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Garage Door Too Ugly for Upper West Side Block, Residents Say

By Leslie Albrecht

DNAinfo Reporter/Producer

UPPER WEST SIDE — The scaffolding came off Extell Development Company's 20-story luxury condominium at W. 86th Street and West End Avenue last week, and neighbors weren't pleased.

It's not the building that's upsetting them, it's the garage door and driveway on the 11-car parking garage.

Neighbors who live on W. 86th Street say the driveway is two feet wider than Extell was permitted to build, and the garage door is, well, "ugly," in the words of Batya Lewton of the West 80s Neighborhood Association.

Extell spokesman George Arzt says the company will shrink the width of the driveway as soon as it has approval from the Department of Buildings.

As for the aesthetic merits of the garage doors, Arzt declined to comment.

But neighbors had plenty to say.

"(Extell) promised (the garage doors) would be beautiful, that they would not be offensive in any way, and that they would reflect what was on the block," Lewton said. "Well, there are ugly glass doors there that are pretty disgusting."

Extell advertises 535 West End Ave. as a "21st century pre-war" residence and touts the Upper West Side's rich architectural history on the building's website. A five-bedroom apartment on the fourth floor recently sold for $10.4 million, The New York Observer reported.

Ronnette Riley, a W. 86th Street resident, said she was looking forward to the new building until she saw the side that faces W. 86th Street.

Riley, an architect who designed the Apple store in Soho, calls that side of the building "a turkey."

"Clearly the owner of the building kind of missed the entire point of the Upper West Side," Riley said. "On those first and second floors on the 86th Street side, it looks like they ran out of money and they ran out of ideas."

On the 86th Street side of the building a glass and black metal garage door fronts the entrance to the parking garage. To the right is a service entrance and above are windows covered with black metal grilles.

Riley says the modern look clashes with the rest of W. 86th Street, a tree-lined residential block where neighbors recently rallied to save a historic townhouse from demolition.

Neighbors on the block didn't protest 535 West End Avenue itself, but they've been against the parking garage all along, Lewton said.

Lewton gathered more than 400 signatures against the garage, which neighbors argued would add to traffic congestion and create a hazard for pedestrians, especially children and seniors.

Now that it's built, the fight's not over. Lewton asked City Councilwoman Gale Brewer to investigate whether the driveway was wider than allowed.

"Just because people are going to pay that kind of money for those apartments, does that except the building from obeying the law? I would think not," Lewton said.

Brewer's office said it's looking into the too-wide driveway complaint, and has relayed the neighborhood's "dissatisfaction" with the garage door. State Assemblymember Linda Rosenthal's office is also asking for answers.

The Department of Buildings is sending an inspector to check the width of the driveway within the next few days, said Department of Buildings spokeswoman Ryan Fitzgibbon.

As for the alleged ugliness of the garage door, that's not something that the city can remedy, Fitzgibbon said. "DOB does not regulate appearance," Fitzgibbon said.