renting a long time ago is cheaper, but if you are looking for a two bedroom apartment today, one built in 2024 and one built in 1924 are both going to be unaffordable.
The people opposing new construction never offer a solution to the housing crisis, they just tell we shouldn’t do anything about it, so the housing crisis continues.
Building another expensive high rise is not going to help the housing crisis which is far more critical for middle and lower income families than the UWS upper echelon. This is just about money, money, money.
And how does leaving the building as is help housing? At least there will be more housing units that someone can live in. I just don’t understand why people think that not building anything helps anyone. New York is expensive….get over it. There’s no city in the world that functions any differently in terms of certain neighborhoods being too pricey for many.
Why not a compromise. Put up a high rise residential building and reserve 25% of the units at affordable rents for Zabar’s employees?
What exactly is so special about this building’s history?
I’m sure the Zabar family doesn’t have any issues finding a place to live, but not so much for the rest of us. I have had many friends who choose to leave because they are tired of paying the absurd rent in this city. We need more housing built!
This is not a new story. Zabars owns or has owned much of the local real estate and has been ;oath to allow high rise replacements. They walked away from the Montana ,refused a chance to sell or develop the storefront where Barnes and Nable is when a developer wanted to build from WEA through to Broadway.I’m not sure I agree but there decision to forego RE development for neighborhood preservation is where they always are except when they needed the hotel behind their store for a kitchen and cleared our the tenants.
Read and learn:
https://daytoninmanhattan.blogspot.com/2020/01/the-broadway-studio-building-2231-2239.html
the building has an amazing history actually. It was built to be an art school. Faculty included William merit chase, I think. And Edward hopper studied at the school. Top floor has been art studios for many years. Roof is dotted with north-facing skylights. Very special building.
Yes every building was built to serve some purpose and since this is NYC many extraordinary people will have interacted with it in some small way… that’s hardly an ‘amazing’ history, very pedestrian for NYC
But do you know who William Merritt Chase IS? Are you familiar with Ashcan painters and the story of 20th century NYC art history? Do you know Edward Hopper’s work? Did you see the Hopper show at the Whitney? Even today the story continues. There’s a well known 95 year old NY-school-artist named Paul Resika (studied with Hans Hoffmann) still working on the top floor of this incredible studio building. Should he just pack up and leave? It might kill him to have to vacate his studio at this age.
Just because it’s something you personally don’t care about, “UWS Dad,” doesn’t make the building’s story “pedestrian;” that may just be your take…
This is of course my take, and not that it matters but I did in fact go to the Hopper show at the Whitney and greatly enjoyed the exhibit! Not every old apartment building deserves to be preserved for all time even it great artists did use it at one point.
Right. And now it’s a gym.
It’s a routine building of a type that has no importance in the history of the City.
Affordable housing is not being built on the UWS. Let’s not kid ourselves.
Do you really think the rent or the sale price of the co-ops in this new tower will be anything but absurd?
I hate this attitude of learned helplessness masquerading as world weary cynicism. There is a constant chorus of people who do nothing but say that we can’t do better, we can’t make an affordable neighborhood, why bother, don’t even try. The truth is the opposite – we *can* build a better neighborhood.
We need to start with the reality that the neighborhood is not affordable today and it is becoming less affordable every year. And it’s not because we are building too much – NYC has one of the lowest growth rates of any major city. We are growing our housing stock by 0.5% per year, less than population growth. When you don’t build anywhere for the next generation to live, you get a housing crisis with more overcrowding, more expensive apartments, and displacement.
To sum up – the city is unaffordable, it’s because we aren’t building enough, and we *can* fix the housing shortage by building more of it. Snarky remarks about how a better world is impossible may make you feel like you’re smarter than people with hope for a better world, but it’s not good for your soul and it’s not good for the neighborhood.
Are you a member of Open New York-the hedge fund real estate lobby masquerading as an affordable housing advocacy non-profit?? Glad they aren’t in Paris. Or Venice. Or Rome.
Building a better neighborhood means respecting your neighbors and making the UWS a better place to be. That is not happening right now. I feel more safe in Paterson New Jersey than the UWS because of how condescending and discriminatory UWS residents can be, yet call themselves progressive.
I’m a neighbor of this building and support new housing as long as it’s respectful to current residents. Don’t build it right up against the back of 410 WEA and it’s a good idea to do it.
Is the agreement (if it exists) to “exclusively operate the property commercially for as long our families were connected to the property” really (legally) at odds with developing the property as a residential tower?
Real estate development (even if they have to bring in external financing, construction and other partners) strikes me as a distinctly commercial operation.
I’m no lawyer, but even the “out” clause – “as long as our families are connected to the property” – is questionable to me. Short of a family disappearing without heirs, how else would they NOT be connected to the property? Sounds to me like the agreement permits a sale.
