Neighbourhood opposition to NY skyscraper plan

New York

HERNDON Werth met with several lawyers last week in a restaurant around the corner from his home of more than 40 years on a sleepy stretch of 58th Street, near luxurious Sutton Place on the East Side of Manhattan. They offered to give him an apartment rent-free for life, moving expenses and, by one account, US$1 million, if only he would vacate his rent-regulated studio on the top floor of a six-storey brownstone.

A developer has already bought three other small adjoining buildings on the block and plans to demolish them to erect New York City's latest opulent super tower: It would soar more than 274 metres - some 80 storeys - above the street in what the developer calls "Manhattan's quintessential luxury neighbourhood".