Historic Districts Council Newsstand

Earlier this afternoon, the City Council Subcommittee on Landmarks, Public Siting & Maritime Uses voted 7-2 to affirm the landmark designation of the NoHo Historic District Extension in its entirety, including the controversial White House Hotel at 338 Bowery.  The Land Use Committee also passed the district with a vote of 22-3 and it was affirmed by the full Council at its stated meeting today.

The inclusion of the White House Hotel, one of the oldest existent lodging houses left on the Bowery, to the district was only due to the strong and persistent advocacy of Council member Alan Gerson who worked for months trying to find a balance between the community’s desire to preserve the character of their neighborhood, the property owner’s development plans and the humanitarian needs of the longtime residents of the hotel, who are currently living in substandard conditions. In his statement to his colleagues supporting the inclusion of the property in the extension, CM Gerson submitted four letters into the record: one from the property owners withdrawing their opposition to designation; one from the Landmarks Preservation Commission stating that the agency would work with the owners as swiftly as possible on their development plans (which will almost certainly include a hardship application, although one simpler than the ongoing St. Vincent’s case); one from the Council member pledging to work with the owners on their concerns and to aid the residents in finding needed resources to improve their living conditions; and one from a community group supporting CM Gerson’s efforts and pledging their support as well.

Council member Rosie Mendez, whose district includes both a portion of the Bowery and the Extension, also spoke strongly in favor of finding a solution that satisfied both preservation and humanitarian concerns; using as an example the Prince George Hotel in the Madison Square North Historic District which has been rehabbed, restored and converted into housing for over 400 low-income and formerly houseless individuals.  Subcommittee Chair Jessica Lappin thoughtfully guided the wide-ranging discussion of the subcommittee back to the issue at hand, the inclusion of a historically-significant building to a historic district. In the end, following Chair Lappin’s recommendation, the Subcommittee voted 7-2 to approve the entire extension as designated by the LPC in May 2008, and this recommendation was approved 22-3 by the full Land Use Committee which met immediately afterwards.

HDC thanks all the individuals and agencies who worked for years to make this designation possible; Zella Jones, Jeanne Wilke, Tizianna Hardy, Stan Reis, Chuck Close, Pi Gardiner, the NoHo Neighborhood Association, the Friends of NoHo Architecture, the numerous friends and residents of NoHo who have shown up at countless meetings over the years and sent goodness knows how many letters in support, and last but certainly not least, the Landmarks Preservation Commission, without whom the designation could not have happened.

HDC sends special thanks to Council Alan Gerson for his persistence and tenacity in supporting this designation, and his extraordinary efforts to create a consensus around a difficult issue. Together with local advocates, we met with Mr. Gerson back in August 2001 (at a sandwich shop in a building that no longer exists on the west side of Centre Street between Chambers and Reade Streets) while he was still a candidate in a six-way race for City Council and spoke to him about the need to complete the designation of  NoHo. Mr. Gerson pledged his support at the time and now, seven years later, he delivered on that promise.

The High Line: Reviving New York’s Avant-Garde Architecture

Thursday • September 11 • 6:30 PM

Join Museum of the City of New York curators Donald Albrecht and Thomas Mellins; architect Neil Denari; architectural historian Kenneth Frampton, Ware Professor of Architecture at the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation at Columbia University; Sherida Paulsen, architect and former chair of the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission; and Rick Bell, architect and executive director of the New York Chapter of the American Institute of Architects, for a discussion of the broader implications of Denari’s HL23 residential tower, now under construction at 23rd Street and the High Line. The program will explore HL23’s role in New York City’s revival as a center of avant-garde architecture and how today’s global culture and economy have shaped the building’s design and construction. Presented in conjunction with New York Fast Forward: Neil Denari Builds on the High Line. Reservations required. $5 for Museum members, seniors, and students; $9 for non-members.

New York For Sale: Are Developers Overbuilding?

Monday • October 20 • 6:30 PM

Neighborhood activists and preservationists claim that changes in zoning regulations and new construction are destroying the character of New York. Public officials and pro-development forces maintain that in order to compete with other global cities, New York must continue on its current course of development and that there are ways to do this sustainably. Hope Cohen, deputy director of the Center for Rethinking Development in New York City, will moderate a panel discussion with Tom Angotti, director of Hunter College’s Center for Community Planning & Development and author of New York for Sale: Community Planning Confronts Global Real Estate (MIT Press, November 2008); Carlton A. Brown, founding partner and chief operating officer of Full Spectrum;  Steven Spinola, president, The Real Estate Board of New York; and Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer. Reservations required. $5 for Museum members, seniors, and students; $9 for non-members.

For reservations and program information, call (212) 534-1672, ext. 3395.

