For Tribeca Neighbors, Law School's Lights Are a Glaring Problem
Long after darkness falls over the rest of Tribeca, light continues to pour through windows facing the corner of West Broadway and Leonard Street.
There, the New York Law School’s recently opened all-glass library and classroom building is perpetually aglow. Residents whose apartments face the school, accustomed to gazing out over the twinkling expanse of Lower Manhattan, now keep their curtains closed and their blinds shut.
“It’s like a giant Japanese lantern sitting on the corner,” said Andrea Tomasetti, whose living room windows at 53 Leonard St. are less than 50 feet from the see-through addition to the law school. Nearly all the lights in the $200-million building burn 24 hours a day, to accommodate students working late into the night. But Tomasetti wondered how anyone, including the students, could stand being bathed in the building’s stark fluorescence.
“The light just doesn’t feel healthy,” Tomasetti said. “I don’t know if there’s a physiological effect on us or not, but it feels that way sometimes.”
Kimberly Whitfil, another resident at 53 Leonard, said she and her family understand that life in the city has its nuisances. Nonetheless, she said, the new law school building far exceeds her threshold of tolerance.
“Friends of mine have come over, and they can never believe how bright it is,” noted Whitfil. “We’re happy to have the building there, but does it need to be as bright as can be, all night?”
A block away from the school, at 6 Varick St., Patricia Aakre has lived on the eighth floor with her husband, Richard, since the early 1970s. Her bedroom windows look out on the law school building from the intersection of Varick and West Broadway. When the building opened earlier this year, Aakre said she and her husband were shocked by how brightly the building was lit, around the clock.
“It was just very jarring,” she said. “In the beginning, we lost sleep, but now we’re trying to learn to live with it. I can practically read a book in my apartment with the lights off.”
On the seventh floor of 6 Varick, Keith Steimel said he and his wife, Deb Guiffre, will buy curtains for their floor-to-ceiling windows to keep the school’s piercing glare out of their apartment.
“It’s an inherent design flaw,” he said. “I’m sure if you’re inside the building, it’s great because you can look out and see all the historic buildings in the neighborhood. But if you’re outside looking in, all you get is the light shining at you.”
Two floors below the Aakres, Carole Hochman and her family used to love the night view. Since the law school building was completed, though, Hochman said she keeps her living room blinds closed.
“It feels like being in some kind of exhibit,” Hochman said.
But Rebecca Cort, whose 55 Leonard St. apartment is across the street and to the east of the building, sees the bright lights differently. “This street used to be very dark at night,” she said. “I prefer having a street with a lot of light on it. It feels safer.”
As complaints from 6 Varick Street residents mounted recently, their management company, Andrews Building Corp., began pressing the law school to tone down late-night lighting. Tomasetti said the Leonard Street residents she’s spoken with are ready to join in that effort. In a phone interview with the Trib, the school’s dean and president, Richard Matasar, said he has already taken some steps to dim the glow.
“We’ve installed some timers and motion sensors, and we’ll be putting those in throughout the building,” Matasar said. On any given night, there are around 100 students using the library or the various study areas in the six-story building, he added, and at least twice that number during final exams.
Matasar said there was “only so much that can be done to ameliorate the building’s design,” and that lights in the halls and study rooms, in the library and in the outer stairwells needed to remain on for safety reasons.
“We certainly don’t want to do anything that makes us bad neighbors,” Matasar said. “But it’s not like we can replace the glass walls with bricks. We’re obviously searching for the minimum impact for our neighbors. Whatever isn’t necessary we will turn off.”
Harry Kendall, a principal architect on the project and longtime Tribeca resident, said the building’s lights are still a work in progress, and that the situation has improved since the addition opened in April. “I watched as it went from harsh to more gentle,” Kendall said. “When the building began to be lit I thought, ‘Oh, wow, somebody is thinking this is a nightmare and we have to quickly move to the real usage.’”
A secondary concern for residents is what they see as wasted wattage. A building of such size—235,000 square feet—that keeps its lights on 24 hours a day must be a gluttonous consumer of electricity, they say.
“It’s such a waste of money and energy. It just surprises me that the school would do something that seems so wasteful and politically incorrect,” Hochman said.
In the law school’s defense, Matasar said the new building is not any less energy efficient than most 24-hour buildings, but he understands the concerns.
“In a normal building, you wouldn’t see the hallways and stairs lit up because they’re behind walls,” he said. Although the building is not a certified “green” building, Matasar said several of its features were designed with energy conservation in mind.
“We’re not being irresponsible,” he said. “We installed energy-efficient motors for the elevators, and all of the furniture and carpeting is made from sustainable materials. We have every conceivable internal device to regulate the energy usage in the building.”
Matasar said the school would continue looking for ways to reduce the overnight lighting, “so long as it does not compromise the safety of the students.”
But neighbors are not reassured.
“As much noise as we make, I’m not sure how they’re going to resolve it,” Steimel said. “There doesn’t really seem to be an option. It’s just how the building was built.”
By Matt Dunning