If you don’t know what time it is in LIC, the Murano Condos are for you
Murano Condo development rendering, Borden Ave @ 5th St, LIC
Spring brings a whole new color palette to winter’s dreary canvas, and our little Long Island City is getting a generous blast of Technicolor at the waterfront. A condo development formerly known as ‘The Prism’, and now officially dubbed ‘The Murano’, is clearly trying to distinguish themselves from the herd by featuring a ‘lightclock’, which will emit colored light out of a break in the middle of the building. The fun doesn’t stop there, as the light will change color on the hour, every hour. Yeah.
Marketed by The Developers Group, this 81 unit condo building with a curtain wall, is now online.
There’s really not much else to report with this. As a buyer’s beware, it should be noted that across the street is the LIRR stop where a diesel engine is idled all day long, provoking the ire of new One Hunters Point residents, who have moved in to the newly opened development, and have been emailing liQcity about the annoying drone. liQcity can’t really do anything about it, or any of the other problems plaguing LIC that we’re expected to solve, except to put it on the table. So there it is. If anyone has any real suggestions about how to go about getting the LIRR to stop idling a diesel train engine, I’m sure the current and future residents of that newly residential stretch of Borden will owe you one. (Or ten.)
The Murano LIC [website]
The Prism Condos, to double as the Borden Ave 24-hour Light Clock [liQcity]
Animation makes it look like it’s a Cyclon.
How about not building a condo building across the street from a train station where train engines have been idling since before there was a bridge between Manhattan and Queens?
If you were stupid enough to drop that much coin on a condo in One Hunter’s Point, then you get what you deserve…
I live next to the highway. Could you also ask the cars not to be so noisy?
I agree with #4. This is like living next to an area zoned for commercial use and then complaining about a bar opening there because its too noisy.
Actually it’s against LIRR policy to sit there and idle. Has been for years, but no one enforced it or cared…until now. Not to mention the useless air pollution from it.
what color is 11pm? because that’s when I need to leave the office in order to pay my mortgage.
I am part of the private google group for One Hunters Point and Hunter’s View ( did not end up buying ). Sounds like they are having a terrible time with the noise even in the middle of the night. Who thought living there would be a good idea? All that money and you still need to have earplugs to fall asleep and night….
if you live on the opposite side from the railways, you don’t hear them at all. so buy your apartment on the north side of the building. much prettier view as well.
I live on the north side of OHP. Its very quiet, and I love my view.
Enjoy the view while it lasts.
Got the reference, #5. Good one.
I live on the south side in OHP. The noise at night isn’t bad at all. In fact, you hardly hear anything at night. The apartments on the south side are bigger than the ones on the north side.
The drone bothers some and not others. I myself am more sensitive, it doesn’t bother my husband at all. We don’t live in one of the new developments, but on a nearby street. In fact, before the new condos went up on Borden we heard the sound much more…the buildings seem to be absorbing the sound. I think you could get them to stop idling the train with some organized and persevering action. Usually it takes a new residential population to get rid of something like that.
Glad you got it Townie. Sadly, some people feel that the double standard is ok. The rules are the rules until the rules no longer suit them.
#8 is flat out lying. There is no drone at night. Only during the weekdays… something like 7am-4pm.
I don’t even think that there are trains there at night. Ive never seen them.
Let’s call the person that made up that lie about idling trains at night the ‘Night Liar.’ Kind of like the Arris hooker guy. They’re jealous they couldn’t afford LIC, so they make things up to make themselves feel better about not buying. Sad.
It’s true. There’s often an engine idling through the night at the tracks. It’s not as loud when they park it on the tracks furthest from the condos.
Sometimes during the week there is one car at night in the yard. It sits on the far side of the yard, away from the building, and from the apartments you can barely hear it.
kinda think its cool… but i love colors… but how is the light not going to affect any apartments directly below and above? like wouldn’t you see a faint glow of color? anyways, they can totally try to outdo the empire state building !
#4, your reference is inaccurate. It’s a residential district with a commercial overlay. Residential zoning laws apply with several generous allowances for commercial uses.
