E-BULLETIN
OF THE HISTORIC DISTRICTS COUNCIL
November 2008, Volume 5 Number 11
First Thing’s
First: Happy
Halloween, and Remember to Vote This Tuesday!
Now,
back to business…
With Recent
Term-Limit Extension, HDC’s League of Preservation Voters Initiative More
Relevant Than Ever
If the press has
demonstrated one thing lately, it’s that the 2009 municipal elections are just
around the corner. Regardless of the recent term-limit extension, next year’s
elections may usher in a significant wave of new representation in our
neighborhoods.
HDC’s League of
Preservation Voters initiative will capitalize on this opportunity and work
with elected officials and potential candidates to establish preservation as a
priority topic during the upcoming 2009 election cycle. This aggressive
campaign aims to engage both voters and candidates alike, to unify groups of
community advocates, and to mobilize influential coalitions that educate
political candidates and newly elected officials about the importance of
preserving New York City’s historic places, buildings and neighborhoods.
Join us for an important informational meeting this Thursday,
November 6, as we discuss our League of Preservation Voters initiative (http://hdc.org/preservationvoters.htm). The 2009
election season officially starts on Wednesday, November 5th, so this
informational session is well-timed to focus on how community groups and
individuals can get involved in the League of Preservation Voters program. Come
identify the preservation and land-use issues that matter most to you and help
shape this important discussion.
The
meeting will begin at 6:00pm at the Neighborhood Preservation Center, 232 East
11th Street, between Second & Third Avenues in Manhattan. All
Coffee Talk events are free of charge. Reservations required. To RSVP, E-mail
lbelfer@hdc.org or call (212) 614-9107.
SPECIAL 2008 ELECTION BONUS:
To see a Preservation Voter’s Guide for District 30 in Queens (the only
competitive City Council election on Tuesday), see http://hdc.org/District30VoterGuide.pdf
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A How-To Guide on Storefront Design: This
Monday, November 3
Commercial districts throughout New
York City owe much to their neighborhood’s characters and unique senses of
place. Individual storefronts that are well kept and aesthetically pleasing
invite new customers and have been proven to bolster business. When such maintenance
extends along an entire commercial strip, consumers are not only lured to the
area, but are more likely to prolong their visits and explore a greater number
of nearby stores and sites.
For November’s Coffee Talk, Ron
Melichar, Executive Director of Contract Management for the New York City
Department of Small Business Services, will present design guidelines for
storefront design, breaking down individual elements, from signs and awnings to
security devices. Using examples from past commercial revitalization efforts,
Mr. Melichar will discuss the basic tenets of good storefront design and will
demonstrate how attendees can promote these principles within their own
neighborhoods.
The Coffee Talk begins at 8:30am and
is held at the Neighborhood Preservation Center, 232 East 11th
Street, between Second & Third Avenues in Manhattan. All Coffee Talk events
are free of charge. Reservations required. To RSVP, E-mail lbelfer@hdc.org or
call (212) 614-9107.
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HDC Remembers Two Important Preservationists: Nancy Cataldi and Dorothy
Miner
HDC
is sad to announce the passing of two of New York’s most dedicated preservationists.
Nancy Cataldi, longtime president of the Richmond Hill Historical
Society and a member of HDC’s Board of Directors, passed away unexpectedly in
her home this past Wednesday, October 29. Nancy was a dear friend and
unflagging advocate for her neighborhood who repeatedly pushed her elected
officials and the Landmarks Preservation Commission to recognize the remarkable
Victorian homes that make up Richmond Hill. From community parties and events
to educational programs for local youth, Nancy worked diligently to preserve
and share Richmond Hill’s unique history with the rest of New York City. A
professional photographer whose work appeared in Rolling Stone, People and The
New York Times, Nancy was the co-author of two books on Richmond Hill history, served
as historian for the Maple Grove
Cemetery
(which she successfully nominated to the National Register of Historic Places)
and curated the current exhibit open at the new Italian
American Museum
in Manhattan. In recognition of all her efforts, HDC awarded her a Grassroots
Preservation Award in 2005.
Dorothy Marie Miner,
longtime Counsel to the Landmarks Preservation Commission, teacher,
nationally-renowned preservation law expert, friend and mentor to the Historic
Districts Council, died on Tuesday, October 21st after a lengthy illness.
