(The following article by Joshua Robin was posted on Newsday’s website on July 22.)
NEW YORK — The MTA is prepared to buy or condemn through eminent domain parts of three prime midtown properties to make way for the Long Island Rail Road to stop at Grand Central Terminal, according to documents and interviews.
A Metropolitan Transportation Authority official said the agency would prefer to buy the properties, including the sub-basement of the 85-year-old Williams Club off Park Avenue, but is determined to acquire the plots through condemnation if necessary.
“At the end of the day, the MTA is going to get the property,” the official said.
The agency’s Planning and Real Estate Committee Tuesday approved plans to obtain the land — “by negotiation or condemnation.” The entire board will likely consider the proposal when it meets July 30.
The news surprised the general manager of the Williams Club at 24 E. 39th St., which opened its doors around 1920 and is frequented by alumni of the prestigious Williamstown, Mass., college.
“This is not good,” Gabrielle Tancredi said, sitting in one of the club’s mahogany chairs, near its ornate bar. She said club officials “will have to take some action on it immediately.”
The five-story club offers hotel rooms and is a favorite for weddings and other functions — and Tancredi said guests would be highly perturbed by the clamor of jackhammers and trains.
Tom Kelly, an MTA spokesman, said the authority is interested only in the building’s sub-basement and cautioned that “nothing is set in stone yet.” The mammoth project to bring the LIRR to Grand Central is scheduled for completion in 2012.
The owners of another choice property the MTA is eyeing, an office building on Madison Avenue at 49th Street, are taking the authority to court, claiming it skirted environmental laws with plans to build a five-story ventilation and gasoline storage facility adjacent to their property.
The MTA also is interested in the land under the building, Kelly said — but the suit does not address that.
The suit, filed in U.S. District Court in Manhattan by Madison Avenue Leasehold LLC, claims the MTA “arbitrarily added a completely new, major facility to the project in the heart of Manhattan’s central business district … without any public environmental review.”
Kelly said he had not seen the suit.
Another site listed for possible condemnation is an apartment building on 38th Street directly behind the Williams Club that Tancredi valued at $4 million. Kelly said that building might need to be razed. The owner could not be reached.
The MTA is also targeting plots on Roosevelt Island and at 30-30 Northern Blvd. in Jackson Heights.