Build more along the corridors of the LIRR and NJTransit that are nothing but disused parking lots and condemned 1 story buildings. Manhattan at this point is saturated with luxury housing and not only has it done nothing to alleviate costs as the “let the market decide” crowd dictated, but they have destroyed the character of the entire area. The blocks with new buildings are literal deserts with no stores or foot traffic compared to before. 78th-76th street is a great example of that, 86th and Broadway is another. We need new urban planners, this free for all is not working!
I agree. In addition, most of the luxury high rise buildings in NYC are not really occupied by anyone as full time residences. At best the apartments serve as pied-a-terres for wealthy people with multiple homes. I know a few of them. They do not contribute to local business or add to the NYC economy by shopping, taking taxis or public transit or even eating at local (non Michelin) restaurants.
Building along the corridors of LIRR and NJT is not going to help anything. People who live in dense housing by and large do not want suburbs or are aspiring single family homeowners. Which young professional in New York for a few years wants to live in Great Neck or Westfield? You want certain groups of people not worthy enough of being on the UWS to be seen and not heard and that is also a problem.
This building is over 125 years old and not particularly special in a architectural or historical sense. Buildings get old and wear down, and new / taller construction would add more housing to our neighborhood, which is a good thing!
No, it wouldn’t add housing, it would add expensive apartments only available to the rich, who will not use many of them for housing. Instead, they will mostly be 3rd or 4th “homes” and in some cases will be purchased to flip.
When those expensive apartments are added, it means that demand shifts from older units to those newer units among those who can afford them and prefer the newer buildings and amenities. And that in turn reduces demand at the lower end which can help keep pricing in check. in other words, we should WANT many many expensive new units built that suck demand and reduce pricing for other units. And let’s not kid ourselves – given the cost and complexity of building in the city, the only units that are going to be built are pricey ones. No developer is leaping at the chance to build “affordable” units.
Don’t expect a sane understanding of economics to sway this comment section.
Don’t confuse economics with invented rules that you learnt in B-school.
You’re clearly right Daniel, but I try my best anyway, glad to see others like B D making a similar effort.
Jay people do actually live in expensive apartments believe it or not and as long as we are adding new units then those people aren’t out there bidding up other apartments.
New housing is certainly usually more expensive than older housing but it becomes more affordable as the building ages. If you replacing old apartments with new ones then you don’t get affordable middle aged apartments 20+ years later and you only have a few super expensive new apts and a bunch of still really expensive run down old apartments. Sounds a lot like the UWS!
Yes, I acknowledge that some super expensive apartments are lived in?
And no, 20 million dollar apartments don’t become $700,000 in 20 years. It’s not like buying a used car.
Anyone who has moved in the last 10 years knows that every apartment on the UWS, new or old, is exorbitantly expensive and really only affordable to the rich. There is no law that says rich people can only buy new apartments. The problems you are describing are universal and caused by a severe housing shortage caused by the political faction that opposes every new building.
No, the housing problems, nation wide, are caused by Reaganomics.
The Broadway Studio Building: let us know it before we hasten to demolish it:
https://daytoninmanhattan.blogspot.com/2020/01/the-broadway-studio-building-2231-2239.html
Wow! What a fascinating history. Thanks for posting it. Everyone should read this.
Thank you for posting…I knew I read something a while back. Impressive history. Another iconic UWS building bites the bullet. A “good thing” would be preserve what little history the UWS has left. It is a desirable area…desirable for what it was, not what it has become.
I wonder how many posters here have even heard of William Merritt Chase?
Quoting therefrom: “[…]the Broadway Studio Building more than makes up for its lack of architectural pizzazz with its contributions to Manhattan’s — and America’s — cultural history.”
Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to have “redeveloped” it.
Thank you for sharing these details! Sounds like the building has a fairly commonplace history, hopefully it can be redeveloped and continue to serve the neighborhood
The historic building, built in 1899 is not worth saving. It is more of a eye sore than what would be belt here. Go with the new at this location.
Heaven forbid they return the building to its original mission of providing affordable space to artists. Do you want to see a neighborhood revitalized ? Have local artists and musicians be able to afford to rent space or to live in the area. The UWS used to be home to all of that and small businesses for the locals. It’s totally disgusting that the greedy landlords are destroying such a terrific neighborhood, let alone allowing all the vacant storefronts to remain vacant in the name of greed.
What was the population density at the time of its “original mission?”
Has anything happened since?
Why is a private owner responsible for providing what you want to see in any particular neighborhood?
Buildings don’t have missions, their owners might, and those often change over time. “Local artists and musicians” being able to afford to live in the area is some undefined kumbaya pie in the sky. Hollywood and Broadway stars of different prominence and world-class musicians live in the area, perfectly comfortable, and we see little benefit day-to-day from that.