Dorothy served as counsel to the LPC from 1975 to 1994, where she helped
protect the New York City Landmarks Law from some of its greatest challenges
and her work both strengthened the Law and shaped how it is interpreted today.
She contributed greatly to the milestone cases of Penn Central v. the City of New York City which upheld the
integrity of the Landmarks Law in the U.S. Supreme Court, and St. Bartholomew’s Church v. the City of New York,
which defended the Landmarks Preservation Commission’s right to regulate
designated religious properties. After leaving public practice, Dorothy devoted
herself to strengthening historic preservation law on a state, national and
international level – offering her expertise, intelligence and painstakingly
precise legal advice to individuals and organizations, as well as educating the
next generation of preservationists at the Columbia University Graduate School
of Architecture, Planning and Preservation and Pace University School of Law.
To honor all her contributions, HDC awarded Dorothy the Landmarks Lion Award in
2001 at the New York State Supreme Court, Appellate Division in Manhattan. She
used the occasion to deliver a lecture on the legal precedents underlying the
landmarks law.
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LPC Votes to Approve
St. Vincent’s Hospital Hardship Application to Demolish O’Toole Building
On October 28th
the Landmarks Preservation Commission voted on the hardship application of St.
Vincent’s Medical Center to demolish the O’Toole building. (See HDC’s testimony at
http://hdc.org/blog/2008/07/15/hdc-on-st-vincents-hardship-application/) The vote was a close one – six commissioners
in favor, four opposed, and one not in attendance.
Chair Robert Tierney began the vote
noting that while the demolition of the O’Toole building was inappropriate as
an application for a Certificate of Appropriateness, he felt St. Vincent’s had
met the standards to do so under a hardship.
Tierney noted that the charitable mission of a hospital is a “highly
regulated and complex one.” He expressed
his feelings that New Yorkers “deserve the best medical care than can be
rendered in this city” and that the hospital’s present physical conditions are
restrictive and will only get worse with time.
The O’Toole site is the only feasible construction site, Tierney said,
and is preferable to building on the east side of 7th Avenue where
older hospital buildings would have to be demolished.
Joan Gerner was the next to
vote. As the Executive Vice President of
Design Construction and Capital Planning for the National September 11 Memorial
and Museum, she felt that a new building for St. Vincent’s, the only level one
trauma center on the west side of Manhattan below 115th Street, is a
matter of life and death. She felt St.
Vincent’s had met the hardship requirements
Roberta Washington was the first
commissioner to voice opposition. An
architect with a specialty in hospital and health care design, she found the
alternative plans to have not been fully thought out or presented. Washington
believed that more options at other sites existed and needed to be fully
studied.
Margery Perlmutter also voted
against the hardship application.
Perlmutter, a former hospital planner and a land use lawyer whose
clients have included large hospitals, accused St. Vincent’s of assuming that
they would be allowed to build on “O’Toole’s ashes” and so made only
“half-hearted” attempts at alternate plans.
She rebutted arguments that alternative sites are not zoned for a large
hospital noting that the O’Toole site will need zoning variances. While other sites identified by the city’s
Economic Development Corporation may be larger than what the hospital needs,
the extra space could be used to generate income. In response to the reasoning that the
hospital needed to be within a certain distance from St. Vincent’s cancer unit,
Perlmutter questioned how the location of 75,000 square foot rental space could
be allowed to drive the development of the rest of the institution. If a mid-block hospital on the East side of 7th
Avenue were the only other option, she said she would prefer the loss of the
Nurse’s building to the demolition of O’Toole.
Perlmutter stated that the argument of inadequacy of the current
facility was an afterthought once the Certificate of Appropriateness
application was not approved, rather like in the St. Bartholomew hardship case
(one which the church lost.) Finally she noted, “There is no hardship.”
Diana Chapin voted in favor of the
hardship. She noted that she worked for
the Department of Environmental Protection at the time of the World Trade
Center attacks and felt that New York City, still a major target, needs
adequate trauma facilities. Although St.
Vincent’s case is based on physical, not economic, hardship, she thought there
were no other feasible options but to build on the O’Toole site.
Roberta Gratz began by stating that
this hardship case was the “most disturbing challenge to the Landmarks Law I
have witnessed since the Grand Central Case.”
