A long-empty development parcel between W37th and 38th Streets has sold in a $94 million title transfer — and the fallout may land not at City Hall, but on the two carriage-horse stables wedged into the corners of the block.
A vacant lot near the Javits Center was recently sold for $94 million. Photo: Phil O’Brien
With a skyscraper project now “imminent,” the stable owners could face a stark choice: sell up to developers (there are only three stables left citywide), or keep horses operating through years of pile-driving, jackhammering and round-the-clock construction wedged between the buildings — meaning it could be the far West Side real-estate machine, not politicians or activists, that finally forces the carriage-horse industry out of Central Park.
“If they bought it, then I guess they don’t feel like we’ll be in their way,” said Central Park Carriages stable owner Cornelius Byrne, who believes it would be possible to remain in business over the course of construction. But he added: “It will be more difficult and expensive for them to build and it’ll cost them a lot of money to fortify these buildings so that their construction doesn’t harm these properties.”
Byrne, who has worked in the City’s carriage industry for nearly 60 years, said he would also be open to temporarily moving his stable’s horses to a farm, as was done when the now-shuttered Chateau Stables faced neighboring construction in the past. “They were given an acceptable amount of money to close down because they were afraid that the demolition might hurt their building. So they paid them to vacation for a year.”
Across the lot on W38th Street, West Side Livery stable manager Tony Salerno was open to finding another stable altogether.
The lots run along the sides and back of two stables on the West Side. Image: TomTom/Bing
“You want to buy, right? You have to find a building we can buy and you got to give some compensation,” Salerno said, noting that carriage drivers would need to be reimbursed for moving expenses and the disruption to their work. He added that it would be ideal for Byrne and him to sell together. “If we sell at the same time, [the developers] have one project. If we sell separate, they have to make two buildings. We have so many things to discuss. Number one is the people who are working over here.”
The stables’ anxiety is rooted in history: the last time the site changed hands, demolition work next door forced costly bracing on the stable walls.
Chetrit Group bought the 545 W37th Street development site in 2012 for $26.5 million and moved ahead two years later with demolition of four low-rise commercial buildings — work that also triggered added costs to brace the adjacent carriage-horse stables with steel beams to prevent a collapse.
The four buildings on the lot were demolished in 2014 which made it necessary to fortify the stables with steel beams. Photo: Keyian Vafai
According to The Real Deal, Chetrit later filed plans for a 131-unit, 373,000-square-foot hotel, a project permitted in late 2021, but construction never advanced; the lot sat vacant, there have been no permit filings since 2022, and an $85 million pre-development loan taken out in 2018 eventually went into default by 2023. The lender — the credit arm of Mack Real Estate Group — sued to take possession of the title. Chetrit could not be reached for comment, and Mack declined to comment.
Christina Hansen, a carriage driver and activist in the drivers’ union, worried about building around the stables. “Like, ‘oops, we just accidentally damaged the building, and now it’s uninhabitable’,” she said.
Hansen remains vigilant against any premise that could force the stables to shutter entirely, especially from real estate. New Yorkers for Clean, Livable and Safe Streets (NYCLASS), the leading anti-carriage group in the city, was founded by real estate developers. Over the course of the near 20-year political battle over horse drawn carriages in Central Park, carriage drivers like Hansen have accused them of harboring the ulterior motive of developing the stable property, rather than fighting for animal welfare.
“I know nothing about anything to do with the real estate of those buildings. That’s not our concern. It’s never been our concern,” Edita Birnkrant from NYCLASS told W42ST. “But it’s long overdue that we shut this down.” Birnkrant pointed to recent runaway-horse incidents, saying: ”It’s a miracle no one was killed. This happens all the time.”
Loud noises and scary objects prevalent around construction sites can potentially startle horses and cause them to panic. There were four incidents of spooked horses running wild in Central Park in 2025.
In any case, the stables that sit between Hell’s Kitchen and Hudson Yards won’t be the only stables in New York troubled by development. Be Brooklyn Equine, a stable and riding track by Prospect Park, has found itself encroached upon by a neighboring developer too. John Quadrozzi, Be Brooklyn’s owner, who is suing the neighboring developer over building damages and other grievances, said the West Side stables had less to be concerned about.
Carriages lined up outside West Side Livery Stables on W38th Street. Photo: Catie Savage
But he cautioned about the changes to come. “There’s a tremendous amount of leeway that developers have. And you can put in complaints to the building department on these things, but that falls on deaf ears.”