You take the uptown subway, the 1 train, destination the Bronx -- the IRT for those of you who still refer to New York City's subway lines that way -- and exit at the 103rd Street Station, just before you cross the unofficial border to Harlem. Walking north on Broadway for a couple of blocks, turning on West 105th Street west towards the Hudson, crossing West End Avenue.
This is the formerly rural part of the city now known as the Upper West Side, then known as Bloomingdale. The Dutch, who originally named it that back when this was all New Amsterdam, didn't spell it that way, of course. They wrote Bloemendael, because it reminded them of a flower growing area in Holland. Not too many flowers to be found here these days, unless you continue on towards Riverside Park.
A quarter of a block down on your right, you come to a row of, well, row houses. Nice, and not exactly what you might call "affordable," but in the heady world of New York real estate, they might even pass for modest: nothing about them is truly distinctive, and you really could be in quite a few of the city's neighborhoods if you didn't know better.
You slow down at 303. A five-story, eight unit co-op. Like I said, nothing really distinctive. But "303 West 105th Street, New York City" sticks in your mind. It reminds you of something.
And then you see it. Haphazardly nailed to the facade, zip tied and covered in decades of paint, snaking up the front of the building like an arteriosclerotic nerve system, it hits you: this is that building.
Your eyes trace the cable lines up to the roof.
Yes, the cable TV lines.
Confirmation: this is the building at issue in the U.S. Supreme Court's regulatory takings case, Loretto v. Teleprompter Manhattan CATV Corp., 458 U.S. 419 (1982).
As Justice Thurgood Marshall wrote for the Court's majority,
Appellant Jean Loretto purchased a five-story apartment building located at 303 West 105th Street, New York City, in 1971. The previous owner had granted appellees Teleprompter Corp. and Teleprompter Manhattan CATV (collectively Teleprompter) permission to install a cable on the building and the exclusive privilege of furnishing cable television (CATV) services to the tenants."458 U.S. at 421-22 (footnote omitted).
Can you finagle your way up to the roof to see if evidence of the (in)famous cable boxes were still there ("Teleprompter also installed two large silver boxes along the roof cables. The cables are attached by screws or nails penetrating the masonry at approximately two-foot intervals, and other equipment is installed by bolts.")?
Alas no, you can't find the super to check whether a little "donation" to the building's Holiday Fund might ease a door or two open.
That will have to be saved for a future visit, perhaps.
So you do the next best thing, Google Maps. Can you see the boxes?
This is the property that gave us the case that cemented the Supreme Court's per se physical takings rule that "a minor but permanent physical occupation of an owner's property authorized by government constitutes a 'taking' of property for which just compensation is due under the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments of the Constitution," as Justice Marshall wrote for the Court.
Not all agreed. As the now-public conference notes reflect, Justices Blackmun, Brennan, and White had their reasons for not joining the majority. Justice Blackmun even pointed out that the opinion's reference to the "two large silver boxes" was not to be found in the opinion of the lower court, "nor are their dimensions stated anywhere in the record." Details!
Time has turned the Loretto case into an icon, something of a holy grail for property owners' counsel asserting takings claims - get the court to agree there's been a physical occupation, no matter how inconsequential, and the only question left is the remedy for the taking.
The building, however, has no sign, no plaque, no indication that it was the location of one of the Supreme Court's most consequential property decisions.
Just a weathered street number, and a few cables on the building as mute reminders.
Conference Notes, Loretto v. Teleprompter Manhattan CATV Corp., No. 81-244 (1982)
