A front-page article in today's New York Times reports that the Real Estate Board has held a series of receptions for New York mayoral candidates at "the 101 Club, a private restaurant in the skyscraper at 101 Park Avenue at 34th Street. The office tower is owned by Peter Kalikow, a developer who has been active in the board's electoral effort and who was recently appointed by Gov. George E. Pataki, a Republican, to head the Metropolitan Transportation Authority."
Norman Thomas High School is the closest thing to a skyscraper at Park Avenue and 34th Street. The Kalikow-owned skyscraper at 101 Park Avenue, which houses the 101 Club, is at Park Avenue and East 40th Street. File this one in the Smartertimes.com archives under, "New York, lack of basic familiarity with."
Undeveloped in Manhattan: The lead paragraph of an article in the metro section of today's New York Times reports on the selection of architects for "what is described as the largest undeveloped site in Manhattan, a nine-acre riverfront stretch south of the United Nations complex." Note the passive construction: "what is described as." The Times never says who described it that way. Whoever it is, that person is wrong, or at least using an odd definition of "undeveloped." For one thing, the site isn't exactly virgin forest; there's a big Con Edison plant there. By that definition, there are probably large swaths of Manhattan above 96th St. that could be considered undeveloped. And Central Park might also be considered undeveloped. If the Times wants to convey to its readers the size of this development, it could be more responsible, like the New York Observer was in its article on the site. The Observer article, which appeared Wednesday, called the land "one of the city's choicest development sites" and said that it could have room for "a giant, 6,300-unit apartment complex" or roughly five skyscrapers' worth of office space. The Observer didn't resort to parroting unattributed superlatives that are both vague and specific at the same time.