Trump/Nadler square off over Riverside South highway move

Real Estate Weekly, August 2, 1995 by Lois Weiss

Personal attacks and accusations flew across the media waves last week as Democratic Rep. Jerrold Nadler chortled at the idea he had placed a roadblock in the way of Donald Trump's plans for his Riverside South development.

Trump on the other hand, criticized the Congressman's "stupidity" for using the U.S. House of Representatives to cut-off funds to move the Miller Highway to the east and underground, saying Nadler was too "fat" to realize he was doing Trump a favor.

Nadler's representative responded with equally negative comments about Trump's financial restructurings as well as his family. Nadler also adopted a statement first made by attorney William Kunstler, saying: "If you have the law on your side you pound the law, if you have the facts on your side you pound the facts and if you have neither the law nor the facts on your side, you pound on the table."

And Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, who had championed the waterfront access ideas of urban planner Robert Moses and had obtained the initial $15 million in Federal study funds for the pilot project, was vowing the project was not dead.

Meanwhile, Trump is laughing all the way to HUD with the knowledge the entire residential portion of the project would be much cheaper to construct without the highway relocation. "If Nadler is able to kill it, he's doing me a favor," claimed Trump.

The developer and his Hong Kong partners have an application pending with the US Department of Housing and Urban Development to obtain Federal Housing Assistance loan guarantees.

Those loan guarantees are another target of Nadler's wrath, as he attempts to resurrect a working railyard at the Riverside South site, rather than a housing development for 5,700 New Yorkers and their families.

"Do you think Madeleine Polayes would allow that to happen with all the trucks that would have to go through the neighborhood," wondered Riverside South Planning Corp. President Richard A. Kahan of what the president of the Coalition for a Livable West Side would think of Nadler's strange scheme for the former dilapidated Penn Railyard site.

Joyce Matz, a spokesperson for the Coalition for a Livable West Side, a group that has continued to fight the Riverside South Plan, said "The community has always opposed tearing down the highway. There are other projects and other needs. We can have a perfectly good park with the highway in place."

While Nadler also expounded last week on the significance of the raised highway cutting off the views from any new apartments, it was obvious the West Side's representative hasn't really spent much time actually looking at the site that lies in his district. Even the new building lobbies are expected to be above the grade of the current highway, Trump noted.

If the highway is not reconstructed, potential problems of ventilation and life safety for the covered motorists would also be eliminated. And the motorists would

"In many ways, the job is a better job because the people driving along will see our job, " said Trump. "But basically, it's a shame for the city and the civic organizations that fought so hard to have the highway underground to make it a better park. And it's not a Trump park," he added, "it's a city park. But I had a moral obligation to fight with the civics. "

A spokesperson for Rep. Nadler said "Let's see if Trump proceeds to build Riverside South. We don't think he will proceed without the highway moved."

In 1992, Trump cut a deal with some of the civic groups that were opposing his development and agreed to reduce the number of square feet, reduce the heights of buildings, and to move the highway so as to make for a better and unobstructed park.

But Trump never really had an interest in moving the highway, which the civic groups and urban planners said would cast shadows on the park and artificially cut it off from the Hudson River.

The highway at that time was in the middle of a $72 million reconstruction and its movement inland and under what would become a new Riverside Drive South was contingent on obtaining Federal, state and city funds. Senator Moynihan included appropriations for some of the original engineering studies in a transportation bill designed for pilot projects.

"Millions of dollars have been wasted by the Federal government that has already spent the money on the new plan," noted Trump, who said he felt sorry for the taxpayers.

Kahan, president of the Riverside South Planning Corp., the entity formed by Trump and the civic groups to shepherd the project through to completion, said over $5 million of the funds have been spent by the Urban Development Corp. on engineering studies.

Senator Moynihan's press representative said, to their knowledge, only $2 million of the Federal funds have been spent, but other State monies may have been used.

According to a spokesperson for the city, Deputy Mayor Peter Powers is against moving the highway and believes the money could be used for other projects. "They are supporting Riverside South in general, " said the spokesperson.