One Vanderbilt Avenue opens up
in Midtown despite city’s pandemic woes
Mayor Bill de Blasio along with other elected officials and members
of SL Green took part in a ribbon cutting ceremony for One
Vanderbilt Avenue. The mega tower opened to tenants on Monday.
BY ALEJANDRA
O’CONNELL-DOMENECH
New York City’s secondtallest
building, One
Vanderbilt Avenue, is
now open to offi ce tenants.
It took construction workers
four years to complete work
on the 1.7 million-square-foot
skyscraper which soars at 1,401
feet tall at the doorstep of Grand
Central Terminal in Midtown
Manhattan. Despite the pandemic
PHOTO BY JACOB KAHLIN
forcing construction to stop during
the spring, the project fi nished
on time, according to
The city’s largest commercial
landlord, developers SL Green,
hosted the building’s opening
ceremony on Sept. 14 and unveiled
a $220 million package
of public open space and transit
infrastructure improvements to
help ease congestion and overcrowding
on subway platforms
below the massive offi ce tower,
improve terminal circulation and
easier access to regional railway
pathways.
One Vanderbilt is now the new
headquarters for many of the top
fi nance, banking, law and real
estate fi rm and about 70% of its
space is leased, according to a
statement.
Infrastructure improvements
include a new 4,000-square-foot
public transit hall inside the tower
giving commuters more spacious
access to the Metro-North
Railroad, the shuttle to Times
Square, and the future Long
Island Rail Road station as part
of the upcoming East Side Access
project. Next to the transit
hall is a new 14,000-square-foot
pedestrian plaza on Vanderbilt
Avenue between East 42nd and
43rd Streets.
SL Green also built two new
street-level subway entrances and
re-opened the Mobil Passageway
that connects Grand Central to
a new entrance on the southeast
corner of 42nd Street and Lexington
Avenue.
Developers argue that circulation
with the Grand Central
subway station has been improved
by the development, claiming that
there is a 37% increase in mezzanine
circulation space and that
new staircases between the mezzanine
and platform levels of the
4/5/6 and 7 subway lines allow
for a more comfortable commute,
including a new ADA-compliant
escalators and elevators, more
turnstiles and gates and new
stairs by the shuttle to Times
Square.
Local and state elected offi
cials, including Mayor Bill de
Blasio, state Senator Liz Krueger
and Manhattan Borough President
Gale Brewer, attended the
opening ceremony and following
tour. All spoke to how the mega
tower’s opening was a hopeful
sign of better things to come.
“We are celebrating something
much greater,” said Mayor Bill de
Blasio. “This is one of the fi rst and
most tangible signs of the rebirth
of New York City.”
Manhattan DA to investigate Times Square
driver and police, says victims’ attorney
BY KEVIN DUGGAN
Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance’s offi ce
plans to investigate the incident of a driver who
plowed into a group of Black Lives Matter protesters
as well as police who escorted the car beforehand
at Times Square on Sept. 3, an lawyer for the victims and
a civil rights leader claimed on Sept. 11.
“We are grateful for the district attorney of Manhattan
to open a criminal investigation with regards of the actions
of the driver in that vehicle as well as the police,” said
attorney Sanford Rubenstein at a press conference outside
the DA’s Lower Manhattan offi ces on Sept. 11.
Rubenstein and civil rights advocate Reverend Kevin
McCall of Brooklyn met with Assistant District Attorney
Charles Whitt Friday afternoon to interview fi ve people
who were part of a group of counter-protesters coming
from a small nearby pro-Donald Trump rally when they
were mowed down with a black Ford Taurus equipped
with a bull bar at 46th Street and Seventh Avenue just
after 8 p.m., an event which was captured in dramatic
video footage on Twitter.
“These Trump supporters and these Blue Lives Matter
supporters are enjoying their freedom right now, but we
made it very clear to the district attorney’s offi ce that we
FILE PHOTO: PHOTO BY REUTERS/MIKE SEGAR
The 73 story One Vanderbilt office tower, the latest super-tall
skyscraper to grace New York’s iconic skyline, is set to open
while the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) keeps the largest
and richest U.S. office market almost empty, in midtown Manhattan,
New York City, New York, U.S., September 9, 2020.
would not rest until every supporter, every person that drove
their car which is a felony assault be brought in handcuffs,”
said McCall. “And we want to make sure that every offi cer
that is responsible for leading them into the protesters be
arrested and fi red, because they did a criminal act as well.
DA Vance’s press offi ce did not immediately return a
request for comment confi rming an investigation.
The fi ve victims were among a crowd of several hundred
protesters calling for justice for Daniel Prude, a Black man
who died by asphyxiation in March after police in Rochester
put a hood over his head as he knelt on the ground,
handcuffed and naked.
The counter-protesters came from a small nearby pro-
Trump rally in Duffy Square and other video on Twitter
showed police ordering them into the Taurus before taking
off.
One of the car’s passengers reportedly was Juliet Germanotta,
who was busted several times for defacing the
Black Lives Matter Mural outside Trump Tower, Freedom
News reported.
An NYPD spokesman told the New York Daily News
that cops had tried to direct the car underneath the Marriott
Hotel and away from the crowd but that the driver
headed down 46th Street.
McCall claimed that cops acted criminally because they
PHOTO BY KEVIN DUGGAN
Attorney Sanford Rubenstein and civil rights activist
Reverend Kevin McCall speak outside Manhattan
District Attorney Cy Vance’s office in lower
Manhattan on Sept. 11.
should have known that the right-wing counter-protesters
did not have good intentions and should have instead
directed them elsewhere.
“The police knows that these people didn’t have the right
intentions on the supporters,” he said.
The NYPD press offi ce did not immediately return a
request for comment.
The victims were not at the press conference outside the
downtown offi ces both their attorney and the activist declined
the press a chance to speak to them, saying the fi ve
people feared retribution from Trump supporters and the
police, who leaked out their names, according to McCall.
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