Sanae Robinson Guerin wishes she had taken action 20 years ago. Ms. Robinson Guerin, a creative director, lives in “an amazing little jewel of an apartment” in the West Village, which she shared with her husband before he died. “When I moved to New York, the corner had a parking lot and an auto-body shop, or some other low-lying building,” she said. “You’re kind of are aware that this is New York, real estate is incredibly precious, and that probably won’t be there forever. But then you just put it out of your mind.”

The building wrapped around the corner lot, giving Ms. Robinson Guerin’s sixth-floor apartment views of Perry Street to the south and the Hudson River over the parking lot to the west. A development team that included Richard Born, Ira Drukier and Charles Blaichman bought the lot and commissioned Richard Meier to design what would become 173 Perry Street, which opened in 2002. The construction noise made plates of food dance on the table, Ms. Robinson Guerin said. And eventually cinder blocks replaced the view from one of her bedroom windows.

“You have to get used to the lack of ventilation, the lack of light in the room,” she said. “For a while it was like, ‘This is really going to change my life.’”

The developers offered to fix up Ms. Robinson Guerin’s side of the window by plastering it over or turning it into a built-in bookcase. She opted for the former, although she later had shelves put in. She misses her view, but the Meier building “has acted as a sound buffer,” Ms. Robinson Guerin said. “There’s sort of a silver lining in that.”

Erik Wicker, a 42-year-old freelance graphic designer, also discovered some upsides to having a lot-line window blotted out. When he moved into his one-bedroom walk-up in Astoria, Queens, five years ago, one of the two empty lots nearby was slated for a new building. “The broker didn’t mention it at all,” Mr. Wicker said, and “I didn’t ask.”