$1,000,000 Worth of Air

Space-starved New York City last week sold a lot of air for $1,065,000. Five firms bid for the rights to 90,000 sq. ft. of air over a two-block area in Upper Manhattan that has been cleared of old apartment buildings for a new expressway approach to George Washington Bridge. The highest bidder: Manhattan Realtor Marvin Kratter, 44, whose Kratter Corp., formed only last year, has become one of New York's most aggressive and ambitious builders. The sale marked the first time New York City has sold air rights over a sunken road for buildings to rise over it.

Directly above a new twelve-lane expressway, Kratter intends to build a $12 million, 27-story middle-income apartment project renting at $28 per room, hopes to give it a multishaded shell of pastel porcelain for "a fiesta look." The buildings will stand on 45-ft. stilts placed between the lanes of the expressway, will have their heating and other utility equipment on the top floor. Says Kratter: "We'll probably have the only penthouses in New York occupied by heaters and boilers."

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