March 15, 2011
LPC Docket Number: 115333
Manhattan, Block: 1258, Lot: 40
510 Fifth Avenue – Individual Landmark and Interior Landmark Historic District
An International style building designed by Skidmore, Owings, & Merrill and built in 1953-54. Application is to alter facades, install signage and new entrances, and to replace and reconfigure interior features and finishes.
HDC Testimony
HDC would like to start by thanking the applicant for a presentation of the project and tour of this important space last week. There are a number of laudable components to this application such as the restoration of the luminous ceiling, the removal of the greenhouse-like roof in the open space between the first and second floors, and the minimal glass rail to replace the chunky existing one at the edge of the cantilever. Even the proposed screen, while not fine art, will serve as an architectural place holder until the hoped for day when the Bertoia sculpture finds its way home.
While it is important to encourage adaptive reuse, it must be done in such a way that preserves the memory of what this structure was built for as well as preserve the very thoughtfully planned experience of the original design. Whatever alterations are made must be done in such a way that is easily reversible and preserves the key elements of the structure, allowing for other sensitive reuse years, decades, and hopefully centuries from now. Amidst the merchandise and the store furniture, it is necessary that a visitor can still recognize the original design both from the exterior and on the interior. Otherwise, there was little reason for designation in the first place.
Starting with the exterior, HDC finds the two new entrances proposed on the Fifth Avenue façade and the removal of the original bank entrance to be inappropriate. When the building was initially designed, a prominent entrance on Fifth Avenue would have been the typical arrangement, but this was not a typical building. Instead, the avenue façade was kept clean of any intrusions into the glass and metal grid. Ideally no entrance or entrances should be added and break that design continuity. If one is to be added for tenant A, it should be as minimal as possible so as not to interfere with the pristine grid and not mimic the original design of the side street façade with a thick sign band. Entrances on the Fifth Avenue façade also lead to issues on the interior where the floor of the stores will need to be sloped to meet the grade of the sidewalk. The original 43rd entrance just off Fifth is readily usable and contains details such as the night deposit slot that hearken back to the bank’s history. Whether it is to be a primary entrance or not, it should be retained to allow for such an opportunity in the future.
The escalators are a very prominent sculptural feature on the Fifth Avenue façade and are key to the experience of the interior. Turning the escalator destroys both a design feature and an important piece of how the visitor interacts with the surroundings. On the design side, the new placement would run perpendicular with the rectangular grid of the floor and the ceiling and interrupt this subtle but strong organization. It would also cut a very large hole into the ceiling and floor causing more disruption to the space. The experience of the visitor is also turned around and highly altered. Originally, when one entered the building, you did not turn your back on Fifth Avenue. Instead, you continued to be part of the active street life, continued to move parallel to the traffic and pedestrians, until you magically floated above them. You were then deposited on the edge of the cantilevered second floor where the vast hall stretched out uninterrupted in front of you. The proposed would cause visitors to arrive in the middle of the space, a very different experience. Any division of the space must work around the carefully planned existing escalators.
The large bank vault door on the first floor is probably one of the most iconic views from the exterior of the building. In the interior though, reducing it to a single plane would create little more than a stage piece. In order to help remember and imagine the volume of the original vault, HDC recommends keeping more of the side black marble wall, moving whatever pieces are not kept in place to the south wall, and demarcating the vault’s foot print on the floor. There is also a vault on the west wall of the second floor whose façade should be retained. While smaller than the first floor vault door, it is still impressive and an important reminder of the banking history of the landmark.
We also question the need for the vertical blinds. The original diaphanous draperies lent a softness to the space that the proposed, with a harsher verticality that might threaten to interrupt the grid, will not. In addition the equipment needed for the blinds seems rather excessive.
Ideally, there would be one tenant in this space – the various problems of additional entries, the dividing wall, and the supposed need to change the escalators would disappear. The elevator could be put behind or within the vault or in the rear corner of the space far from the highly visible location of the cantilevered edge. Even splitting the first floor into eastern and western stores, rather than northern and southern spaces, would allow for the easy retention of existing entrances, the historic façade design, and planned visitor flow.
LPC Determination: Incomplete
LPC Docket Number: 109514
Brooklyn, Block: 190, Lot: 47
229 Dean Street – Boerum Hill Historic District
A Italianate style house built in 1852-53. Application is to construct a rooftop stair bulkhead and to reconstruct the front and rear facades.
