Daily News from New York, New York • 12

CM MADYSUN.j-5PMmN.JitUmJQ.AM. Sift Vs a not -so-grand canyon Bv OWEN MORITZ Urban Alfairs Edilor A doorman on W. 56th St. looks up at the mass of shrugs and says: "We're being strangled." The head of the Municipal Art Society calls the street a cavern. A resident wonders SAVE25-51 gift her with the prettiest how much of the she 11 glimpse.

This is nightmare alley. This is Manhattan's W. 56th St. between Sixth and Seventh Aves. T-shirt dresses ftfy 4 Possibly no side street in America is as congested and that's now.

This is because two massive skyscrapers are under construction. Plans for a third were announced last week. Still another one is in the works. But wait until it's all finished. When construction is done, when the dust settles, when three of the tallest buildings ever to rise in Gotham are built, this stretch of W.

56th St. will not only be congested, but bot-tlenecked, overbuilt and overpopu-lated as well, and in shadows much of the time. Sunlight and sky will be elusive along W. 56th St And you must remember this is not an avenue or main artery in New York, but a narrow side street What's happening here seems to sum up a city gone mad, a city where anything can go up. And does.

How this has come about is no scandal in the traditional sense. It is all legit. Each building carries its own reason for being. But taken together they are out of scale and, worse, demean the quality of life. Building One is called City Spire.

i I Many sold orig. 30.99 I l' deduct) liiil Alfli wlliiiiiiitlk PiBBlllUA It is 70 stories high, plunk in the middle of the block. The developer is a former Brooklyn assistant district attorney named Bruce Eichner who contributed handsomely to candidates in the last election. Before that he had persuaded trustees of City Center and the politicians that if he was allowed to build a tower of offices and condos over and alongside City Center, he would donate millions to save the landmark building. City Center, home to opera, ballet and other performing arts, has been strapped for funds for years.

Well, now it's saved and Eichner got a VIEW of W. 56tn St. between Sixth and Seventh Aves. ROBERT ROSAMIUODAILY NEWS because it faces W. 57th a main thoroughfare.

And that's where the offices will face. But the top 48 stories are residential and the human contents therein will empty onto 56th St across from Eichner's building. Kent Barwick, head of the' Municipal Art Society, credits Eichner's building with good design the architect is Chicago's Helmut Jahn but observes that Macklowe's building is "oversized and quite ugly." The other day, to complete the picture, trustees of Carnegie Hall made public plans for a 59-story tower for an L-shaped open lot next door. The building will border W. 56th.

This is Building Three and it will benefit Carnegie as a source of funds. And while it has also drawn plaudits for its design, it will nonetheless add to the congestion. Meanwhile, rumors have still another tower rising along 56th St Time was in this town when only avenues and main streets were permitted to host massive That has changed, as have the reasons for buildings. "They're playing by the rules," Barwick says of the builders, "but the rules are wrong." Welcome to 56th St. But don't look for the welcome mat.

There's a nightmare in progress. high-rise twice what the site was zoned for. But what of the block? Martin Calient, as a member of the City Planning Commission, protested Eichner's building because it "will cast shadows across 56th St and: significantly prevent light and air from reaching the streets." Salient was not reappointed by Mayor Koch' this year and maybe such criticism is the reason. Building Two is a 66-story smoked- glass commercial and residential venture known as Metropolitan Tower belonging to one Harry Macklowe. He is advertising it as 78 stories and told one magazine that it will gener ate $100 million in profit.

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