A new study labeled Trump Park Avenue the third-largest pollutant among luxury buildings. Photo: Christopher Sadowski
The city’s ritziest apartment buildings are also the worst for the environment.
A new report titled “Elite Emissions: How the Homes of the Wealthiest New Yorkers Help Drive Climate Change” examined New York’s most luxurious buildings and found that many have terrible energy-use records. Seventy percent of NYC’s greenhouse-gas emissions come from buildings, while the rest come from transportation and other sources, like landfill and wastewater treatment.
“Further zeroing in on the problem, a mere 2 percent of the city’s 1 million buildings use 45 percent of all of the city’s energy,” says the report, which was prepared by the Climate Works for All coalition, made up of groups like ALIGN (The Alliance for a Greater New York), the New York City Environmental Justice Alliance, and the New York City Central Labor Council.
Modal TriggerThe entrance to 740 Park Ave., “The World’s Richest Apartment Building.”Photo: Robert Miller
“It is no surprise that, without energy efficiency measures in place, luxury buildings will have enormous impacts on climate, especially given their supersize amenities,” the report says. “Inefficient buildings with heated indoor pools, private fitness centers, and private performance rooms all require energy resources above and beyond the typical residential building.” Beyond all these swanky amenities, basics such as heat, air conditioning and electricity only further contribute to the city’s greenhouse-gas emission problem.
The coalition came up with the list of buildings to investigate by looking at the residences of those Gotham honchos on Forbes’ World’s Billionaires list, as well as those buildings on Business Insider’s roundup of the 20 most expensive buildings in New York City. (That list, in turn, culled data from research site CityRealty’s ranking of the top condos in NYC, which is updated in real time).
So the coalition started its study with a limited pool of buildings — excluding, for example, older buildings that aren’t so pricey and giant complexes like Stuyvesant Town — and then looked into these addresses’ emissions and energy records. The Top 4 buildings on the list are in the 90th percentile when it comes to energy use among multifamily residential buildings. And, not surprisingly, it turns out that each of the 10 of these “elite emitters” scores above the city’s median energy-use rating.
Modal TriggerDonald Trump’s company developed two of the buildings on the list, which means they emit the most greenhouse gas among ritzy properties.Photo: REUTERS/Kevin Kolczynski
The biggest culprit is 838 Fifth Ave., a luxurious prewar condo building across the street from the Central Park Zoo on the Upper East Side. It’s followed by 101 Warren St. in Tribeca, which is a 2008-built rental-condo complex where Jim Carrey once scoped out an apartment. 101 Warren pads come with amenities like a gym and spa, attended parking, and indoor and outdoor children’s play areas.
Next up on the list are a pair of Trump buildings: first, the Trump Park Avenue at 502 Park Ave. — a prewar building, completely renovated in 2004, where residents enjoy valets and laundry service as well as daily maid service. It’s where The Donald himself once owned a five-bedroom penthouse before selling it for $21 million earlier this year. (Yankee Alex Rodriguez also lived there.)
Then there’s the Trump Tower, a dark, glassy Goliath at 721 Fifth Ave. in Midtown, where Trump himself still hangs onto a pad. Most recently, Real Madrid soccer star Cristiano Ronaldo shelled out $18.5 million for a three-bedroom there. Past residents include restaurateur Jeffrey Chodorow and musical theater legend Andrew Lloyd Webber.
Modal Trigger40 Mercer Street.Photo: NY Post/Brian Zak
The next worst emitters are 820 Fifth Ave. on the Upper East Side (where there’s only one apartment per floor) and Jean Nouvel-designed 40 Mercer St. in Soho (where past residents include Daniel Radcliffe, Meg Ryan and Marc Jacobs, and Kim Kardashian and Kanye West have checked out a place there). Next up, CitySpire, at 150 W. 56th St. in Midtown, where Long Island developer Steven Klar has tried to offload a massive penthousefor $100 million.
Following that, the eighth-greatest energy-hogging address is 515 Park Ave. A year ago Walmart heiress Alice Walton bought a $25 million duplex at 515 Park, while legendary Broadway producer Hal Prince spent $16.5 million for his 515 Park pad in 2013. Amenities there sure are alluring: CityRealty reports that they include “15 private, climate-controlled wine cellars, 38 storage rooms, a private gym with state-of-the-art equipment, a full-time doorman, a concierge, valet services, a dining room and individual staff suites on the second floor for residents’ use. There’s also a kitchen for Chef Daniel Boulud, the exclusive caterer for 515 Park Avenue.”
Modal TriggerWalmart heiress Alice Walton bought a $25 million pad at 515 Park Ave., one of the polluting buildings on the list.Photo: Taylor Hill/WireImage
Coming in at No. 9 is 740 Park Ave., known for old-world residents with last names from Vanderbilt and Rockefeller to Chrysler and Houghton. Current denizens of “The World’s Richest Apartment Building” include 75-year-old billionaire David Koch, CIT Group CEO John Thain, Bernie Madoff associate Ezra Merkin and Blackstone CEO Steve Schwarzman.
The 10th-worst high-end building, according to the report, is 635 W. 42nd St., a glassy tower near the West Side Highway that boasts a roof deck, a gym, a pool and a private party room.
After listing these buildings and their environmental transgressions, the report recommends that the city take immediate action to address their outsize carbon footprints, in line with Mayor Bill de Blasio’s stated goal of reducing NYC’s greenhouse-gas emissions by 80 percent by 2050.
