April 21, 2015
Poor doors be damned. It looks like the anger and public outcry swirling around Extell's new 50 Riverside Boulevard condo didn't do much to deter New Yorkers from vying for a low-income unit at the building. The Times reports that the development company received a whopping 88,000 applications for the building's 55 affordable apartments after they opened up the lines back in February.
The overwhelming demand is most certainly a win for developer Gary Barnett, who found himself in the hot seat for creating a separate entrance for low-income tenants, away from the market-rate residents. When speaking to the paper, Barnett called the whole poor door ordeal a “made-up controversy” adding to that “I guess people like it. It shows that there’s a tremendous demand for high-quality affordable housing in beautiful neighborhoods."
So do poor doors really matter?