Hearing Date: 2/12/2008
LPC Docket Number: 080509
Manhattan, Block: 1211, Lot: 1
185 West 80th Street - Upper West Side/Central Park West Historic District
aka421 Amsterdam Avenue, a Romanesque Revival style flats building designed by Frederick T. Camp and built in 1887-1888. Application is to install storefront infill.

HDC Testimony

Overall, HDC supports this application based on historic photos for a new storefront at 185 West 80th Street. We would like to recommend that probing be done before any proposals are approved to see what of the original storefront might exist and to plan, depending on what is found, how to those elements may be incorporated into the new storefront.

LPC Determination: Approved w/mods

Hearing Date: 2/12/2008
LPC Docket Number: 083598
Manhattan, Block: 1212, Lot: 7501
101 West 81st Street - Upper West Side/Central Park West Historic District
A Romanesque Revival style hotel building designed by Edward L. Angell and built in 1889-1891. Application is to construct a roofotp addition.

HDC Testimony
Although this building already has a number of blatantly visible rooftop additions, some grandfathered, others LPC-approved, HDC cannot support the addition of yet another that is clearly visible when looking south down Columbus Avenue.

A similar proposal was presented for this same address on December 18th of last year. At that time, while there was no quorum and no action could be taken, the commissioners present did voice their concern over the number of rooftop additions on this building and their visibility.

Such rooftop additions should not be allowed to completely engulf 101 West 81st Street, and HDC urges the commission to deny this application.

LPC Determination: Incomplete

Hearing Date: 2/12/2008
LPC Docket Number: 082618
Manhattan, Block: 611, Lot: 34
131 7th Avenue South - Greenwich Village Historic District
A commercial building designed by George M. McCabe and built in 1929. Application is to demolish the existing 2-story building and construct a new 3-story building with penthouse.

HDC Testimony
HDC is opposed to the demolition of this 1929 commercial building designed for the Corger Realty Corp by George M. McCabe, whose work is also found in the Weehawken Historic District. The structure has design features including sophisticated brick work and a stepped parapet. That such historic fabric should not be taken away from an historic district would seem to go without saying, but I will say it anyway – 131 7th Avenue South, and other small, modest but in their own right important, historic buildings, should not be demolished.

LPC Determination: Incomplete

Hearing Date: 2/12/2008
LPC Docket Number: 083188
Brooklyn, Block: 214, Lot: 3
73 Columbia Heights - Brooklyn Heights Historic District
A Classicized Art-Deco style apartment buiding built in 1938. Application is to replace windows.

HDC Testimony
The application at public review on Friday the 1st did not have enough information as to what is existing, what is proposed and what was originally there. HDC reiterates our views from similar recent applications of the importance of window details and design in rather simple apartment buildings of the 1920s and 1930s.

LPC Determination: Incomplete

Hearing Date: 2/12/2008
LPC Docket Number: 085111
Brooklyn, Block: 226, Lot: 30
73 Pineapple Street - Brooklyn Heights Historic District
A vacant lot. Application is to construct a new five-story building.

HDC Testimony
HDC was opposed to the proposal for a new building at 73 Pineapple Street when it was first brought up last year. While this design is an improvement in some ways, we find that unfortunately a number of the issuesremain unsolved and new ones have appeared in the latest proposal.

We continue to feel that the new structure should be the same height as the flanking historic buildings. Similarly, as the three buildings have the same number of floors, the windows should line up. The entry continues to be just a step below grade and its surround is rather dull compared to a block of entrances with an array of pediments, columns and sidelights.

HDC appreciates the new window configurations and varied surround details that recall the three differing treatments on the base, middle and top floor windows of neighboring buildings. Although the new windows also relate to those found on the larger apartment buildings on the block, the proposed are out of scale for this town-house-sized structure. (The same is true of the large windows on the rear which are very visible from Henry Street.)HDC would like to see this proposal further altered so that the new structure may fit into this historic district as well as possible.

LPC Determination: Approved

Hearing Date: 2/12/2008
LPC Docket Number: 081303
Manhattan, Block: 633, Lot: 37
145 Perry Street - Greenwich Village Historic District
A two-story building used as a freight loading station since 1938. Application is to demolish the building and construct a 7-story plus penthouse building.

HDC Testimony

While HDC does not oppose the demolition of the present structure and in general approves of the new building, we do have a few concerns . The proposed is a bit too tall for this area and we would like to see it brought down a floor or two. HDC also feels that the ammount of glass on the first and second floor as well as the exposed basement creates a base that is too open and light. More masonry and storefronts with bulkheads and such would be a more appropriate base for the building and tie in better with the rest of the streetscape.