Museum of the City of New York

1220 Fifth Avenue at 103^rd Street

(212) 534-1672

www.mcny.org

From our friends at Landmatk West!

Today, the NYC Board of Standards and Appeals (BSA) gave a green light to Congregation Shearith Israel (CSI)-and to all nonprofit and religious institutions seeking to turn the air above their sites into luxury condo revenue streams, even where laws designed to protect neighborhood character and property values explicitly restrict it. CSI’s planned development project is located in the R8B-zoned, low-scale, brownstone midblock of West 70th Street, adjacent to the Individual Landmark Spanish & Portuguese Synagogue, in the Upper West Side/Central Park West Historic District.

With its unanimous approval of 7 zoning height and setback variances, the BSA bowed to CSI’s argument that denial of its application to construct 5 floors of luxury condominiums on top of a new 4-story community house would interfere with its charitable mission and impose an economic hardship on this congregation (one of the wealthiest in the city, counting among its members Jack Rudin, the developer for the St. Vincent’s Hospital project in Greenwich Village). In other words, CSI says, “Back off, City, we’re a nonprofit and nonprofits can do whatever they want.” The (mayor-appointed) BSA rolled over, despite CSI’s repeated failure over many months of public hearings to demonstrate hardship or any link between its mission and the condos (to be sold on the open market for millions).

Contextual zoning is a ceiling developers have been pushing against for decades. And now, 5 floors or 50 floors, the sky’s the limit for nonprofits with properties in traditional, low-rise communities in Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx, Staten Island and Manhattan.

We know all this commotion over a 9-story, 114-foot-tall building sounds alarmist (even though it is double the size of the 4- and 5-story brownstones that define 95% of the historic West 70th Street midblock). But, even as we speak, the BSA is also poised to approve Mount Sinai Medical Center’s proposed development including a 542-foot-tall (the equivalent of 54 stories) residential tower on the eastern edge of Central Park. Meanwhile, planners have identified 10 potential development “soft sites” along Central Park West, many occupied by low-rise institutions such as the New-York Historical Society (which, until recently, had planned a 280-foot-tall tower that would have required special zoning exemptions).

It doesn’t take a microscope to spot this trend, which could have even greater ramifications in the other boroughs. With today’s approval, the BSA has opened the door to luxury condos towering over nonprofits in every previously protected neighborhood in the city. And their decision is final. Except for court. Stay tuned…

Join PortSide New York and help restore the Mary A. Whalen!

Summer 2007, we began volunteer work days on the Whalen. Come join! Get out on the water and join a cheerful horde doing boat work! Folks of all ages and skill and fitness levels can help. We have something for everyone.

Volunteer Shipwork occurs Sundays, 1-6pm. We can also use people at all sorts of hours helping on or near the ship, or running errands in the neighborhood; so get in touch if you want to help but don’t have weekend hours available.We request that you chip in at least two hours during a weekend volunteer day and bring your own work gloves if you have them; you are likelier to get a better fit that way. Enter American Stevedoring/Brooklyn Marine Terminal gate at Hamilton Avenue and Van Brunt Street.

Due to port security regulations, we need your name in advance and you need to show a photo ID at the containerport gate. Please please RSVP to mail@portsidenewyork.org.

First there was this. Then this. And then, even THIS.

With so much reason to support the preservation of Marx Brothers Place, you must ask yourself: have YOU signed the petitions yet? Please, support this important cause. Click on the two links included below and show your support by signing these petitions today!

Petition to Extend Carnegie Hill Historic District one block so as to include Historic East 93rd Street. Please click on the link and add your name to the list:

http://www.PetitionOnline.com/CHHD93st/petition.html

Petition to Co-Name East 93rd Street ‘Marx Brothers Place’ in honor of the extant childhood home of the Comic Icons. Please click on the link and add your name to the list:

http://www.petitiononline.com/coname/petition.html

BROOKLYN SKATING RINK PUT ON ICE
DOT PLAN MEANS MAJOR DELAYS FOR PROJECT
By RICH CALDER

August 14, 2008

A much-anticipated ice-skating rink planned for under the Brooklyn Bridge is on hold indefinitely because the city Department of Transportation plans to use the prime real estate for storage, officials confirmed yesterday.

The 85-acre Brooklyn Bridge Park project now under construction calls for using this one acre of land under the bridge seasonally for an ice-skating rink in the winter and a public market or plaza during warmer weather.

But a DOT spokesman said the property can’t be turned over as parkland until at least five years of bridge rehabilitation work is done first. Besides needing the site for storage during the bridge job, he said there will be sandblasting and painting done under the span and that the public should be nowhere near the area during this time.

The former Purchase Building tract is DOT-owned, and was last used as a temporary home to the Office of Emergency Management, but DOT is supposed to give it up for the new waterfront park in DUMBO and Brooklyn Heights.

