E-BULLETIN OF THE HISTORIC DISTRICTS COUNCIL

May 2007, Volume 4 Number 4

Crown Heights North Becomes New York’s Newest Historic District; Sunnyside Gardens On Its Way
On April 24th New York City got its 86th historic district – Crown Heights North, Brooklyn. It is also the first district to be designated in that borough in a decade. The district’s 472 buildings date mainly from the 1860s to the 1930s. As the Lefferts family began selling off their farm in the 1850s, large wood-framed houses such as the recent individually landmarked Elkins house on Dean Street were built. Major development came with the opening of the Brooklyn Bridge in 1883, and finely detailed masonry rowhouses in various revival styles including Romanesque, Queen Anne, Georgian and Renaissance were constructed along with churches and other institutions. With the extension of the subway into the neighborhood in 1920, new apartment buildings rose up in Tudor Revival, Mediterranean and Art Deco styles. This designation is (hopefully) the first of several phases of landmarking for 1,400 buildings in the area.

The designation of another historic district, Sunnyside Gardens, Queens, is also in the works. On April 17th, LPC held a public hearing for the neighborhood, one of the most significant planned residential communities in the city. Borough President Helen Marshall and State Assemblywoman Margaret Markey sent letters supporting landmarking, while City Councilman Eric Gioia remained steadfastly on the fence. By HDC’s count, 135 names are on record at the hearing in favor (Sunnyside Gardens Preservation Alliance smartly organized speakers to read short quotes from letters from neighbors not able to attend the meeting) and 51 against (including a list of 27 names read out loud.) One highlight was the eloquent testimony of 13-year-old Fiona Lowenstein, great-great-great granddaughter of Sunnyside Gardens architect Henry Wright. Although Queens is physically the city’s largest borough, it only has six city historic districts (two of which are each only one block long and another is on government-owned land). The designation of Sunnyside Gardens would increase the number of city landmarked properties in Queens by over 30% and could boost the likelihood of more. The public record will remain open until May 1st, so be sure to email the Landmarks Commission at comments@lpc.nyc.gov today!

Both districts have been fortunate enough to have very active community groups advocating for their designation. The Crown Heights North Association and Sunnyside Gardens Preservation Alliance have worked so hard that some might say they deserve an award. Well, we think so too, both are among HDC’s 2007 Grassroots Preservation Awards winners! Join the party on May 10th and help us honor their efforts and achievements.

Join us for the 17th Annual Preservation Party, featuring the 8th Annual Grassroots Preservation Awards
It’s almost here! The neighborhood preservation event of the year, HDC’s 17th Annual Preservation Party is fast approaching! The party is a wonderful opportunity to celebrate grassroots preservation and is an excellent chance to catch up with old friends and meet new ones.

Tickets will be available at the door and co-sponsorships for this event from individuals, community groups and businesses are still available, beginning at $100. For more information on supporting the event, please email ftolbert@hdc.org or call 212.614.9107 for more information.

This year’s celebration on Thursday, May 10th, will honor organizations, activists, elected officials and members of the press who fight to preserve, protect and improve their neighborhoods. The 2007 honorees represent a diverse range of areas in New York, including:

GRASSROOTS PRESERVATION AWARDS
Broadway-Flushing Homeowners Association
Crown Heights North Association
East Village Community Coalition
Sunnyside Gardens Preservation Alliance

FRIEND IN HIGH PLACES AWARD
Assembly Member Deborah Glick
New York State Assembly, 66th Assembly District

FRIEND FROM THE MEDIA AWARD
Curbed

MICKEY MURPHY AWARD
Chan Graham

We hope you will join the Historic Districts Council in congratulating each of the above awardees and look forward to seeing you there.

Thursday, May 10, 2007, 6:00pm
St. Mark’s Church in-the-Bowery
Garden and Parish Hall
East 10th Street & Second Avenue
$25/person $15/Friends of HDC
E-mail lbelfer@hdc.org or call 212.614.9107 for more information.

