Manhattan Neighborhood Transformed By High Rises

"Developer Gary Barnett had spent millions of dollars acquiring air rights from properties next to his own lots on the east and west sides of Broadway. These air rights, as the neighborhood came to learn, allowed him to build hundreds of feet higher than the 16-story ceiling that defines much of Broadway above 96th Street."

"Not since Donald Trump's Riverside South project in the early 1990s, said Mr. Fine, has a set of buildings on the Upper West Side aroused as much opposition as Mr. Barnett's towers. Petitions circulated, gathering signatures by the thousands. Demonstrators took to the streets. None of this, however, did anything to stop the towers. Floor by floor they rose, plywood forms giving way to rebar and concrete, and finally to acres of glass. Residents will begin moving into Ariel East in September and into Ariel West later in the year."

"Mr. Barnett is delighted. 'We think they're turning out to be two beautiful additions to the neighborhood,' he said. 'We think we've got twin stars.'"

"Miki Fiegel, a real estate agent who helped lead the fight against the towers and now sees them through her windows, has a different view. 'I think they are two of the ugliest excrescences I've ever seen,' she said."