But Zoning has nothing whatsoever to do with use of a backyard space after the hours agreed to with the Community Board and State Liquor Authority. And noise is noise. There is no as-of-right legality to after hours noise.
actually # 6, i believe it is LIRR policy to have diesal trains idle because to turn them off and restart actually is more energy consuming. this has been researched in long island, montauk i believe, apparently nothing you can do. lirr’s property, they can do what they want. why would buyers of those condos checked that out prior, one will never know?
#22, if the the backyard is zoned as commercial, it reasonable to expect that it would be used in a commercial enterprise – such as dining and such. And noise is a subjective thing. People carrying on dinner conversations hardly seems like noise pollution. Especially when compared to a diesel engine.
Its funny how people have no right to complain about noise, except when it goes against the new buildings and businesess. Anyone seeking a solution to the LIRR noise problem is told sacastically that the train was there before them. The neighborhood is changing. The answer to everthing can’t be well that’s the way its always been.
Going back to the 1970s, members of my family have written several letters to LIRR over the years or complained directly to the station manager about the overnight idling diesel locomotive. Result? Nothing much. They did at one time keep the locomotive farther east, and that helped considerably. I don’t know why the train is now located closer to the Vernon intersection. On a more positive note, the diesel fuel used in the train is much cleaner than it was in the past, though the engine today seems louder and generates stronger vibrations. Welcome to LIC.
Relocating the train seems like a logical compromise. Down by the Midtown tunnel no one will care as much. Someone should start a petition. I don’t live there, but I would sign it.
I don’t think new people have the right to complain about decades-old pre-existing noise. And I think residential folks who’ve lived above quiet storefronts for decades have some right to object to restaurants moving in and bringing late night noise. It’s a logically consistent position.
Solution- put new restaurants with outdoor patios and late night service in the ground floors of the new buildings…
24, the two have nothing to do with each other. I for one feel that anyone subjected to unreasonable noise has a right to complain. And by the way under new noise laws it is not subjective. There are specific levels and the inspectors have a monitoring device.
But more to the point, in order to gain approval of their license, the business in question signed agreements with the Community Board and the SLA to close the yard at an hour that was deemed workable for business and reasonable for residents. That’s in fact how it should be in a mixed use district. The problem there has been the yard stays open several hours past what was agreed and there is no containment of sound (as you will find in many establishments).
Unfortunately no enforcement mechanism exists other than to protest renewal.
OMG, I can’t believe what we are still talking about.
#27, why didn’t you stop your sentence where you really meant to by saying “I don’t think new people have the right to complain. ” So tired of your endless crusade against us…
I’m sorry, is someone forcing you to read the comments? If you’re tired of it, stop reading.
I have nothing against the towers. I have plenty of friends in Citylights who’ve lived in this hood for about a decade, and they laugh at people buying in these oddly-located buildings as much as the non-tower-dwellers.
My only beef is with obnoxious people with an overbearing sense of privilege.
Is that like having a black friend?
27, have you lost your marbles? I’m an old-timer and still have most of mine. You can count me as one guy who is elated that the new folks in the neighborhood want to complain about environmental hazards we’ve been forced to endure for decades.
In my view, one of the main benefits of the changes we’re witnessing in LIC is a growing, active, and educated residential population who can raise a ruckus and get some long-overdue action on the horrendous noise, water, and air pollution in our neck of the woods. I don’t care what zoning designation some jackass at City Planning gave LIC. There isn’t any logical reason to defend running filthy and noisy locomotives all night long when they could easily just moved the train a few yards up Borden Avenue. Same goes for dumping millions of gallons of untreated biological and chemical waste in the Newtown Creek or any other environmental injustice perpertrated in LIC for donkey’s years.
I’ve never heard that expression ‘donkey’s years.’ Please elaborate.
“There isn’t any logical reason to defend running filthy and noisy locomotives all night long when they could easily just moved the train a few yards up Borden Avenue.”
Wow. That’s textbook NIMBY-ism. Move it and make it someone else’s problem…
Hey nitwit, 35. There are no residential uses up further on Borden.
Actually, #35, moving the highly toxic and polluting idling diesel engine a few yards up Borden Ave puts it in an industrial zone where there is currently no boom in residential population. Moving industry out of where people live is not NIMBY it’s NORMAL. I agree with #33 in that more people complaining about this crap will actually make it go away. In the end, the system serves us that way because politicians need to get elected.