LPC Determination: Approved w/mods

Hearing Date: 2/12/2008
LPC Docket Number: 083415
Manhattan, Block: 588, Lot: 1
84 Bedford Street - Greenwich Village Historic District
A vernacular Greek Revival style rowhouse originally built circa 1826, and altered in 1872 and circa 1900. Application is to alter the street façade, construct a stoop and enlarge the rooftop bulkhead.

HDC Testimony
HDC opposes this application. It seems ridiculous to even consider any alterations including cosmetic ones such as the construction of a stoop and replacing of gates while the building is still in danger. The damage recently suffered by these structures should be fixed and the charming building appreciated.

LPC Determination: Approved

Hearing Date: 2/12/2008
LPC Docket Number: 077943
Manhattan, Block: 473, Lot: 10
478-482 Broadway - SoHo-Cast Iron Historic District

A neo-Grec style store and loft building designed by Richard Morris Hunt and built in 1873-1874. Application is to install storefront infill and signage.

HDC Testimony
In her book “Cast Iron Architecture of New York,” Margot Gayle notes that Richard Morris Hunt was this country’s first Paris-trained architect, known for designing elegant mansions, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the base of the Statue of Liberty. He also designed two commercial buildings with cast-iron fronts, “no run-of-the-mill structures” as Gayle notes. One has long since been demolished; the other is 478-482 Broadway.

HDC is opposed to storefront alterations and signage proposed for 478-482 Broadway, also known as the Roosevelt Building. While none of the proposed work would harm the cast-iron, they would change the wayone sees this important structure. The present storefront, although not historic, is more in keeping than the proposed. The existing inset entrances provide more articulation and shadow seen in the historic photo than the flat storefront proposed. The signage should be placed in the blank friezes above the storefront, not on the transoms. The public review committee found the proposed center bay of three sets of double doors particularly inappropriate. All in all, the proposed storefront looks like one easily found in a suburban mall, not a world famous New York City historic district.

If the applicant wishes to make changes to the storefront, the clear historic photo included in this presentation should be used to guide a restoration including details such as continuing the thin slender ionic columns to the ground dividing the bulkheads. The Roosevelt Building, Richard Morris Hunt’s only surviving cast-iron front commercial building, is a significant piece of the SoHo-Cast Iron Historic District and isdeserving of nothing less than an historically appropriate storefront.

LPC Determination: Approved

Hearing Date: 2/12/2008
LPC Docket Number: 084721
Manhattan, Block: 473, Lot: 14
484-486 Broadway - SoHo-Cast Iron Historic District
A store and loft building designed by J. Webber & Sons and built in 1879 and altered in 1911; and a store and loft building with Romanesque and Moorish style elements designed by Lamb and Rich and built in 1882-1883. Application is to install storefronts and alter the fire escape.

HDC Testimony

HDC does not find the bland proposed storefront alterations appropriate for this lively Romanesque and Moorish style building. As the examples of other storefronts in the neighborhood show, awnings are not appropriate in this district. In particular the white awnings are strikingly stark against the red painted brick and take away from the robust Romanesque architecture and its grand arches. We would also like to see the metal paneled areas - called to attention by the signage placed on them - to be bricked in instead. HDC urges the applicant to work with the staff to create a storefront that is more in keeping with the rest of the landmarked building.

LPC Determination: Incomplete

Hearing Date: 2/12/2008
LPC Docket Number: 076042
Manhattan, Block: 1718, Lot: 1
20 West 120th Street - Mount Morris Park Historic District
A Queen Anne style rowhouse designed by Alfred Zucker in 1886-1887. Application is to construct a rear yard and rooftop additions.

HDC Testimony
HDC does not approve of either the rear yard or rooftop additions proposed for this lovely 1886 Queen Annestyle rowhouse.

The rear facades of this row of houses are relatively free of alterations. The rear yard addition proposed would obliterate the entire façade of number 20, including the top floor with its historic fenestration and charming little cornice which matches the other rowhouses. Due to the empty lots on 119th Street, this jarring addition would be easily visible to the public.

The rooftop addition is far too visible, primarily from Marcus Garvey Park, and interrupts the unique pediments of this row of houses. Like the rowhouses along Brooklyn’s Fort Greene Park, any work atop this structure will be visible from the park's hills. In the Fort Greene Historic District, the commission has acknowledged that this visibility is inevitable, but still requires that projects be reduced as much as possible, and the same standard should apply here.HDC asks that both parts of this proposal be scaled down so that the important historic fabric of this home can be preserved and fully appreciated.

LPC Determination: Incomplete

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