HDC Testimony
HDC is happy to see that 229 Dean Street is finally in the hands of owners who wish to restore this Italianate style house, and we applaud much of the proposed work. Reconstructing the front and rear façades of a mid-nineteenth century structure though is serious work and requires the loss of a significant ammount of historic fabric. Taking this on should only be a matter of last resort, and HDC asks if that is truly the point that has been reached. If reconstruction is absolutely necessary, we recommend that at the very least brick matching the original, if not the actual original bricks themselves, be used on both façades.
A stair bulkhead in this location is certainly a typical rooftop accretion, but the proposed is rather tall. HDC recommends reducing its visibility by taking a few steps out and making the deck two levels.
LPC Determination: Approved with modifications
LPC Docket Number: 115792
Manhattan, Block: 97, Lot: 26
229 Front Street – South Street Seaport Historic District
A Greek Revival style building built in 1838-39. Application is to install a bracket sign.
HDC Testimony
HDC appreciates that the business has chosen a bracket sign and is leaving exposed the remnants of the painted sign advertising “Superb Fish”on the granite lintel. We do though question the double sign design. Unless it can be shown that such signs existed in the district histgorically, HDC would recommend the two be incorporated into a single sign.
We are also concerned about the attachment that requires wrapping bands of steal around the granite columns before afixing these to the storefront. While they are proposed to be of “blackened patina and sealed steel”, even these precautions are no guarantee. All coatings fail eventually, and the surface wrapped tight to the granite will not be maintainable. During installation, the sealer could be scratched and rust streaking could ensue, a difficult thing to remove from granite. If it is possible, mounting the sign directly on the wood storefront, avoiding the granite columns, is preferable.
LPC Determination: Approved with modifications
LPC Docket Number: 111785
Manhattan, Block: 210, Lot: 19
302 Canal Street – TriBeCa East Historic District
An Italianate style store and loft building designed by Trench & Snook, built in 1851-52. Application is to legalize the installation of storefront infill without LPC permits.
HDC Testimony
HDC is opposed to the legalization of this storefront infill installed without LPC permits as its material, finish and details are not the type of thing commissioners would have approved had it come forward as an application for new work. Instead, 302 Canal Street should follow the lead of its sister building next door at 300 with similar wood infill.
LPC Determination: Denied
LPC Docket Number: 116259
Manhattan, Block: 567, Lot: 8
4 East 10th Street – Greenwich Village Historic District
A Gothic Revival style town house built in 1848. Application is to alter front and rear facades, construct a stoop, replace windows, alter the roof and construct a stair bulkhead and terrace.
HDC Testimony
While it is nice that this application proposes to reconstruct the stoop at 4 East 10th Street, this is similar to other recent proposals not approved by the Commission which ask to remove parts of a historic redesign. The remaining elements such as the Juliet balconies and enlarged top floor window openings, the restored features and totally new ones like the French casement windows mix together to create an unclear picture of this building’s history. As we have in the past, HDC recommends choosing one coherent design and keeping to it.
We also find the proposed side window openings to be inappropriate. Their location so close to the front façade corner calls too much attention to them and is not necessarily a good idea on a bearing wall.
While the rear façade redesign is not objectionable, the material should remain unpainted brick. The proposed white paint would cause it to stand out too much through the alley way on 9th Street.
Finally, the early-19th century roofline should be retained. Pulling back the sides of the proposed terrace would allow the original pitch to be recalled.
LPC Determination: Incomplete
LPC Docket Number: 115333
Manhattan, Block: 1258, Lot: 40
510 Fifth Avenue – Individual Landmark and Interior Landmark Historic District
An International style building designed by Skidmore, Owings, & Merrill and built in 1953-54. Application is to alter facades, install signage and new entrances, and to replace and reconfigure interior features and finishes.
HDC Testimony
HDC would like to start by thanking the applicant for a presentation of the project and tour of this important space last week. There are a number of laudable components to this application such as the restoration of the luminous ceiling, the removal of the greenhouse-like roof in the open space between the first and second floors, and the minimal glass rail to replace the chunky existing one at the edge of the cantilever. Even the proposed screen, while not fine art, will serve as an architectural place holder until the hoped for day when the Bertoia sculpture finds its way home.
While it is important to encourage adaptive reuse, it must be done in such a way that preserves the memory of what this structure was built for as well as preserve the very thoughtfully planned experience of the original design. Whatever alterations are made must be done in such a way that is easily reversible and preserves the key elements of the structure, allowing for other sensitive reuse years, decades, and hopefully centuries from now. Amidst the merchandise and the store furniture, it is necessary that a visitor can still recognize the original design both from the exterior and on the interior. Otherwise, there was little reason for designation in the first place.
