NYC Demolition :(

[MrBern]

I wish I had cool photos to post bu t this in the only one I could find online

http://www.nyc-architecture.com/UES/UES019.htm

Its non descript, but its supposed to be. These buildings were constructed at th turn of the city to give NYCs working class a building complex that had some light & air & a bathroom in every apt. Tiny apts, but they had windows & a COURTYARD to afford the tenents some dignity & hygiene. You jsut dont see courtyards in NYC.

Its a simple interesting aesthetic built w/ light colored brick & marble. Its the old world looking forward.

These arent glamorous, but they were considered a model for proper tenement living. And in the `30s they were a template for other city construction.
But in a backroom deal two corner buildings had their landmark status revoked. A few years ago soem of the facades were restored & it was thought the buildings would be maintained. But times change & its slated to be demolished.

Next week there will be public hearings At teh Municipal Building across from City Hall to decide if these buildings should be Preserved & not Demolished.
They would be replaced by a 28 story tower....

I live there and watching each old brownstone go has just been painfully disappointing.

 

[jake_fink]

Stories like this make me so unhappy. The city I live in has a terrible record for preserving its history, and every year some other piece of our industrial past is torn down. I was at a gallery last week and part of the show was a series of photos taken from German airships in the 20s and 30s. New York is an inspiring piece of fantasia in these pictures, everything one tends to imagine when one imagines a city. Now cities all look like overabundant collections of big glass filing cabinets. Too, too sad.

 

[Rosie]

Unfortunately, usually when a public hearing has been announced, a decision has already been made. This is happening far too often in our city. I don't know what could be done about it, but you know, money talks.

 

[Feraud]

How depressing.

 

[Senator Jack]

Remember the debacle with The Thunderbolt in Coney Island? For non-NYers that was the roller coaster that had the house under it - the one Woody Allen used in Annie Hall. Giuliani had it in his head to tear it down and just before landmark status could be obtained he had it bulldozed. He did the same with the Aquacade, the last surviving structure of the 1939 World's Fair. But last year he appeared in commercials on The History Channel urging support for 'America's past'. What a liar. I never could stand the guy.

 

[Feraud]

Remember the debacle with The Thunderbolt in Coney Island? For non-NYers that was the roller coaster that had the house under it - the one Woody Allen used in Annie Hall. Giuliani had it in his head to tear it down and just before landmark status could be obtained he had it bulldozed. He did the same with the Aquacade, the last surviving structure of the 1939 World's Fair. But last year he appeared in commercials on The History Channel urging support for 'America's past'. What a liar. I never could stand the guy.

I remember the commercial. What a skunk.

 

[MrBern]

Unfortunately, usually when a public hearing has been announced, a decision has already been made. This is happening far too often in our city. I don't know what could be done about it, but you know, money talks.

Actually in this situation , the supporting Senator & CouncilPersons are confident. Citizens will voice their opinion on Tues morning at CityHall. In the time since this buildings landmark status was revoked, other rulings have put forth that a landmark status cant be applied to parts of a location.
So hopefully everything will be grandfathered in & the block will remain intact.

And I intend to go there & speak. Money talks, but people can talk too.

 

[dorotheascloset]

The city tried to pull that kind of thing on a lovely old house near the hospital here last Fall. The house was built in the late 1800s, had wonderful woodwork, mantles, chandeliers, bannisters, mirrored walls & ovens built into stone fireplaces. A local preservationist group found out about it at nearly the last minute, the innards of the house were slated to go up for auction & the house was to be destroyed to make way for a parking lot for the hospital. They had about a month to react.

They talked the city & original owner into selling them the house for $1, with the idea being they paid to have it moved it time. But they wouldn't stop the auction of the beautiful architecture within. So the group managed to come up with quite a good lot of money, went to the auction & worked the crowd to talk people out of bidding on the insides of this house, as the auctioneer called off these gorgeous pieces....one by one, the preservationist group bid on all of it and managed to keep MOST of it intact. Some shrill wealthy vapid woman insisted she had to have a built in buffet & wouldnt back down....so its gone. But the rest stayed intact, and I had the pleasure of seeing the house as it sat on its trailer after it was moved across the city in the dead of night, in a lovely old historic district near my apartment.