Help the Landmarks Preservation Commission the Funds It Needs to Preserve Our City
Last year, the City Council, led by Council members Tony Avella, Jessica Lappin and Diana Reyna, allocated $250,000 additional funds to Landmarks Preservation Commission’s budget, allowing the agency to hire 5 new full-time staff researchers to aid in their designation efforts. This small grant (0.0000004% of the $59 Billion Dollar Annual Budget) allowed the LPC to move forward with needed designations throughout the five boroughs; including Crown Heights North, Sunnyside Gardens, First Avenue Estates, the WPA pools and numerous 19th-century houses on Staten Island.

Thanks to this increase, the Commission is on track to designate more than 1,000 historic buildings this year, a more than 2,000% increase of the number since FY 2005. Unfortunately, the budget increase was only for last year and will not carry over to 2008. Without the added staff, there is no way that the LPC can continue its preservation activities at its current level.

HDC, together with a coalition of over 40 preservation groups, is seeking a $1 million increase to the LPC’s FY 2008 budget. This would allow the LPC to restore staffing to its 1991 level and to effectively protect New York’s valuable historic buildings and neighborhoods.

Call Your Council Member And Ask Them to Support the $1 Million Increase.
Go to http://www.nyccouncil.info/constituent/index.cfm to find your Council Member.

Join us on City Hall steps at 12pm on Wednesday, May 9th to support
More Money for New York’s Landmarks! HDC will be joining other preservation groups on May 9 along with City Council Members to speak out on the need for more LPC funding.

The LPC protects our city’s historic fabric by regulating alterations to designated landmarks and designating unprotected buildings and districts. At its current staffing levels, the commission cannot adequately do both. With development booming, the LPC is inundated with permit applications and must devote more and more of its scarce resources and staff time to the regulation of existing landmarks—at the cost of new landmark and historic district designations. Furthermore, it is critical that the LPC be able to issue permits efficiently, which requires adequate preservation staff. The Commission therefore needs a $1 million budget increase to hire a larger staff.

In relation to the City’s budget, the LPC’s budget is almost infinitesimal ($4,300,000 of $59,000,000,000 in FY 2008). Even with a $1 million increase, the LPC’s budget will remain less than one one-hundredth of one percent of the City’s expenditures. Because of inadequate funding, the LPC’s staff is overburdened. Although applications for permits have more than doubled since 1990, the LPC staff has been cut by almost one third. As a result, the commission’s regulatory workload has skyrocketed. Please help us get this funding!

April 2007, Volume 4 Number 4

HDC featured in preservation exhibit at the Brooklyn Historical Society
Wednesday, March 28th, marked the opening of “Landmark and Legacy: Brooklyn Heights and the Preservation Movement in America” at the Brooklyn Historical Society. Co-curated by architectural historian Francis Morrone and BHS’s Kate Fermoile, the exhibit highlights the political and social history that led to the designation of Brooklyn Heights as New York City’s first historic district.

The exhibit also documents the Historic Districts Council’s efforts to preserve historically and architecturally significant neighborhoods still unprotected by the New York City Landmarks Law. Proposed districts in Brooklyn include Crown Heights North, DUMBO, Midwood Park/Fiske Terrace, Wallabout and Williamsburg.

“Landmarks and Legacy” will be on display through September 9th.

Recent Landmark Proposals: The New-York Historical Society
The most talked-about proposal to come before LPC in March was New-York Historical Society’s proposal to alter its Central Park West and West 77th Street facades, modify the entrances to create barrier-free-access and install “kiosks” on Central Park West. As many readers have no doubt heard, this proposal has not gone over well with the neighbors. In three packed community board meetings, the plan was vehemently turned down. There are very real issues in this plan (“phase 1” as N-YHS calls it), but the main concern is what is not being presented; the residential tower the Society announced last fall it wanted to build on 76th Street. The Society continues to be adamant in their presentation that the two phases are not linked, and the Phase 1 proposal is necessary for their growth. Exactly why these building alterations are necessary, though, seems to be a moving target.

