City moves Citi Bike stations from richest areas while letting other contested racks stay
It takes a lot of green to get rid of the blue bikes.
The city has quietly removed at least 10 Citi Bike stations since May, The Post has learned — including racks at Barry Diller’s IAC Building in Chelsea, a Midtown East condo that’s home to millionaires and a West Soho co-op where a “Mad Men” star lives.
Some stations were moved after legal threats and neighborhood petitions arose, but others were relocated with a simple phone call from a power broker to the right bureaucrat.
“I’ve been disappointed to see Citi Bike stations moved in wealthier neighborhoods,” said attorney Jim Walden. “You would think [the city] would want to avoid even the appearance that struggling artists would be treated differently than highfalutin financiers.”
Walden filed an injunction last week on behalf of community groups that for months have been fighting the city’s most controversial bike-share station at Soho’s Petrosino Square.
Soho residents collected 600 petition signatures and 132 letters to the city Department of Transportation. Elected officials, the community board and the city Parks Department also asked the city to relocate the rack — but the city hasn’t budged the bikes.
Activists also couldn’t sway the DOT to relocate a 40-bike station at Liberty Street and Broadway, where five food carts used to park and serve an office at 140 Broadway.
Vendors held a protest and received a letter of support from Councilwoman Margaret Chin, but the DOT shot them down.
“They ignored us, basically,” said Sean Basinski, director of the Street Vendor Project at the Urban Justice Center. “It seems like a lot of the fancy rich people in condos got them moved, but the immigrant street vendors had no luck.”
On the Lower East Side, more than 1,000 people signed a petition to remove a station outside Frank’s Bike Shop, to no avail. Residents said the rack threatens the Grand Street business, which rents bikes to tourists.
Yet The Post counted 10 racks that were moved before or just after the program launched on Memorial Day.
Manhattan attorney Steven Sladkus said he helped to block three Citi Bike stations alone.
He said that in each case, he was on his way to file court papers when the DOT called him and relented at the last minute.
“I can guarantee you won’t see a Citi Bike rack in front of Mayor Bloomberg’s town house” when the program expands north of 59th Street, Sladkus said. “Maybe the same [courtesy] should have been given to all other property owners in the city.”
Sladkus sued the city on behalf of the Milan Condominium at East 55th Street and Second Avenue, pushing the DOT to move the 29-bike station elsewhere.
The 31-story luxury tower — where a three-bedroom, three-bath pad goes for $3.7 million — is home to real-estate moguls Rotem Rosen and Zina Sapir-Rosen. Their penthouse was reportedly used as a set for the upcoming Martin Scorsese film “The Wolf of Wall Street.”
Sladkus also successfully represented a Midtown West office building and a residential building near Carnegie Hall but wouldn’t reveal his clients.
Twitter users reported on June 1 that one 55-bike station in front of a 23-story office building on Eighth Avenue moved from West 35th Street to the James Farley Post Office two blocks away.
In fact, for some, moving bike stations seemed quite easy.
A rack was moved from the Frank Gehry-designed IAC Building at West 18th Street and 11th Avenue after managers reached out to the DOT, an IAC spokeswoman said.
The property is the corporate headquarters for media mogul Diller, who throws star-studded parties inside the swanky lobby.
The IAC rep said the station was pushed across the street days before the program’s launch because of safety concerns with the M14 bus, which enters the block from West Street. But a building worker said it also got in the way of celebrity receptions.
In West Soho, residents of a Spring Street co-op that’s home to “Mad Men” actor John Slattery told the DOT a rack was too big for narrow, one-way Renwick Street. The agency obliged.
The DOT didn’t respond to requests for comment.
Well-heeled addresses where Citi Bike stations were moved or partially removed:
* IAC Building, 550 W. 18th St. — Moved from Barry Diller’s company headquarters to parking lot across the street
* Condos, 83 Barrow St. — Moved from southeast corner of Barrow and Hudson to the northwest corner
* Office building, 494 Eighth Ave. — Moved from south side of West 35th to West 33rd Street and Eighth Avenue
* Condos, 99 Bank St. — Partially removed from the building’s entrance
* Condos, 300 E. 55th St. — Removed altogether
* Condos, 60 Remsen St., Brooklyn — Moved to Hicks Street, just north of Remsen, in front of Dellarocco’s restaurant
* Condos, 304 Spring St. — Removed altogether
* Condos, 175 W. 13th St. — removed
* Town houses at 493 W. 22nd St. — Moved from north side of street to south side in front of Clement Clark Moore Park
* Condos near West 57th St. and Seventh Avenue — Rack near Carnegie Hall cut from map before installation
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