Writer Wolfe Is Displeased With Developer's New Plan

Round two in the battle between the writer Tom Wolfe and the developer Aby Rosen is under way.

At a public hearing at the Landmarks Preservation Commission yesterday, Mr. Wolf criticized Mr. Rosen and architect Norman Foster's latest plan for a residential tower to be built above the Parke-Bernet Gallery at 980 Madison Ave. on the Upper East Side.

"980 Madison is in the heart of the Upper East Side historic district and it does not need this additional structure. The district has been treated as a specifically landmarked area," Mr. Wolfe said in his testimony. "I think it is incumbent upon the developers to ask Mr. Foster to roam through the great archives of architectural history, or architectural future, and come up with something that has more meaning with the Upper East Side."

Mr. Foster presented the five-story, 152,000-square-foot tower to the commission yesterday. The plan represents an abandonment of a proposal for a 22-story elliptical glass tower that was sent back to the drawing board by the commission.

When the original plan was being considered by the commission, Mr. Wolfe critiqued it in an editorial for the New York Times that prompted Mr. Rosen to say Mr. Wolfe was "a man who has lost a little of his luster." Mr. Rosen was unavailable for comment following yesterday's hearing.

A number of other agencies and elected officials staked out their positions on the plan. The area's City Council member, Daniel Garodnick, opposes the plan in its current form, as does the Historic Neighborhood Enhancement Alliance, while the Municipal Arts Society and Friends of the Upper East Side Historic District said they support the plan with slight alterations.

Members of the commission will discuss the project and possibly vote on it at an upcoming meeting, to be held in the coming weeks. No date has been set for that meeting.