Each time the proposal is presented, N-YHS seems to come up with a new rationale In an article in The New York Times in November, the society characterized their building “to a mausoleum, a very forbidding building that is hardly welcoming.” “The proposal would symbolize the institution’s new public face,” said Dr. Louise Mirrer, president of the society. Then at the community board meetings in February, the society stressed the need for alterations in order to provide access for disabled patrons, despite an existing ADA-compliant entrance on West 77th Street. Finally, at the Landmarks Commission hearing, they stressed the need for egress, especially for handicapped visitors (granted they don’t mention what’s happening to the 76th Street façade or the back where theoretically more emergency exits can be placed.) There was also a lot of talk about leaking windows – certainly, not good for the collection, but one imagines they can be fixed without enlarging the entrance. Most in opposition recognized problems with the society’s interior, but noted that the proposed alterations would not solve them. And most could not ignore the “elephant in the room,” the tower.

The hearing began at 3:00 and lasted until 7:30 PM. It was standing room only in the hearing room, and a large group was also in the waiting room. The totals, by HDC’s count, for speakers: 26 in favor (including 7 people who identified themselves as N-YHS staff or volunteers, 4 neighbors, 7 academics and 2 architects), 34 spoke against (including the community board, 5 elected officials, 1 former elected official, 15 neighbors, 8 preservation groups, 2 academics and 2 architects), and about 20 speakers had already left by the time they were called. The applicants did not reply to the testimony and the Commissioners did not discuss (unfortunately, three commissioners needed to recuse themselves because of conflicts of interest), but there will be “extensive rebuttal in the very near future” according to Chairman Robert Tierney.

Designation Day, Part Deux et Trois
April 10th will be the second “Designation Day” of the year. At the last one on January 30th, 15 properties were calendared, three designated and 13 more were heard. The calendared 15 are up for hearings including eight buildings on Staten Island, Manhattan House, the Guardian Life annex and Morningside Park. There will also be mystery (at least for now they are unannounced) items proposed for calendaring and designation. The following week on April 17th, the N-YHS saga will continue in the morning, followed by a public designation hearing for the proposed Sunnyside Gardens Historic District at 2:00 PM.

Built between 1924-1928, Sunnyside Gardens consists of a series of nine “courts” or rows of townhouses and nine small apartment buildings (four to six stories tall), a total of more than 600 buildings. This huge complex is one of the most significant planned residential communities in New York City and has achieved international recognition for its low-rise, low density housing arranged around landscaped open courtyards. The first development created according to the ideas espoused by the Regional Planning Association of America, the program behind Sunnyside Gardens led to new state and national planning and housing policies and laws that encouraged greater equity in housing production, location and design.

At Sunnyside Gardens, the first American adaptation of Ebenezer Howard’s Garden City, the buildings covered only 28% of the land, allowing for a particularly large amount of open space to integrate elements of rural and urban living. The houses were built in rows, usually near the perimeter of the block, allowing for central open courts for recreation and community use. They were designed in a simplified Colonial Revival or Art Deco style with a variety of rooflines and arrangements for visual interest. The physical arrangement and amenities as well as the community organizational system fostered the developers’ goal of creating a neighborhood that would meet the social as well as physical needs of its residents. In addition to the buildings, many elements of the original landscape, including large street trees and some courtyard plantings are still extant.

Long-time resident Lewis Mumford called Sunnyside Gardens “an exceptional community laid out by people who were deeply human and who gave the place a permanent expression of that humanness.” HDC has long been a strong supporter of designation for this remarkable neighborhood and is grateful to the Landmarks Commission for bringing this proposal forward.

Become a Friend of HDC
Support your favorite preservation “umbrella organization!” Make a Friendship donation of $50 or more during the month of April and receive a complimentary HDC umbrella, a great way to show your support!

HDC’s Friends and supporters make all our programs possible. If you’re not one already, please take this opportunity to become a Friend of HDC and receive benefits such as free events, special admission offers, access to technical and moral support and advance notice of preservation issues. Learn more about the benefits of being a Friend, check out the updated sections of our website or join our mailing list to receive an information packet in the mail.

To unsubscribe from the email list please email hdc@hdc.org and write "Unsubscribe" in the subject heading. We’ll miss you!

The Advocate for New York City’s Historic Neighborhoods
232 East 11th Street New York NY 10003
tel: 212-614-9107 fax: 212-614-9127 email: hdc@hdc.org