Do we have to cater to every struggling budding 25-yr-old actor or painter or unremarkable talent now? Maybe they should make more money (i.e., figure out if they’re talented enough) and pay their own way to living in the neighborhood, like every (talent-less, non-neighborhood-revitalizing) lawyer, financier or doctor.
The building looks disgusting and I would prefer a residential high rise. Affordable housing would also be great. There is a housing shortage in NYC because of disgusting old buildings like these. I appreciate old architecture, but unlike many other old buildings in the neighborhood, this building is not a treasure.
Do you really think Mr. Friedland is committed to building affordable housing?
I live on the block in a back-facing apartment and am fine with a new tower as long as the back lot isn’t developed. It lets in the only natural light in my apartment! Does anyone know if that’s part of the plan?
Literal NIMBY
Who’s a NIMBY? I’m saying the project is ok by me because we need the housing, I just want it to be respectful of residents. But we should build it!
This is a back door attack on not just that property, but Zabars market. If they lose their shipping space, there’s nowhere nearby to replace it. That leads to losing their main market. Which leads to developers taking the entire block within 10 years. The entire community needs to support Zabars on this one.
The Zabars family built a highrise literally across the street at 80th and Broadway. They are a real estate family too.
And they’re committed to preserving the low profiles of buildings like the Barnes&Noble and P,C. RIchards that they own.
There are too many high rises on broadway that are 1) hideous 2) barely occupied.
This building has units that can and should be occupied by residents. Friedland is engaged in avaricious and reprehensible behavior that is far too common in the city. Thank you to the Zabar family for having some decency and backbone
From my own experiences with the Friedlands, Zabars will lose. Friedland is like Mr Burns from the Simpsons, or scrooge before the awakening. Heartless and ruthless, and extaordinarily wealthy, they only care about themselves.
YIMBY! We need more housing!
Many of these people who criticize “the changing character of the neighborhood” likely bought their apartments here in the 80s and spend most of their time at their CT or MA country houses themselves.
What we need is family sizes apartments to keep the next generations of the neighborhood.
But that’s not what we would get. It’s not what we EVER get. We get more condos or co-ops that are unaffordable to any except the wealthiest. No “affordable housing”; nothing for people who actually need housing NOW. Because the cost of development is so high that developers can ONLY EVER build “luxury housing” for the wealthy.
We have seen this time and time again, both on the UWS and elsewhere. Developing this property will NOT provide housing for the “next generations of the neighborhood.” Unless the next generations of the neighborhood are looking to live in a gated community, which the UWS is not.
You know, there’s 843 acres just west of 5th Ave, basically going to waste. We should fill it with residential skyscrapers. That would really solve the housing shortage. Really, what’s more important, having a space for the well-to-do to jog and have picnics or providing affordable housing for everyone? It’s a “no-brainer”right?
Thank goodness for the Zabars and their effort to not destroy everything in sight for the pure sake of profit
I’m with zabar all the way on this but I have a suggestion: Can they keep the original structure as is and renovate internally for residential use? That would give more apartments without more ruination of the Upper West Side with light blocking, towering high-rises made of paper wall boards & low ceilings.
Good luck to the Zabars for trying to preserve the sanctity of the Upper West Side.🍀
This is where the distinguished painter William Merritt Chase started The New York School of Fine and Applied Arts which became Parsons School of Design
Just what we need on the UWS. More luxury condos. Groan
The Friedlands are evil people with no regard for their tenants or the neighborhood. I fully support and encourage the Zabar’s to fight on
Well said Carmella and many others re preserving for affordability and character
Save the building! We don’t need another hi-rise in the UWS. Doesn’t anyone think about how much water that will be used, sewage that will be filled, and not to mention garbage that will be maybe collected…or burned into the atmosphere. Think of emergency preparedness…
Remember the LA fire……the low pressure of fire hydrants? That is in the back of my mind, and don’t tell me modern buildings are fireproof! In a catastrophe they’re not! The UWS is unique. It’s home to so many…..but it is territory the real estate millionaires are itching to grab, build, pocket the profits and then leave.
From an environmental angle, building more homes in NYC is the best thing we can do. Every New Yorker is one more person living a more sustainable lifestyle than almost anyone else in America.
The building is old and decrepit. Build a new high rise with much more housing. The UWS significantly lags other neighborhoods in new housing.
The building has history and contributes to the aesthetic of the neighborhood. As another post here mentioned, leveling older buildings and erecting new modern buildings in their place essentially destroys that which makes the area desirable in the first place.
Ugh, not another high-rise. I don’t want to live in midtown. Thank you to the Zabars for trying to protect our historic buildings.