Part of the coalition’s point in highlighting (or, perhaps, shaming) these particular buildings stems from the belief that these 1-percenters have the resources necessary to effect change. But they won’t do it if it’s voluntary, the report’s writers say, so there should be directives to ensure these gas-guzzling buildings become more efficient.
The report concludes: “When so much is at stake, and so many people at risk, it is imperative that, at the very least, our city mandate energy efficiency retrofits on all large buildings, rather than leave important public policy goals to the voluntary goodwill of the private sector.”
So, if these buildings didn't have gyms and the people went to an outside facility how would that change emissions?
Notice how they focused on Trump. A back door political hit piece for sure and a hate the rich narrative.
Keep these in mind as you contemplate the direction of the American government over the past 50 years and especially since the Obama election.
The Goals of Communism
(as read into the congressional record January 10, 1963, from "The Naked Communist" by Cleon Skousen)
1. U.S. acceptance of coexistence as the only alternative to atomic war.
2. U.S. willingness to capitulate in preference to engaging in atomic war.
3. Develop the illusion that total disarmament of the United States would be a demonstration of moral strength.
4. Permit free trade between all nations regardless of Communist affiliation and regardless of whether or not items could be used for war.
5. Extension of long-term loans to Russia and Soviet satellites.
6. Provide American aid to all nations regardless of Communist domination.
7. Grant recognition of Red China. Admission of Red China to the U.N.
8. Set up East and West Germany as separate states in spite of Khrushchev's promise in 1955 to settle the German question by free elections under supervision of the U.N.
9. Prolong the conferences to ban atomic tests because the United States has agreed to suspend tests as long as negotiations are in progress.
10. Allow all Soviet satellites individual representation in the U.N.
11. Promote the U.N. as the only hope for mankind. If its charter is rewritten, demand that it be set up as a one-world government with its own independent armed forces. (Some Communist leaders believe the world can be taken over as easily by the U.N. as by Moscow. Sometimes these two centers compete with each other as they are now doing in the Congo.)
12. Resist any attempt to outlaw the Communist Party.
13. Do away with all loyalty oaths.
14. Continue giving Russia access to the U.S. Patent Office.
15. Capture one or both of the political parties in the United States.
16. Use technical decisions of the courts to weaken basic American institutions by claiming their activities violate civil rights.
17. Get control of the schools. Use them as transmission belts for socialism and current Communist propaganda. Soften the curriculum. Get control of teachers' associations. Put the party line in textbooks.
18. Gain control of all student newspapers.
19. Use student riots to foment public protests against programs or organizations which are under Communist attack.
20. Infiltrate the press. Get control of book-review assignments, editorial writing, policymaking positions.
21. Gain control of key positions in radio, TV, and motion pictures.
22. Continue discrediting American culture by degrading all forms of artistic expression. An American Communist cell was told to "eliminate all good sculpture from parks and buildings, substitute shapeless, awkward and meaningless forms."
23. Control art critics and directors of art museums. "Our plan is to promote ugliness, repulsive, meaningless art."
24. Eliminate all laws governing obscenity by calling them "censorship" and a violation of free speech and free press.
25. Break down cultural standards of morality by promoting pornography and obscenity in books, magazines, motion pictures, radio, and TV.
26. Present homosexuality, degeneracy and promiscuity as "normal, natural, healthy."
27. Infiltrate the churches and replace revealed religion with "social" religion. Discredit the Bible and emphasize the need for intellectual maturity which does not need a "religious crutch."
28. Eliminate prayer or any phase of religious expression in the schools on the ground that it violates the principle of "separation of church and state."
29. Discredit the American Constitution by calling it inadequate, old-fashioned, out of step with modern needs, a hindrance to cooperation between nations on a worldwide basis.
30. Discredit the American Founding Fathers. Present them as selfish aristocrats who had no concern for the "common man."
31. Belittle all forms of American culture and discourage the teaching of American history on the ground that it was only a minor part of the "big picture." Give more emphasis to Russian history since the Communists took over.
32. Support any socialist movement to give centralized control over any part of the culture--education, social agencies, welfare programs, mental health clinics, etc.
33. Eliminate all laws or procedures which interfere with the operation of the Communist apparatus.
34. Eliminate the House Committee on Un-American Activities.
35. Discredit and eventually dismantle the FBI.
36. Infiltrate and gain control of more unions.
37. Infiltrate and gain control of big business.
38. Transfer some of the powers of arrest from the police to social agencies. Treat all behavioral problems as psychiatric disorders which no one but psychiatrists can understand.
39. Dominate the psychiatric profession and use mental health laws as a means of gaining coercive control over those who oppose Communist goals.
40. Discredit the family as an institution. Encourage promiscuity and easy divorce.
41. Emphasize the need to raise children away from the negative influence of parents. Attribute prejudices, mental blocks and retarding of children to suppressive influence of parents.
42. Create the impression that violence and insurrection are legitimate aspects of the American tradition; that students and special-interest groups should rise up and use united force to solve economic, political or social problems.
43. Overthrow all colonial governments before native populations are ready for self-government.
44. Internationalize the Panama Canal.
45. Repeal the Connally reservation so the United States cannot prevent the World Court from seizing jurisdiction over nations and individuals alike.
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