With the upper Hell's Kitchen area booming thanks in large part to the halo effect of the Time Warner Center, the abandoned building on West 57th at Ninth Avenue seems all the more mysterious. Yesterday, neighborhood residents urged the Landmarks Preservation Committee to designate the building, built in 1881 and called the Windemere, as a landmark. Reports the Daily News, "Just seven people live in the Windemere. It was nearly cleared out by the prior owner's employees?who assaulted tenants and threatened to kill them." The current owner bought the building in 1987 for $4.1 million. He's said to be marketing the building to developers, though a price of $28 million apparently didn't prove tempting enough.
· Push to Save Historic Apartment House [NYDailyNews]
· Underdeveloped Buildings: 57th and 9th [WhatISee]
· Christopher Gray on the "sad, tragic" Windemere [wnyc.org, 6th item]
· History of the Windemere [explorenyc.com]
· Another View of a Dark Corner [Cornershots]
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