Last week, the Daily News exposed the plight of the Park West Village shopkeeper. We can almost hear you now: "Park West Village? Curbed, donde es?" Well, amigos, PWV is a seven-building complex of gigantoid red brick towers, built in the 50's to bust up a slum. It's between Amsterdam and Central Park West, between 97th and 100th Streets. Apparently businesses are being shuttered by Park West Village's landlord, cleverly called Park West Village Acquisitions. Except, nobody knows what the landlord is up to. No permits have been filed nor plans revealed. The only thing certain is that many businesses have to be out in 30 days. A Curbed reader adds some more insight:
What the article does not say is that all the residential tenants with cars in the large parking lot facing Columbus have been told that they will lose their parking spaces. That makes it sound like the landlord plans some large development combining the parking lot with the existing retail buildings.
Although the parking lots and stores are not lovely, they are a part of the original master plan for PWV. Does the landlord have the right to remove them? Could this become a landmark issue, now that 1950s buildings can be landmarked?Yikes, the questions keep pouring out of this one. To get to the bottom of it, we're going to have to think back on our problem-solving days back at college. So, uh, we're just gonna go take a nap while someone else does all the work. Later suckers!
· West Side shops get boot [NYDN]
· Park West Village [nyc-architecture.com]