| E-BULLETIN
OF THE HISTORIC DISTRICTS COUNCIL
January
2008, LPC Update
An application
was presented in November to excavate the entire yard at 52 West 11th
Street and build an underground regulation length lap swimming pool
and a wine cellar. Needles to say the neighbors were not happy,
worried about the safety of their homes and the health of their trees,
and HDC, the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation and
the Society for the Architecture of the City all spoke against the
proposal. Commissioners were uncomfortable with that
much excavation and asked the applicant to come back with a scaled
down plan. They came back
in December with the same plan, but reassurances that it would be
safe. Although the Commissioners were soothed by
the applicant’s plans use of very reliable, respected engineers, they
still wanted a less intrusive excavation.
Besides concern for the safety of neighboring structures, there
was debate among the Commissioners over how to keep the garden cores
of historic districts like Greenwich Village green (although they
were told by LPC counsel that that is not something the Commission
regulates). In January the plan was approved two feet shorter in the rear (the
set back was required after it was discovered that the building behind
52 had footings right up to the property line), the ceiling reduced
a bit, a light and air shaft filled, and reassurances that all sorts
of plantings including “serious trees” could grow in the 30 inches
of soil that would be atop the pool.
In December, the owners of 61 Bank Street also presented
an application that called for a significant amount of excavation in
order to attach their Greek Revival 1840 rowhouse with the backhouse
built in 1841 (the ultimate rear yard addition).
Concern was voiced about the excavation, and the applicants were
asked to narrow the connection and not go so deep.
A commissioner or two wanted to see an alternate plan for an
at grade connection also in order to avoid the whole matter.
The revised proposal has not yet returned to the LPC.
The Commission did allow for the excavation and redesign
of the back yard at 13 West 9th Street. The owners, not looking to building anything, wanted to lower their
yard about six feet so that the basement door opened into the garden.
Vice Chair Pablo Vengoechea voted against the plan wanting terracing
rather than a full excavation.
Last year HDC’s District Lines
addressed the perils of excavations.
The latest victim is 287
Broadway/55 Reade Street, aka “The
Leaning Tower of Broadway”. In November excavation
for a new structure next door on Broadway led to unsafe conditions
in 287 closing the pizzeria and putting the residents out on the
street. The individual landmark,
just one door down from the edge of the TriBeCa South Historic District
(that one door happens to be a part of the new building that wraps
around onto Reade Street), is now rather precariously braced and
tilting ominously. For conspiracy theorist out there – the building
is across the street from the Department of Buildings at 280 Broadway.
The NoHo
Historic District Extension was calendared for a
March 18th hearing.
The map
of the proposed district differs slightly
from an
earlier map presented at a public meeting.
The new boundaries include 25 and 27 East 4th
Street, but not the entire north side of 14th Street,
development sites along the Bowery or the Lafayette/Mulberry Triangle
as HDC and other advocates had called for.
There was a nice change in the air in Individual Landmark
land – property owners who are in favor of landmarking. The 1911 Congregation
Tifereth Israel in Corona, Queens had a favorable
hearing and will be voted on on February 12th.
The Bukharian congregation has been working with the New
York Landmarks Conservancy’s Sacred Sites
program for the past decade on the restoration of the synagogue,
and city landmarking would make the project eligible for further
funding. American
Bank Note Company Printing Plant Building in the
Bronx, first heard back 1992, also had a positive hearing.
Its owners Taconic
Investments, who also are the owners of the landmarked
Child’s
Restaurant on Coney Island’s Boardwalk, said they
plan to create office space in the building.
The former Fire Engine Company No. 54 at 304 West 47th
Street (home to Forbidden Broadway), nearly identical to the former
Fire Engine
Company No. 53 on East 104th Street heard
last October, was calendared.
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