She disdainfully recounted receiving
“lengthy memos from our own counsel” regarding economic hardship
(despite the fact that this was not what the case was based on) and supporting
the hospital’s views, apparently backed by the mayor’s office. Gratz pointed out that the O’Toole building,
“a one of a kind landmark”, does not create a hardship for St. Vincent’s
Hospital, but that the buildings on the hospital complex on the east side of 7th
Avenue do. She noted that approval of
the hardship will set a “disastrous precedent” that will allow any charity to
purchase a building in a district and claim hardship in order to demolish
it. While alternatives may be more
costly, Gratz noted that they did exist and that the hardship was for physical,
not economic, restraints.
Libby Ryan voted in favor, briefly
noting that St. Vincent’s had proved that its existing buildings can not
fulfill the hospital’s charitable mission and that there are no other viable
options.
Christopher Moore also voted to
approve the hardship stating that St. Vincent’s had met the hardship test and
that the demolition of the O’Toole building is the “only financially viable
option.”
Stephen Byrnes voted against the
hardship claim calling the application the “most difficult and complex case I
have encountered.” He stated that St.
Vincent “wishes to wreak havoc on the historic district” and that it was his
“job as a Landmark’s Commissioner” to protect the district. Like Gratz, he was wary of the serious
precedent this case would set. If the
hospital’s present facilities are outmoded, Byrnes stated they must look
elsewhere. He was not convinced that
alternative sites were fully studied and felt that their presentation was
skewed by consultants hired by the applicant
Fred Bland cast the
final vote to approve the application.
He noted that “to balance the needs of modern healthcare on the back of
preservation” was a difficult proposition.
Under normal circumstances, Bland considered the demolition of a
contributing building in an historic district to be “heresy”, but in this case
the hospital had no other possible alternative.
The vote doesn’t mean we won’t be
hearing more about the project. The
Commission has not yet approved the design of the new hospital building to
replace O’Toole. Protect the Village
Historic District (http://protectthevillage.org/index.cfm) is planning to
appeal the case. Whatever the final
outcome, the case will certainly be brought up in future hardship applications. In more than one way, it is a landmark case.
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HDC Hosts
Successful Landmarks Lion Event, Honoring Preservation Architect Walter B.
Melvin
This
past Wednesday, October 29, HDC bestow it’s 20th Landmarks Lion Award on
architect Walter B. Melvin in recognition of the decades of work that he
and his firm have done preserving and restoring some of New York’s most noted
landmarks. More than 250 people attended the festivities, which where held at
Bridgewaters in the South Street Seaport Historic District. Thanks to everyone
who helped us celebrate, and continued congratulations to our esteemed honoree.
Check our website soon for a gallery of images from the event!
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Gargantuan Development Proposed For the South Street Seaport
As
if the St. Vincent’s plan was a complicated and precedent-setting enough
landmarks issue to deal with, General Growth Development, the private mall
developers who lease much of the properties in the South Street Seaport from
New York City, has proposed a massive new development in and around Pier 17 in
the historic district. In order to clear enough room to build a 495-foot
mixed-use tower next to the pier (and the historic district), GGP proposes to
demolish the historic (but not landmarked) 1939 WPA-built New Market Building,
deconstruct the landmark 1909 Tin Building (and rebuild a facsimile of it at
the end of the pier), demolish the LPC-approved Pier 17 Mall building and
construct a number of new tall glassy retail and hotel buildings on the
waterfront. GGP
is in dire economic straits
and is rushing this project forward as swiftly as possible – the LPC heard the proposal last week and
the Art Commission (d/b/a the Public Design Commission) will be hearing it in
November. HDC, joined by our colleagues at the Municipal Art Society, the New
York Landmarks Conservancy, the Society for the Architecture of the City and
Councilmember Alan J. Gerson, fiercely opposes this plan. To learn more about
this, and see what you can do, visit http://hdc.org/blog/2008/10/17/hdc-reacts-to-the-south-street-seaport-plan/
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HDC Receives Honor From 4Boro Neighborhood Preservation Alliance
On Thursday, October 23, the 4Boro
Neighborhood Preservation Alliance awarded HDC for it’s League of Preservation
Voters initiative. HDC President Paul Graziano was on hand to accept the award
at a lovely ceremony, held at the Theodore Roosevelt Birthplace on East 20th
Street in Manhattan. Many thanks to 4Boro for acknowledging our efforts!
Click here to see a selection of images
from the ceremony: http://hdc.org/4Boro.htm