In September 2021, Macy's accused the billboard's owner Kaufman Realty of negotiating to lease the space to an online retailer before Macy's most recent lease expired that August. Macy's claimed that the lessee was almost certainly Amazon and filed for an injunction preventing Kaufman from leasing the space to a competitor. Macy's claimed that a 1963 agreement prohibited such a lease "forever" and that an Amazon billboard would be highly visible during the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.
Wow, I walk there all the time and I’ve never noticed
scottconover 7 hours ago [-]
That wiki photo is hilarious!
egorfine 5 hours ago [-]
Is it more profitable to lease the space for banners as opposed to lease the apartments to tenants?
donohoe 4 hours ago [-]
Yes, think about the less overhead from dealing with people and building issues. Take a look at the Times Square too.
skinfaxi 4 hours ago [-]
Probably since you don't have to deal with tenant issues for one.
hiAndrewQuinn 4 hours ago [-]
Land value tax solves this
Aurornis 2 hours ago [-]
The funniest thing about internet land value tax discourse is all of the people who don’t realize that land is already taxed in cities like this.
As the other commenter discovered, the tax rate is very significant for this property.
But the core proposition doesn’t make sense, either. A land value tax wouldn’t force a property to be used for a less profitable use case. A LVT forces the property to be used for the most profitable use case because the tax would prevent people from using it for less profitable activities because that’s the only way to pay the high LVT.
arjie 32 minutes ago [-]
Well the desirable property of a land value tax is that it is used entirely in lieu of the current “land plus improvements” tax.
Naturally people dislike this because using land for less than economically optimal uses is usually desired by the landowner and taxing improvements means that someone with a more economically optimal use makes them less of a competitor for the land than the present owner.
Aurornis 22 minutes ago [-]
Most of the pro-LVT people I encounter have a belief that pure LVT will benefit them and harm corporations. The idea has become entangled in the pro-individual, anti-corporate mentality as a tool for us to wield against corporations. The most common LVT argument I hear is something about forcing developers to convert parking lots into housing units.
The example above shows that pure LVT would have the inverse effect: If the land becomes valuable for something other than housing, the taxes rise to the point that the only logical conclusion is to use it for commercial activities.
It’s at this point that the conversation turns to carving out land value tax exceptions for the 80 year old grandma in her forever home, which turns into more exceptions for normal homeowners, which slowly gets us closer and closer to our current system where we’re not ruthlessly taxing properties based on the value of the land alone.
arjie 3 minutes ago [-]
How delightful! I had no idea other people had this view of LVT enthusiasts. I certainly think that if commercial uses outweigh housing they should take priority under these circumstances. There are externalities to be internalized but the general idea is that anyway.
scotty79 1 hours ago [-]
If at least 1% of people selling the property there don't cite land tax as the main reason for sale, then it's too low.
Land value tax is an evil concept. Having to pay for land you already own is insane. Also, people already pay property tax, why should there be an additional tax.
wildzzz 3 hours ago [-]
A land value tax would be instead of a property tax. It encourages owners to either develop or sell to someone else willing to develop. Although in this case, I don't think it would actually encourage anything as it's clearly being used. The bottom of the building is being used as a store and the rest of the structure is holding up billboards. Most of the building itself is probably worth very little (it does look uninhabitable) so property taxes are lower than what they'd be if the plot was actually occupied with apartments or offices. The actual value comes from what's nearby which is the giant Macy's that wants a big billboard. Land value taxes are meant to prevent people from having relatively empty plots, like a big estate or a vacant plot, but there's already something here. Maybe it's not being used to its full potential but that would involve figuring out what it would take to actually develop and the future income against what the LVT would be. A dilapidated building serving as a billboard structure (plus the Sunglass Hut lease) is easy money, why upset that?
egorfine 3 hours ago [-]
Not per se. In fact, land tax is extremely important to encourage things moving and economy growing.
It's the implementation that can be evil.
dn3500 9 hours ago [-]
They have an odd definition of "middle".
mbStavola 10 hours ago [-]
I used to work one block from there. For years I got off at that station and walked past the building but had no idea it was hiding something like that. Amazing!
Trasmatta 2 hours ago [-]
It's a nice Saturday afternoon, and I'm literally in Midtown right now, wandering around after walking down 5th Avenue (it's shut down to cars today for "Summer Streets"). Perfect chance to walk over and take a look at this. I love city oddities like this.
EDIT: got a great view of it. Fascinating that this dilapidated structure has just been hiding in plain sight all these years.
ungreased0675 4 days ago [-]
That building looks horrible, do people live there?
amelius 4 hours ago [-]
You know your facade sucks when it looks better with a giant billboard covering it.
nkrisc 7 hours ago [-]
Based on the pictures I can’t imagine anyone legally living there.
I don’t know for sure, but I imagine usable windows are required for living spaces.
timr 5 hours ago [-]
Every bedroom of a rental is required to have a window in New York.
But in this part of town, the advertising rights alone probably vastly exceed any possible revenue from renting the building for residential use. It’s kind of like the tiny building in Times Square that has the ball on top. I don’t think people even realize there’s a building behind all of the billboards, but it was original New York Times building.
nkrisc 3 hours ago [-]
That’s what I meant, but worded poorly: that for anyone to legally be living there it wouldn’t currently meet the standards.
Renting any part of that building out is likely not worth the hassle compared to the ad revenue, as you noted.
jen20 3 hours ago [-]
> but it was original New York Times building.
