CityLab — "An Art Installation Visualizes the Boggling Tax Disparities Along Central Park"

July 15th 2016

CityLab covers our Section 581 project that renders visible the inequity of NYC property taxes.

Read the full article here.

"SITU’s models demonstrate how fundamentally out of whack property assessment and property value are in New York. The acrylic ribbons flying over the city show the magnitude of the difference between the assessed value of a property and its sale value. SITU has created a rolling, physical map of inequity.

'The most valuable rental buildings in Manhattan are valued by the [Department of Finance] at well under $500 per square foot,' reads an essay by SITU attached to the project. 'The market has seen luxury condo sales typically made at a much higher expense per square foot—often in the $4,500 range.'

For the show, Storefront divided Manhattan into 30 sections between the East River and the Hudson River, assigning each part to a different design studio. SITU explored the parts of the Upper East Side and Upper West Side contained between West 62nd Street (to the south) and East 79th Street (to the north). The firm’s project, titled Section 581, takes its name from the state code dictating the assessment of property taxes...."