{"id":94958,"date":"2026-01-09T17:45:11","date_gmt":"2026-01-09T17:45:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/94958\/"},"modified":"2026-01-09T17:45:11","modified_gmt":"2026-01-09T17:45:11","slug":"94m-hudson-yards-deal-puts-carriage-horse-stables-in-the-crosshairs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/94958\/","title":{"rendered":"$94M Hudson Yards Deal Puts Carriage-Horse Stables in the Crosshairs"},"content":{"rendered":"

A long-empty development parcel between W37th and 38th Streets has sold in a $94 million title transfer<\/a> \u2014 and the fallout may land not at City Hall, but on the two carriage-horse stables wedged into the corners of the block.<\/p>\n

\"CarriageA vacant lot near the Javits Center was recently sold for $94 million. Photo: Phil O\u2019Brien<\/p>\n

With a skyscraper project now \u201cimminent,\u201d 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 \u2014 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf they bought it, then I guess they don\u2019t feel like we\u2019ll be in their way,\u201d 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: \u201cIt will be more difficult and expensive for them to build and it\u2019ll cost them a lot of money to fortify these buildings so that their construction doesn\u2019t harm these properties.\u201d <\/p>\n

Byrne, who has worked in the City\u2019s carriage industry for nearly 60 years, said he would also be open to temporarily moving his stable\u2019s horses to a farm, as was done when the now-shuttered Chateau Stables<\/a> faced neighboring construction in the past. \u201cThey 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

Across the lot on W38th Street, West Side Livery stable manager Tony Salerno was open to finding another stable altogether.<\/p>\n

\"VacantThe lots run along the sides and back of two stables on the West Side. Image: TomTom\/Bing <\/p>\n

\u201cYou want to buy, right? You have to find a building we can buy and you got to give some compensation,\u201d 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. \u201cIf we sell at the same time, [the developers] have one project. If we sell separate, they have to make two buildings.\u00a0We have so many things to discuss. Number one is the people who are working over here.\u201d<\/p>\n

The stables\u2019 anxiety is rooted in history: the last time the site changed hands, demolition work next door forced costly bracing on the stable walls.<\/p>\n

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 \u2014 work that also triggered added costs to brace the adjacent carriage-horse stables with steel beams to prevent a collapse.<\/p>\n

\"\"The four buildings on the lot were demolished in 2014 which made it necessary to fortify the stables with steel beams. Photo: Keyian Vafai<\/p>\n

According to The Real Deal<\/a>, 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 \u2014 the credit arm of Mack Real Estate Group \u2014 sued to take possession of the title. Chetrit could not be reached for comment, and Mack declined to comment.<\/p>\n

Christina Hansen, a carriage driver and activist in the drivers\u2019 union, worried about building around the stables. \u201cLike, \u2018oops, we just accidentally damaged the building, and now it\u2019s uninhabitable\u2019,\u201d she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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<\/a>. 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.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI know nothing about anything to do with the real estate of those buildings. That\u2019s not our concern. It\u2019s never been our concern,\u201d Edita Birnkrant from NYCLASS told W42ST. \u201cBut it\u2019s long overdue that we shut this down.\u201d Birnkrant pointed to recent runaway-horse incidents, saying: \u201dIt\u2019s a miracle no one was killed. This happens all the time.\u201d<\/p>\n

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<\/a> running wild in Central Park in 2025.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In any case, the stables that sit between Hell\u2019s Kitchen and Hudson Yards won\u2019t 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<\/a>. John Quadrozzi, Be Brooklyn\u2019s owner, who is suing the neighboring developer over building damages and other grievances, said the West Side stables had less to be concerned about.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"CarriagesCarriages lined up outside West Side Livery Stables on W38th Street. Photo: Catie Savage<\/p>\n

But he cautioned about the changes to come. \u201cThere\u2019s 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.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A long-empty development parcel between W37th and 38th Streets has sold in a $94 million title transfer \u2014…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":94959,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[17671,9,11,10],"class_list":["post-94958","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-carriage-horses","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94958","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=94958"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94958\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/94959"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=94958"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=94958"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=94958"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}