Starting with the exterior, HDC finds the two new entrances proposed on the Fifth Avenue façade and the removal of the original bank entrance to be inappropriate. When the building was initially designed, a prominent entrance on Fifth Avenue would have been the typical arrangement, but this was not a typical building. Instead, the avenue façade was kept clean of any intrusions into the glass and metal grid. Ideally no entrance or entrances should be added and break that design continuity. If one is to be added for tenant A, it should be as minimal as possible so as not to interfere with the pristine grid and not mimic the original design of the side street façade with a thick sign band. Entrances on the Fifth Avenue façade also lead to issues on the interior where the floor of the stores will need to be sloped to meet the grade of the sidewalk. The original 43rd entrance just off Fifth is readily usable and contains details such as the night deposit slot that hearken back to the bank’s history. Whether it is to be a primary entrance or not, it should be retained to allow for such an opportunity in the future.
The escalators are a very prominent sculptural feature on the Fifth Avenue façade and are key to the experience of the interior. Turning the escalator destroys both a design feature and an important piece of how the visitor interacts with the surroundings. On the design side, the new placement would run perpendicular with the rectangular grid of the floor and the ceiling and interrupt this subtle but strong organization. It would also cut a very large hole into the ceiling and floor causing more disruption to the space. The experience of the visitor is also turned around and highly altered. Originally, when one entered the building, you did not turn your back on Fifth Avenue. Instead, you continued to be part of the active street life, continued to move parallel to the traffic and pedestrians, until you magically floated above them. You were then deposited on the edge of the cantilevered second floor where the vast hall stretched out uninterrupted in front of you. The proposed would cause visitors to arrive in the middle of the space, a very different experience. Any division of the space must work around the carefully planned existing escalators.
The large bank vault door on the first floor is probably one of the most iconic views from the exterior of the building. In the interior though, reducing it to a single plane would create little more than a stage piece. In order to help remember and imagine the volume of the original vault, HDC recommends keeping more of the side black marble wall, moving whatever pieces are not kept in place to the south wall, and demarcating the vault’s foot print on the floor. There is also a vault on the west wall of the second floor whose façade should be retained. While smaller than the first floor vault door, it is still impressive and an important reminder of the banking history of the landmark.
We also question the need for the vertical blinds. The original diaphanous draperies lent a softness to the space that the proposed, with a harsher verticality that might threaten to interrupt the grid, will not. In addition the equipment needed for the blinds seems rather excessive.
Ideally, there would be one tenant in this space – the various problems of additional entries, the dividing wall, and the supposed need to change the escalators would disappear. The elevator could be put behind or within the vault or in the rear corner of the space far from the highly visible location of the cantilevered edge. Even splitting the first floor into eastern and western stores, rather than northern and southern spaces, would allow for the easy retention of existing entrances, the historic façade design, and planned visitor flow.
LPC Determination: Incomplete
LPC Docket Number: 115308
Manhattan, Block: 1244, Lot: 26
326 West 80th Street – Riverside Drive – West 80th-81st Street Historic District
An Elizabethan Renaissance Revival style town house, designed by Clarence True, and built in 1898-99. Application is to construct a rooftop addition.
HDC Testimony
Our testimony on this item is as short as the proposed work is visible. HDC is opposed to the construction of a rooftop addition that would disrupt the distinctive silhouette of chimneys and stepped gables on this row of Elizabethan Renaissance Revival style town houses.
LPC Determination: Approved with modifications
LPC Docket Number: 116626
Manhattan, Block: 1416, Lot: 37
224 East 62nd Street – Treadwell Farm Historic District
An Italianate style rowhouse designed by James W. Pirrson and built in 1868. Application is to construct a rear yard addition.
HDC Testimony
While HDC appreciates that the rear yard addition would be no taller than the existing, the extra four feet in length proposed would mean the addition would extend into the garden core deeper than the neighboring one. The new addition would also put the neighbor at 220, where there are no extensions, further into a hole. We ask that this application not be approved and the repeated inching into the garden core be halted.
LPC Determination: Approved
LPC Docket Number: 114479
Manhattan, Block: 1524, Lot: 12
131 East 95th Street – Carnegie Hill Extension Historic District
A neo-Grec/Romanesque Revival style rowhouse designed by Frank Wennemer and built in 1889-1890. Application is to construct rooftop and rear yard additions.
HDC Testimony
This lovely garden core created by rowhouses along the north side of East 95th Street amazingly has only three incursions. HDC is opposed to this application which asks to construct another one, especially considering that, at three stories in height, it would be the largest in this row. The virtually pristine garden core is an important example of how what is not built can be just as important to the historic character of a place as what is.
LPC Determination: Incomplete