You geniuses don’t really understand how train tracks work, do you? The line goes from one track to eight and there’s no place to stash a train further up. Beyond that, no one thought that developers would build residential buildings directly across the street from the train station (One Hunter’s Point), or backing up to the Sunnyside Yards (Arris), or tucked into a corner between the LIE, Pulaski Bridge and Jackson (L Haus). What makes you think that more residential development won’t take place on Borden?
Bad developer decisions about locations coupled with ill-informed buyers do not constitute a neighborhood emergency.
Well how about it? Will someone from OHP come forward and spearhead this effort? If you did it sounds like you would have the support of others in the community.
38, Actually, you don’t know what YOU’RE talking about. As I wrote above, for years the locomotive ran opposite the Midtown Tunnel entrance, where it didn’t really bother anyone. I see no logical reason, and no negative reasons, for moving the train. People all around the globe live happily near rail stations. But I’ll bet there are just a handful of places in the civilized world where the dingbats who run rail systems would place a noisy, polluting beast smack in the middle of where there people live. I don’t care how long the train has been there. It is just plain stupid. Why would you want to defend the practice, unless you are the genius who works for the LIRR?
The LIRR has been running to Hunter’s Point LIC since 1861. It is older than 99% of the residential real estate in Hunter’s Point.
Objecting to it where it is, is like residents on 23rd street objecting to the elevated subway that passes by every 20 minutes all night long.
If you choose to live by a nuisance, don’t be surprised when it bothers you.
I don’t know. For me it would be cool to point out a running locomotive to my friends from my neon lit balcony. I can come out every our and show them how it changes colors.
The human race is f’n doomed!
41 is clearly thicker than two planks. So we are to simply accept what could easily be remedied just because it pre-dated us? We should use the standards of 1861 as our guide? By your same logic, we’d still use dump untreated waste into the rivers, use lead paint and DDT, paint radioactive materials in our watches, smoke in restaurants, or do all the countless other things we have learned through experience are no good for us.
Again, dumbo, it is no major deal for the LIRR to simply park its locomotive a few dozen feet up the track. No one is proposing moving the train to outside your building, to the Upper East Side, or to the moon. Don’t be such a prat and support your goddamn neighbors!
Is there still a line out the door for $15 drinks?
Move the locomotive to outside Dutch Kills.
Only if it’s a coal powered steam engine.
Right, 46. And the conductor needs a waxed handlebar moustache. All part of the faux early 20th century branding.
“Objecting to it where it is, is like residents on 23rd street objecting to the elevated subway that passes by every 20 minutes all night long.”
Hey, that’s me! You get used to it… kind of like ocean waves. I like to think it keeps my rent reasonable, too.
The tracks to Grand Central were buried (and electrified) because Park Avenue residents complained, way back when.
They haven’t buried or built over the Penn Station yard in Manhattan, with property values that far exceed those in LIC. And the 2o7th street yard in Inwood is still open and uncovered, directly across the street from residential property.
Maybe one day the property value in LIC will increase to the point where it makes sense for the MTA to either sell the land and relocate the trains, or bury the trains and lease the land above them to residential buildings. But I wouldn’t expect any of that anytime soon…
I’n the meantime they should move the trains.
In fact they should shut down that station entirely. It does not serve the needs of LIC residents. It exists only to ferry people from Long Island who work on the east side of Manhattan who do not want to take two subways to get into the city. These people in turn overload the #7 trains.
Yes, we should shut down the HP stations and make those commuters some other neighborhood’s problem.
Hey geniuses, anyone want to guess what will likely happen to the Hunters Point stations once the MTA opens up direct LIRR lines to Grand Central Station?
http://www.mta.info/capconstr/esas/planned_improvements.htm
Here’s a hint from the project goals: “Reducing crowding on the subway lines that use Penn Station and the No. 7 line ”
You just have to wait until 2015…
That won’t help if LIRR still thinks the Long Island City station is a handy place to park trains. The 10 or so trains a day that actually stop at the platform for passengers are hardly the problem.
FWIW, the “project map” of the East Side LIRR tunnels labels “mid day storage” in the Sunnyside Yards.
Please sign the petition to stop the idling trains. We as your neighbors thank you! And it will improve the air quality of the neighborhood. Thanks!
http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/idlenomore/signatures.html
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LIQCITY DID YOU HAVE DINNER WITH THIS DEVELOPER??? Come on admit it.