Every time I look out my window I see this colossal tower and the “view” is  ever changing. In the past year a plywood panel has popped up here and there but now my view is filled with the mesh wrapped balconies to secure the panels which have plummeted below to one of the most busy areas in Manhattan. The public space is closed, scaffolding is up for safety and the tenants are mad as hell!

Views are killer at luxury midtown building, but so is falling glass

BY Kerry Burke, Jason Sheftell and Samuel Goldsmith
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS

Tuesday, September 1st 2009, 4:00 AM

Savulich/News

Mesh netting and plywood cover balconies on deluxe Fifth Ave. high-rise Monday after glass panes have dislodged from building (below). The sheets fall whole, but break as they hit building or ground.

They paid as much as $3 million for their fancy midtown condos - but the Buildings Department has barred them from stepping out onto their balconies.

The reason? Huge glass panels are falling from the luxurious, 42-floor tower, city officials said.

The balconies at 325 Fifth Ave., between 32nd and 33rd Sts., are now wrapped with unsightly protective mesh and fortified with plywood after glass started falling last month.

Scaffolding was erected over the sidewalk to protect pedestrians after the Department of Buildings banned residents from using the balconies, whose glass panes have dislodged.

“If I had known of any troubles, I wouldn’t have even looked at an apartment here,” said one worried resident. “It’s expensive, but it’s not safe.”

“People pay a great deal of money and we pay for the views,” said another cranky resident.

“It’s very frustrating. I like our balcony and I would like to sit on it.”

Witnesses say the glass sheets fall whole, but break as they hit the side of the building on the way down to the street.

“It was a big piece, but by the time it came down it was little pieces,” said Muhammad Ashsaq, 28, who runs a souvenir store next-door to the building.

“People were running. I was scared. Two people were hit and they ran into the building. The police came and shut down the whole street,” Ashsaq said.

A spokesman for the building’s construction manager, Levine Builders, said 325 Fifth Ave. has a total of 1,300 glass balcony panels and only one has broken.

“As a precautionary measure mandated by the Department of Buildings, all 1,300 glass panels have been wrapped in protective mesh to insure public safety while the cause of the breakage is determined,” the spokesman said in a statement.

But the Department of Buildings has issued several stop work and partial vacate orders to the condo, including one last November. The citation from last year reads, “Glass panels at rear balconies are defective and falling into rear yard.”

The 250-unit building boasts amenities such as a fitness center, pool, spa, lounge, screening room, business center and children’s playroom.

Every unit was reportedly sold prior to its opening in 2006.