Manhattan Says ‘No’ to Casinos

The idea of stuffing a casino in a place already buzzing with hordes of tourists and gaudy lights made sense from afar. So did some specifics: It would have made use of an old office building at 1515 Broadway; it was proposed in partnership with Caesars; and it had the backing of a beloved local (Jay-Z and Roc Nation were onboard to run a club in the space). But the idea of rebranding Broadway around gambling irked theater owners, who blasted anti-casino messaging on their enormous billboards and stuffed flyers in playbills, protesting a project that they said would bring crime and traffic. “A casino in Times Square is akin to colonizers coming in and destroying the culture,” a local said at the last public hearing. Then there were the scandals. The $10 million bonus for Holliday was a potential ethics breach. Jay-Z was spotted cozying up to Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump at a casino-industry night. Residents in Manhattan Plaza, a nearby affordable-housing complex filled with working artists, were offered $22.5 million in community benefits — sparking a backlash that prompted SL Green to redirect the funding and try to sweeten the pot by adding, at the last minute, public bathrooms to the deal. But neither toilets nor the promise of $250 million in community investment, including a public-safety plan and building a Civil Rights museum, could persuade the representatives on the board for Manhattan Borough President Mark Levine, State Senator Liz Krueger, Assemblyman Tony Simone, and City Councilmember Erik Bottcher, all of whom voted against the casino. (Reps for Governor Kathy Hochul and Mayor Eric Adams were the two “yes” votes.) One resident called today’s vote “a rejection of corruption,” adding that the atmosphere in her Manhattan Plaza Facebook group felt “like we just won a war.”

A former Mercedes-Benz showroom on 11th Avenue isn’t exactly a community hub — one local called it a “hole in the ground.” The developer, Silverstein, spun it as “shovel ready.” But neighbors seemed to prefer the hole to a proposal for a CetraRuddy tower that would also include a Hyatt, a casino, and 2,000 apartments. Opposition was the usual: fear that the neighborhood isn’t ready for casino-level crowds and buses, given the already hellish traffic around the Lincoln Tunnel, plus nearby schools whose kids could be exposed to the sins of blackjack. And proponents were hard to trust, after screenshots shared with reporters showed one stakeholder offering $300 and “a nice catered lunch” to anyone who would be willing to speak in support of the casino at a public hearing. Councilmember Erik Bottcher said he voted down the project out of a sense the proposal needed to meet a “uniquely strong degree of community buy-in … that has not materialized.” That may have been an understatement. One opponent called it a “natural disaster,” while the president of the board of nearby London Terrace Towers labeled it a “nightmare.”

Wynn Resort and Related Companies avoided the showdown currently unfolding in conference rooms by pulling their plans in May. Their proposal for a $12 billion gamblers’ paradise at Hudson Yards West was already a sore spot, considering that it offered just 4,000 housing units, far less than the 5,700 units that had been promised by Related under a 2009 rezoning that paved the way for Hudson Yards. The developer cited “persistent opposition” after a damning rejection from the local community board, which called the project “anti–New York” in part because it would take out streets to build an “inward looking, protected enclave for an inward focused casino.” The nonprofit Friends of the High Line opposed the proposal on grounds that the casino would cast shadows that “threaten the High Line experience.” Ultimately, Bottcher was a no for the same reason he killed the Hell’s Kitchen proposal today: a failure to “meet the high bar of community support that such a consequential project demands.” So what will go up instead? A revised proposal from Related did, in fact, receive the City Council’s blessing, and would include 4,000 housing units, 6.6 acres of public green space, a new K-8 public school with 750 seats, and a day care.

Two votes — from representatives of Mayor Adams and Governor Hochul — were the only ones to support a plan for a casino on the East Side that was more of a dark-horse candidate to begin with. The project on the East Side was pitched by Soloviev Group and Mohegan and faced such strong headwinds that Soloviev’s CEO led with the pitch, “You won’t even see it from First Avenue.” Opponents said it would mean more gridlock where that could be very, very bad, given its proximity to a corridor of hospitals — not to mention the annual traffic nightmare of the United Nations’ General Assembly week. Others said a casino isn’t a great look right next to the building where the U.S. projects its image to visiting dignitaries. And Soloviev’s initial plans seemed completely unaware of the problem, pitching an oversize Ferris wheel that would be visible from most of Brooklyn. The developer has made tweaks — adding in a Museum of Democracy and, over the weekend, tossing in 400 more deeply affordable apartments to bring the total number in the project to 1,000. But every revision seemed to only add to skepticism that there was ever any real forethought. Per one community-board member, “ It seems rather piecemeal, sort of haphazard, like they’re sort of throwing whatever they can at the wall to see what will stick.”