Fast forward several years and picture that you are on the east side of the Hudson River, looking across at the steep ledges of the Palisades north of the George Washington Bridge. But where once over many years the cliffs stood out boldly, etched against the skies, now a large office tower protrudes above the Palisades, marring the amazing natural view. The tower defaces the landscape. This is what could easily happen, unless people defeat a corporation’s effort to despoil the Palisades with its corporate tower.

The Palisades provide as natural and pristine a view as one could find in various parts of the Rockies, but the formation sits in the middle of a metropolitan area of nearly 20 million people – and a major area of it is under threat. The magnificent view and natural presence of the Palisades in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, has been unspoiled for generations. It rises boldly to the west above the Hudson River, a beautiful wall of green in spring and summer, a glorious show of many colors in autumn, a starkly beautiful rising of stone and snow in winter. However, a company’s plan to build a tower that will protrude above the Palisades threatens an immaculate view that the citizens of New Jersey and New York first took action to protect more than 100 years ago. That any group of people could envision a tower going up that will rise above the unspoiled view of the cliffs is difficult to understand.

LG Electronics, the giant multinational electronics and appliances manufacturer based in Seoul, Korea, is continuing with its plans to build its $300 million North American headquarters in Englewood Cliffs. The tower, as planned, will rise 143 feet above grade, much higher than a historic 35-foot limit that other companies have respected. In order to construct a building that would go above the limit that other companies have honored, LG sought and received a local zoning variance for the taller structure.

Once LG’s building plans became widely known, much opposition sprung up against it and became even stronger as the prospect of more high-rise development marring this pristine view became possible. LG has persisted in its plans, despite calls from several former New Jersey governors, mayors of a number of towns, advocacy groups, and numerous state and federal leaders to redesign the building. Citizens of Englewood Cliffs and throughout the region have organized groups in a campaign to halt LG’s 14-story tower – such as Protect the Palisades and the Concerned Residents of Englewood Cliffs, N.J. They also have been fighting to stop the town from allowing even more high-rise development that would deface the Palisades view. Each individual can take actions that together may work to protect this view for coming generations.

Despite One Victory, A Threat Remains

As of this week, the efforts have partially succeeded, but the threat of the LG tower remains. The groups leading the campaign say that it’s important for people to continue to be involved in opposing LG’s plans. On Wednesday, Aug. 13, the Borough Council of Englewood Cliffs voted to roll back local zoning that would have permitted construction of towers up to 150 feet in one section of the town near the Palisades and along the avenue where LG’s corporate campus is located. That could have meant – and likely would have eventually – a wall of high-rises behind the cliffs, the way that the Palisades are flanked by towers in Fort Lee. The council had put the higher limit in place after some residents sued Englewood Cliffs over the allowance of the zoning variance for LG’s tower, according to The Record newspaper in New Jersey. With this action, the allowable building height will revert to the 35-foot limit that companies have honored historically. Still, LG can go ahead and construct its office tower, due to the variance it received.

This rendering gives a sense of how the office tower that LG Electronics plans to build would interrupt the beauty of the Palisades.
Credit: Scenic Hudson and Protect the Palisades

At the core is a difference in priorities. On one side of the controversy have been LG and also some in the Borough of Englewood Cliffs who see tax revenues and jobs benefiting the municipality. They have maintained that lower building limits will stifle the local economy and send commercial development to other towns. On the other side are those who believe that a tower will desecrate a majestic landscape, which prior generations made sure to protect. The Protect the Palisades coalition includes Scenic Hudson, the Natural Resources Defense Council, the New Jersey State Federation of Women’s Clubs, two chapters of the Appalachian Mountain Club, the Hudson River Sloop Clearwater, the New Jersey Conservation Federation, and many others. Efforts last year by various groups to mediate a solution, by which LG would build a lower and wider office complex on its 27-acre campus, failed.

In response through newspaper advertisements in New Jersey newspapers and a Web site, LG has maintained that those fighting the office structure have engaged in spreading more fiction than fact, asserting that other towers can be seen above the Palisades when viewing the cliffs from the New York side and the Hudson. Buildings above the cliffs are visible in Fort Lee, closer to and south of the George Washington Bridge, but this part of Englewood Cliffs has no such visible buildings due to the height limit. LG has also said that any redesign would delay the economic benefits of its headquarters building to the region.

The Palisades are a natural wonder and unique geological formation that deserves no less protection than the Grand Canyon. This unique cliff area is also an essential part of America’s early conservation movement that merits protective care as much today as 120 years ago when commercial interests threatened the destruction of the cliffs. Through many centuries, Native Americans, including the Sanhikan, Raritan, Hackensack, and Tappan nations, took shelter in the cliffs and used them for protection and observation, according to the book Palisades: 100,000 Acres in 100 Years. Artists such as Jasper Francis Cropsey, of the Hudson River School, captured the awesome beauty of the cliffs. In the 19th century, the Palisades cliffs came under assault by quarry operators and other commercial interests.

Ultimately, citizens who were alarmed by the destruction intervened. A movement to protect the Palisades’ landscape and natural beauty, which groups such as the New Jersey State Federation of Women’s Clubs championed, spurred the governors of New York and New Jersey to form the Palisades Interstate Park Commission in 1900 and preserve this part of the lower Hudson Valley from being ravaged. This history, part of the early conservation victories in the U.S., inspires many today to protect the Palisades from despoilment.

What You Can Do

Just over a century later, the threat to this natural landscape by business interests has awakened the passions and commitment of many again. The coalition that won a victory, in seeing Englewood Cliffs roll back its higher height limit, is focusing its attention on stopping the LG tower. As the group Protect the Palisades has noted, on its Facebook page, LG still has a variance to build a tower up to 143 feet and can do so unless a court orders the company not to or it voluntarily decides to lower the tower and build out, not up.

As the group has urged, we can all take action to protect the beautiful cliffs and seek to halt this tower’s marring of the Palisades, by doing any of the following five things:

Call or write to your elected officials in New York or New Jersey. Protect the Palisades has provided a page of contact information.

Write to LG Electronics. Urge company CEO Bon-Joon Koo to rethink the company’s plans and not move ahead on a building that will despoil a natural view in existence for generations. Encourage company officials to consider a more horizontal building that will both maintain its location in Englewood Cliffs and show care for the Palisades environment.

Write letters to the editors of local, regional, and national publications.

Spread the word through social media. Follow Protect the Palisades on Facebook and Twitter and the Concerned Residents of Englewood Cliffs, N.J., on Facebook.

Sign up to become a Protect the Palisades supporter. Consider spreading the word of this campaign through flyers and photos that the group has made available at its Web site.

Consider your purchases. Finally, the power of the pocketbook speaks. This is my choice. I have decided that I will not purchase any LG products until the company changes these building plans. Consider your own purchasing decisions and whether to support a company that is going ahead with these plans, despite the pleas of so many who are trying to save the Palisades view from despoilment.

For those living now and those in coming generations, it’s crucial to stop this defacing of a natural and historic landmark – an action that could still eventually open the way to other towers in the area, if this company breaks the height limit. Last November, a member of the Rockefeller family flew to Seoul to try to dissuade LG officials from the construction plan. Larry Rockefeller, whose grandfather, John D. Rockefeller Jr., donated the 700 acres of land that became the Palisades Interstate Park, sought to appeal to what he called the LG officials’ better instincts. However, he was rebuffed, according to an article in The Record. He summarized what is at stake, as he told The Record: “This is an American landmark which LG is putting at risk. You can’t be a good corporate citizen and harm a century of conservation.”

As Rockefeller said, there is still time to get this right.