The City Council has approved the land use application for the massive 594-foot-tall Memorial Sloan Kettering (MSK) Pavilion on York Avenue, between 66th and 67th Streets. Despite strong objections from FRIENDS, Carnegie Hill Neighbors, Civitas, and many local residents, MSK refused to budge on the building's towering height.

While we commend Council Member Julie Menin for securing important concessions like construction mitigation and community infrastructure improvements, we remain deeply concerned. This out-of-place structure—comparable to a Midtown skyscraper—sets a dangerous precedent and sends a signal to developers about what is permissable on the Upper East Side, and with respect to institutional expansion across the city

This project, alongside the New York Blood Center and Northwell’s Lenox Hill Hospital expansion, is part of a troubling pattern of super-sized development threatening the scale and character of the Upper East Side as a residential neighborhood. The MSK Pavilion’s sheer size will dwarf even the existing medical towers along York Avenue, undoing a careful balance that has long been maintained through contextual zoning and the efforts of civic groups and residents in this area for so long.

While we sympathize with MSK's desire to modernize and expand its facilities, their push for a 31-story building with oversized, double-height floors lacks clear justification. Why is this necessary? And why should it rise without setbacks, cutting off access to daylight in a way that harks back to pre-zoning days? New York’s first zoning code, passed in 1916, aimed to prevent exactly this kind of overbearing construction preventing sunlight reaching the street.

Read more about our efforts to challenge this proposal at Community Board 8, the City Planning Commission, and City Council.