The old building, a 1930s-era Art Deco structure that local preservationists tried to save, was demolished last month to make way for the long-awaited park.

Sources said DOT and the city-state Brooklyn Bridge Park Development Corp. fought internally over the land, with DOT ultimately winning out.

This was described to us by a senior Parks Official as being the “money shot” of the Park.  We don’t think this was what was meant.  A more serious question is: why was there no coordination between the different city agencies about the disposition of this land? A fast search discovers this article from 2005 which talks about the need for maintenance of NYC’s bridges and even roughs out their proposed maintence schedules. It looks like a good and sensible plan - and one that should not have been a surprise to anyone paying attention (like, say,  people planning a park underneath the bridge).  As the saying goes, you reap what you sow….and the products of destruction shall be ashes (or sand-blasting, as the case may be).

If you are interested in testifying before the City Planning Commission regarding the proposed East Village/Lower East Side rezoning, please read the information below regarding the hearing’s time, location, etc.

Procedures for City Planning Commission Hearing on August 13, 2008

On Wednesday, August 13, 2008, at 9:00 a.m., at Tishman Auditorium of Vanderbilt Hall, New York University School of Law, 40 Washington Square South, New York, NY 10012 in Manhattan. Vanderbilt Hall is located on the south side of Washington Square South (West 4th Street), just east of MacDougal Street. Public hearings will be held by the City Planning Commission on:

1. East Village/Lower East Side Rezoning - land use applications for a change to the zoning map (C 080397 ZMM, C 080397(A) ZMM) and zoning text amendment (N 080398 ZRM, N 080398(A)) and a related Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) (07DCP078M) submitted by the Department of City Planning. 9 AM (Doors Open At 8:30 AM). Two other hearings will follow.

HOW TO PARTICIPATE:

Registering to speak: Anyone wishing to speak on any of the items listed above is requested to fill out a speaker’s slip supplied at the staff desk outside of Tishman Auditorium on August 13, 2008. Please arrive early. Doors will open at 8:30 AM. Speakers on each item will be called in the order they are registered, with the exception that public officials will be allowed to speak first. If a large number of people wish to speak on a particular item, statements will be taken alternating every 30 minutes between those speaking in support of the proposal and those speaking in opposition.

Length of Testimony: In order to give others an opportunity to speak, all speakers shall limit their remarks to three minutes.

Interpretation of Speaker’s Testimony: Interpreters in Chinese (Cantonese) and Spanish will be available for those speakers who cannot testify in English.

Written Material: If you intend to submit a written statement and/or other documents please submit 17 sets of each. You might want to bring extra copies for the press.

Persons who cannot testify on August 13, 2008 may submit written testimony to:

City Planning Commission
Calendar Information Office
22 Reade Street – Room 2E
New York, New York 10007-1216

It is requested that such testimony be submitted by August 25, 2008.

Friends of The Ridgewood Theatre, established by Michael Perlman of the Queens Preservation Council & Four Borough Preservation Alliance board of directors, is spearheading a campaign to preserve and reopen the 1916 Ridgewood Theater (55-27 Myrtle Ave, Ridgewood, Queens, NY), designed by America’s foremost Thomas Lamb. We are seeking a historically-sensitive tenant/buyer who sees the potential for creative adaptive reuse. In addition, it is integral that we encourage the NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission to designate the highly intact terra cotta & Indiana limestone facade, and theater lobby, as an NYC Individual Landmark & Interior Landmark, respectively. Please take a few moments to sign an online petition, urging the NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission to act swiftly. Posting a comment would be extremely helpful. The link is as follows: http://www.PetitionOnline.com/RTheatre/petition.html

Also, please consider joing Friends of The Ridgewood Theatre at www.myspace.com/ridgewoodtheatre for status updates, history, & photos. Forward this post to as many contacts as possible, encouraging them to support this worthwhile cause. Thank you for your time!

From our friends at the Citizens Union.

With the entire New York State Legislature up for election this fall, voting is one of the most important ways that you can help to advance good government and political reform.

If you haven’t already, you can still register to vote in time for the September 9 primary election and vote as an enrolled member of a political party. Click here to download a voter registration form, which must be postmarked and mailed no later than Friday, August 15.

The deadline also applies for those who may want to notify the board of a change in address that requires you to vote in another election district. Click here to find out the address of your polling site and election district.

[he registration deadline for the November general election is Friday, October 10th. This is also the deadline for changing your party affiliation for 2009.

Exercise your civic duty by registering to vote or updating your information, but most importantly make sure you vote on Election Day.

*Check out HDC’s League of Preservation Voters campaign to see how we’re working to establish preservation as a top priority among NYC’s elected officials.