It was the second New York Times building! The original was on Park Row.
lorreyfum 51 minutes ago [-]
Mandamus will tax it
wahnfrieden 4 hours ago [-]
There are several such buildings in NYC in prime real estate areas that are kept empty in order to prioritize billboard revenue.
ianm218 4 hours ago [-]
Source? My understanding is this is no longer true
wahnfrieden 4 hours ago [-]
One Times Square is no longer fully empty (besides ground floor retail) you’re right that it is now just almost entirely empty as they’ve added an observation deck and a small visitors center/museum about the building as of January this year.
Some other buildings in Times Square keep several floors empty to use for signage instead, a minimum of which is actually mandated by the city.
dylan604 4 hours ago [-]
TFA as exhibit 1?
ianm218 3 hours ago [-]
He said there are several others like this which I think is false, TFA wouldn’t be relevant.
UltraSane 5 hours ago [-]
Not on the really rough looking floors. It has been used as a huge billboard for a very long time.
hdgvhicv 9 hours ago [-]
Ground floor is a shop, pepper floors are basically empty.
dotancohen 3 hours ago [-]
^pepper^upper
Though I have replaced pepper control arms on a vintage Mustang once. Rust does that.
mc32 5 hours ago [-]
I was thinking the same question. It certainly looks unoccupied -I can’t imagine people living in the other side but then again it _could_ be very well maintained and decorated on the inside despite the eyesore looks on the outside. Moreover since the lower floors are commercial it must mean that at least the upper floors are keeping out the elements.
nephihaha 9 hours ago [-]
I know. I was expecting something easier on the eye. Maybe a century of being behind billboards has wrecked it. The 1906/1907 photographs look much better.
q3k 12 hours ago [-]
No, they just shop there.
vancekai 16 minutes ago [-]
[dead]
Terretta 1 days ago [-]
“Hidden by billboards for over 100 years, the tiny holdout building in the middle of Macy’s is back in view”
Initial word of headline necessary for comprehension
fnord77 4 hours ago [-]
a farm. in manhattan
sigh
donohoe 3 hours ago [-]
There are still farms in Manhattan and other parts of NYC. From the few I know off-hand:
- The Farm at the Javits Center (Hudson Yards) is a working rooftop farm, greenhouse, and has an orchard.
- On Randall’s Island there is a farm with raised beds, greenhouses, rice paddies, and also an orchard.
- Battery Urban Farm (Lower Manhattan) - not sure of this counts but its an operating educational farm that grows produce.
There are others.
margalabargala 3 hours ago [-]
Why do you think "sheep meadow" in Central Park is called that?
Do you think Manhattan has always been skyscrapers?
quickthrowman 3 hours ago [-]
I don’t understand. Do you think the Dutch came to Manhattan in the 1620s and found it fully built out with streets and skyscrapers?
bitwize 3 hours ago [-]
Mamdani should expropriate the building and do something charitable with it.
Rendered at 18:19:17 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time) with Vercel.
In September 2021, Macy's accused the billboard's owner Kaufman Realty of negotiating to lease the space to an online retailer before Macy's most recent lease expired that August. Macy's claimed that the lessee was almost certainly Amazon and filed for an injunction preventing Kaufman from leasing the space to a competitor. Macy's claimed that a 1963 agreement prohibited such a lease "forever" and that an Amazon billboard would be highly visible during the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.
https://old.reddit.com/r/SpiteHouse/comments/of5cqh/in_the_c...
As the other commenter discovered, the tax rate is very significant for this property.
But the core proposition doesn’t make sense, either. A land value tax wouldn’t force a property to be used for a less profitable use case. A LVT forces the property to be used for the most profitable use case because the tax would prevent people from using it for less profitable activities because that’s the only way to pay the high LVT.
Naturally people dislike this because using land for less than economically optimal uses is usually desired by the landowner and taxing improvements means that someone with a more economically optimal use makes them less of a competitor for the land than the present owner.
The example above shows that pure LVT would have the inverse effect: If the land becomes valuable for something other than housing, the taxes rise to the point that the only logical conclusion is to use it for commercial activities.
It’s at this point that the conversation turns to carving out land value tax exceptions for the 80 year old grandma in her forever home, which turns into more exceptions for normal homeowners, which slowly gets us closer and closer to our current system where we’re not ruthlessly taxing properties based on the value of the land alone.
It's the implementation that can be evil.
EDIT: got a great view of it. Fascinating that this dilapidated structure has just been hiding in plain sight all these years.
I don’t know for sure, but I imagine usable windows are required for living spaces.
But in this part of town, the advertising rights alone probably vastly exceed any possible revenue from renting the building for residential use. It’s kind of like the tiny building in Times Square that has the ball on top. I don’t think people even realize there’s a building behind all of the billboards, but it was original New York Times building.
Renting any part of that building out is likely not worth the hassle compared to the ad revenue, as you noted.
It was the second New York Times building! The original was on Park Row.
Some other buildings in Times Square keep several floors empty to use for signage instead, a minimum of which is actually mandated by the city.
Though I have replaced pepper control arms on a vintage Mustang once. Rust does that.
Initial word of headline necessary for comprehension
sigh
- The Farm at the Javits Center (Hudson Yards) is a working rooftop farm, greenhouse, and has an orchard.
- On Randall’s Island there is a farm with raised beds, greenhouses, rice paddies, and also an orchard.
- Battery Urban Farm (Lower Manhattan) - not sure of this counts but its an operating educational farm that grows produce.
There are others.
Do you think Manhattan has always been skyscrapers?