I wonder what Christopher Gray would have to say on this dispute. He had his office in this building for a long time.
The housing shortage is to a great extent a fuction of rent control policy. Like it or not, rent control reduces supply. Its inherent price controls give tenants an economic reason not to move regardless of whether they need the amount of space in which they reside and whether they have the income to pay market rent. In fact, the shortage of affordable rentals that price controls create forces free market renters to pay higher rent and thereby subsidize their rent controlled neighboors.
As an alternative to rent control, more public housing should be built. That way, the entire tax base shares in the cost of subsidized housing rather than free market renters.
People should have a right to decent housing. But they don’t have a right to decent housing in a particular neighboorhood. Especially, if they can’t afford it.
Trevor rent regulation (the correct term) has existed in NYC for 100+ years. Like many who attack it you don’t have a solid understanding of life in NYC, or what in general constitutes decent housing; it’s not just about the building you live in.
The 2025 term is Rent Stabilization Law, telling that you didn’t use it. (There are few Rent Control apartments left in NYC.)
This is the same old attack on rent control, couched in fancy language, and is belied by the past 40 years of housing deregulation. Neoliberal policies are directly responsible for the affordability and housing crisis. Sorry your econ degree didn’t force you to take history courses too
God bless the Zabar’s and long may they live. How rare it is to find people who care so deeply about their neighborhood and its character. They have served it well over these many years and we are blessed to have them. It’s very sad that the UWS has been so successful at pushing out the remaining middle and working classes for the Aspen class. Many of those new homeowners not living in them for more than 2 weeks a time. But that’s what big real estate wants. Squash courts and Olympic size swimming pools as amenities for the uber rich. While the rest cry for affordable housing which has been demolished to build these monuments to the multi-millionaire class. The Zabar’s are fully aware of the real deal on their properties. And they refuse to play along. Bravo!
They know who their customers are now and have always been. Don’t touch my Zabar’s
What is the judge ‘mulling over’. They might have considered a smart arbitration to compromise. As such alternatively the judge need only refer to the tale of king solomon as good precedent. Split it down the middle:
Keep the building as is preserve the neighborhood character but develop it into high end multi family residential luxe units building. Problem, solution.
The languishing asset argument is remedied and the character of the facial architectonics of area is preserved. An easy compromise for which they could have paid me a fraction of their attorneys cost out. Anyway that is the smart answer in absence of better.
It kind of makes me laugh. “We need more affordable housing on the Upper West Side!” Says who? There is no mandate that says an area must be affordable to all. If and when I decide to leave the city, I’d love a house in Malibu or West Palm Beach, but that’s not going to happen, because I can’t afford to live in those places. So, I will have look for an area that is affordable to me. Or, should we insist that the cities of Malibu and West Palm Beach squeeze in some “affordable” homes, because after all, I’d love to live there.
It seems the article is saying the Friedlands also own the building west of the 3-story bldg on 80th?
Otherwise, how could the Zabars mail order operation be “between these two buildings”?
Put in simplest terms, the Friedlands have never cared one whit for the UWS; the Zabars have cared for it in a way that is both deliberate and laudable. The Zabars own many properties on the UWS, all of them five stories or less. Yet they have refused nearly continual offers of sometimes huge sums of money to allow development of their properties.
In one instance, according to Saul Zabar, they were offered upwards of $100 million for the PC Richards property on 79th Street. (When I asked him why he turned it down, he pointed out that the developer could build a 50+ story building “as of right.” “Why would I want THAT?,” he asked. “It would completely destroy the UWS.”
When the Friedlands developed the property next door (the old Circuit City property), Saul was furious, since they had an oral agreement that both properties would remain two-story.
Like I said, the Friedlands don’t care about the UWS (as evidenced by their attempts to break the Agreement noted in the article); the Zabars do.
The Circuit City store is the new P-C Richard’s; it’s still 2 stories. You’re thinking of a different address up Broadway a few doors.
I have been in Morningside Heights since 1985. It is just like the Upper West Side in an important way. Buildings go from low rise to high rise, never the other way. Since 1985 many low rises have been replaced by high rises. When young children are my age, and I am on Social Security, there will be very few buildings on the avenues, other than landmarked buildings, that will be lowrise.
I was a subtenant at 246 West 80th Street
NYC for 10 years. I was evicted in June 2022.
Christopher Gray ( the architecture historian ) filed in 1988, but nothing happened. Unfortunately, another important historic building in Manhattan will be torn down, and yet another ugly brick condo will go up. Will the First Baptist Church survive the new construction and development? The Upper West Side is supposed to be a historic district and protected.
https://www.westsiderag.com/2023/07/31/two-families-battle-for-the-future-of-a-broadway-building-and-the-neighborhood