advocating for sensible growth
by mickey kramer
When sitting at a booth at Pier 72, delighting on apple pie a la mode and tea, Olive Freud points to the wall behind her, to six photographs of classic New York buildings. The black-and-white pictures were first displayed more than 20 years ago in an exhibit titled “The Case Against Tall Buildings and the Virtue of Recycling Old Ones.”
Freud is a native New Yorker, self-described “octogenarian” and president of the Committee for Sound Environmental Development, which put on the exhibit two decades ago.
“We were against tall buildings coming into the city, so we wanted to show renovation and use these beautiful buildings as examples,” she said, adding that the sentiment hasn’t changed. The exhibit included 15 photographs, each with a detailed description. The Public Theater, Jefferson Market and the Puck Building and others are on display at the Upper West Side eatery.
Freud taught math at LaGuardia High School for about 25 years and has been an activist most of her life. At various times, she served as an executive committee member of the Sierra Club New York City group and as president of Park River Independent Democrats.
The Committee had numerous altercations with current then-developer Donald Trump over the Riverside South Project, which runs from 59th Street to 72nd Street. The skirmishes included a lawsuit in the early 1990s over about the size of the project.
“We on the West Side were some of the first to have our fights with Donald Trump,” Freud recalls with some pride.
But the Committee’s most publicized battle was a 2013 lawsuit brought against Lincoln Center by several plaintiffs, including fellow retired teacher Cleo Dana. The suit claimed that in 2010 Lincoln Center administrators allowed Fashion Week organizers to cut down dozens of trees and removed planters and benches to make room for the commercial event, all in violation of the Public Trust Doctrine.
A settlement reached in early 2015 concluded that Damrosch Park is dedicated parkland and that the trees, benches and gardens must be restored and that Lincoln Center and the city not use the 2.4-acre park for commercial events.
“If there is any lesson to be learned from this incident, it is that a done deal can be undone. If you are doing the right thing, persevere,” Freud said.
The Committee’s goal for 2017 is to get the City Council to introduce and pass legislation that will put height restrictions on new buildings. “People that live here should have sun, sky, parks and open space, and no new shadows, and the tall buildings take that away,” she said.
Freud, married 57 years and the mother of two and grandmother of two, has lived in the same building on west 72nd Street for 55 years.
“I really think it’s the perfect urban community, but you can kill it when you overdue and overcrowd it,” she said of her neighborhood,
Despite her battles over the years having included more losses than wins, she said, Freud has no plans to slow down. “As long as you keep living, you keep trying,” she said.