Controversy
The renovation of Theater for the New City came at a great cost to its relationship with the community in 2000 when Mayor Rudolph Giuliani sold the air rights above the theater (which the City had retained) to a developer. TNC was at that time in default of a loan borrowed against a pledged grant from the Manhattan Borough President's Office, which never materialized. The City put a lien against TNC in 1997 and unable to find a major donor to pay off the $519,634 lien, TNC was forced to agree to the construction of a 12-story tower above their space in order to have the lien forgiven. The Faustian deal was somewhat sweetened by giving TNC an extension on their mortgage and allowing the theater to have one seat on the condo board. Being vastly taller than the 6-story tenement buildings prevalent in the Lower East Side, the condo tower was seen as a threat to the character of the neighborhood and construction in 2000 occurred amidst great protest. The tower became even more of a controversy when the developer hired non-union workers to build the tower.
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Famous quotes containing the word controversy:
“Ours was a highly activist administration, with a lot of controversy involved ... but I’m not sure that it would be inconsistent with my own political nature to do it differently if I had it to do all over again.”
—Jimmy Carter (James Earl Carter, Jr.)
“And therefore, as when there is a controversy in an account, the parties must by their own accord, set up for right Reason, the Reason of some Arbitrator, or Judge, to whose sentence, they will both stand, or their controversy must either come to blows, or be undecided, for want of a right Reason constituted by Nature; so is it also in all debates of what kind soever.”
—Thomas Hobbes (1579–1688)