This is a great program that doesn’t get nearly enough credit. There are pretty stringent income restrictions for private individuals but non-profits are also eligible.

Landmarks Preservation Commission helps Mott Haven restore history

BY DORIAN BLOCK

Monday, August 4th 2008, 3:20 PM

Three Bronx historic districts are getting a fresh coat of paint to bring back their historical face, with a little help from the city.

Unbeknownst to many, in between the high-rise housing projects and old tenement buildings of Mott Haven, there are three historic districts lined with about 50 landmarked brownstones. The mini-neighborhoods are three of 10 historic districts in the Bronx.

Those historic houses that weren’t burned or torn down during the dark, burning years of the 1970s were often “fixed up” with painting over bricks or layers of stucco plastered over architectural details.

The city Landmarks Preservation Commission is now administering Community Development Block Grants from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to restore the facades - just as it has done for homes on Morris and Alexander Aves.

“As much as the historic districts in the Bronx are beautiful, there are a lot of buildings that need help,” said Tenzing Chadotsang, director of the Historic Preservation Grants Program.

The first grant in Mott Haven went to a resident on E. 139th St. this spring. It was for $15,000, which homeowner Ariane Randall matched, and Chadotsang oversaw the hiring of a contractor and the daily work of ripping stucco placed over brick, among other things.

Randall’s neighbor was so impressed that he applied and was approved for a grant.

“We do one building and then we might be able to get the next, and as a result the whole neighborhood suddenly realizes what the historic buildings look like,” said Chadotsang. “It does have a ripple effect.”

From Crain’s: Whitney Museum selling nearby townhouses

Theresa Agovino
Published: August 1, 2008 - 2:39 pm

The Whitney Museum of American Art is seeking to sell at least some of the townhouses next to its Madison Avenue location that were slated to be part of a now-defunct, controversial plan to expand on the Upper East Side.

A Whitney spokesman said the museum is in the early stages of exploring a sale and will use the money to fund the new building it is planning in the meat-packing district.
In 2006, the Whitney scrapped a plan to construct a tower behind the townhouses even though it had won the necessary approvals despite bitter opposition from some Upper East Side residents and preservationists. The townhouses were going to be incorporated in the expansion.

Well who would have expected this to happen? Especially after the Whitney went to virtual war with the Upper East Side to gain approval for their plan, eventually resulting in the New York Times joining the fray. (It shouldn’t surprise anyone that we were against it, stating that “in general, HDC does not believe that buildings should be demolished in order to create empty space” - a problem that we are continuing to struggle against with the Purchase Building and Admiral’s Row).

First the Hotel Pennsylvania and now this; score another for the shaky economy.

Despite very real fears about its imminent demise, it now looks like the Hotel Pennsylvania will be saved!  As the New York Observer’s Chris Shott reports

“Vornado CEO Steven Roth announced during a conference call with investors that he might just hang onto the old hotel after all.

“First off, it is doing damn well as a hotel,” said Mr. Roth, noting the hotel’s increased occupancy, up from 63.7 percent nightly on average in 2003 to 84.4 percent in 2007, as well as increased revenues.

Last year alone, the hotel brought in nearly $38 million—some $10 million more than in 2006, according to the company’s latest annual report. More recent figures point to $5.4 million in pretax earnings during the first three months of 2008—up from $3.6 million over the same period last year.

The numbers, among other financial realities, have clearly swayed Mr. Roth. “We have two basic grand strategies with this grand asset,” he said. “One is, leave it as a hotel, renovate it as a hotel, increase the income coming out of the hotel; and you introduce a very substantial amount of retail in the base of that building—probably three floors’ worth, and connect it into the Manhattan Mall, so we have an extraordinarily interesting asset.”

The “other opportunity,” as Mr. Roth put it, would have Vornado stick to its guns, raze the building and build a huge tower—“if we can land a major tenant,” he added.

It was no secret that Mr. Roth had been wooing financial giant Merrill Lynch to relocate from Lower Manhattan to the hotel site with promises of building a new company headquarters spanning 2 million square feet, complete with a 80,000-square-foot trading floor.

Ultimately, however, the deal fell through. “The credit crisis and Merrill’s management changes disrupted this deal,” according to Vornado documents.”

As Gregory Jones, who spearheaded the campaign to preserve the building said “The economy accomplished it for us,” Mr. Jones said on Monday. “Thank you, George Bush!”

But make sure to read the whole article for Jello Biafra’s articulate and insightful pro-preservation comments such as ““I don’t know why it doesn’t occur to more developers to remodel an historic or an old building rather than just put up some boring new monstrosity. It costs them less money to do it. And you’ve got all kinds of people—even if this got turned into condos!—who want to move into an old, cool, revamped building.”

From Landmark West!

 Finally, after more than a year and a half of intense community pressure on the New-York Historical Society to come clean about development plans for its “Triple Crown” Landmark site, the words “we don’t have plans for a tower” actually ring true.   

Yesterday, the New York Times reported that the Society has dropped its plans to construct a $100 million, 23-story, 280-foot luxury condominium tower that would have loomed over its historic building–an Individual Landmark, also protected as part of 2 overlapping historic districts, listed on the State and National Register of Historic Places, right across the street from Central Park (a Scenic Landmark) and a crucial part of Central Park West’s syncopated skyline.

 Congratulations and THANKS to everyone in the community, Community Board 7, and colleague organizations who recognized the importance of this fight, turned out by the hundreds for public meetings and hearings, wrote letters and emails, and otherwise helped to create the kind of tumult usually needed to make others come to their senses. 

And there’s more good news.  The Society’s president, Louise Mirrer, states, “We think we can meet our needs over the next few years by focusing on our building” and on increasing the institution’s endowment through fundraising.  Hallelujah! 

 For now, the Society’s ill-advised confidence in tower development to solve its financial issues seems to have faded.  But even in our delight and relief, we cannot overlook the significance of Mirrer’s modifier “over the next few years.”  The door to possible future tower development on this site remains open. 

In the meantime, the Society will doubtless hold its place among the ranks of nonprofit institutions throughout the city, each eyeing its own real-estate “development opportunity” and all watching and waiting to see what happens at West 70^th Street and Central Park West, where the NYC Board of Standards and Appeals appears poised to grant 7 zoning variances to allow Congregation Shearith Israel to build luxury condos on top of a new community house.  Approval of these variances will shatter the contextual zoning that protects this block and, more importantly, the quality and character of neighborhoods in all five boroughs.

 Christopher Hitchens clearly has his eye on the ball.  Writing in this month’s Vanity Fair about St. Vincent’s Hospital’s plans to redevelop a swathe of the Greenwich Village Historic District, he notes, “Those who don’t live in such threatened districts nonetheless have a stake in this quarrel and some skin in this game, because on the day when everywhere looks like everywhere else we shall all be very much impoverished, and not only that but-more impoverishingly still-we will be unable to express or even understand or depict what we have lost.”

And so the fight goes on…  But let us celebrate important victories along the way!

FromThe New York Times

HISTORICAL SOCIETY DROPS PLANS FOR EXPANSION AND TOWER 

After a year and a half of controversy and intense opposition by preservationists and neighborhood groups, the New-York Historical Society at 77th Street and Central Park West has abandoned its pursuit of a $100 million, 23-story luxury condominium tower, along with a five-story annex that would have risen above an adjacent empty lot the society owns at 7-13 West 76th Street.