I met the original owner, he & his wife lived there 60 years....she taught vocal & drama lessons in the home. I saw the inside, and it was breathtaking. But I also saw his face, the day I went over there, a few days before the auction when the fate of his home still looked bleak, and this little old man just looked beaten. He had reached a point where his wife was gone & he couldn't live on his own anymore, and the deal with the city was like a deal with the devil to him.....but since it was kept hush-hush, I imagine he didn't even know there was an option.

It truly moved me to tears when it all came down & the house was saved & moved intact......so many people involved, so many people who cared that this man's home, this beautiful piece of history not be lost. I wish that were the outcome more often. I hope they come to their senses in NY (and everywhere).......

Ang

 

[MrBern]

NYT article

well , th NewYorkTimes is covering the story!

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/12/nyregion/thecity/12stre.html

"Indeed, the case for landmark status is more historical than architectural. Like the City and Suburban York Avenue Estate, built between 78th and 79th Streets about the same time, the complex between 64th and 65th Streets was financed by the Vanderbilts and other prominent families, who agreed to limit their profits in developing alternatives to the overcrowded tenements of the Lower East Side. The buildings offered then-modern amenities like steam radiators, private bathrooms, and closets."

 

[MrBern]

Gov Island

Another NY treasure, Governor's Island seems safe from becoming an amusement park , for now.
Fabulous news as this little island jsut off Manhattan is locked in time as its been a military base for the last few hundred years.

http://www.nypost.com/seven/11142006/news/regionalnews/isle_try_again_regionalnews_rich_calder.htm

"The city-state Governors Island Preservation and Education Corp. yesterday tossed out all proposals from developers vying to turn the former military base into a tourist attraction, including cable-TV giant Nickelodeon's plan to create a children's theme park there."

 

[Jay]

This seriously has to stop. Why must every building that looks interesting or old-fashioned be torn down so some ugly excuse for architecture can take it's place. Look at Europe and everywhere else in the world. They still have their historic buildings. I swear if America had the Pyramids, we'd tear 'em down and build a casino.

 

[Feraud]

I swear if America had the Pyramids, we'd tear 'em down and build a casino.

lol Or put a Starbucks inside of the pyramid!

 

[happyfilmluvguy]

This seriously has to stop. Why must every building that looks interesting or old-fashioned be torn down so some ugly excuse for architecture can take it's place. Look at Europe and everywhere else in the world. They still have their historic buildings. I swear if America had the Pyramids, we'd tear 'em down and build a casino.

because APPARENTLY everything that is OLD is BAD.

and money rules the world anyways. If you can set up a casino in your own home, making hundreds of dollars a night, why keep that home there, when you own the property and can just tear the thing apart and build a fancy looking casino, then someone who is even greedier than you are comes around and buys it from you for a zillion dollars! At least you have the money, but not your childhood and dignity. But eh, you can just buy that! (or not)

 

[Harp]

demo permits

How sad. This occurs in Chicago on a regular basis: grease the skids,
have a site condemned, tear-it-down. If the Alamo had been in
Chicago, it would have been bulldozed for a condominium complex.

 

[Mojave Jack]

This seriously has to stop. Why must every building that looks interesting or old-fashioned be torn down so some ugly excuse for architecture can take it's place. Look at Europe and everywhere else in the world. They still have their historic buildings. I swear if America had the Pyramids, we'd tear 'em down and build a casino.

On a smaller scale, we did! Mound State Park near Anderson, Indiana, was an Adena/Hopewell mound complex, dating to 2,000 years ago. It is a group of earthen structures with an astronomical alignment at several points, centered on the Great Mound, a large ditch-and-bank enclosure. In the 1920s, a local group built a theme park there, and used the mounds to create the hills for an early roller coaster!

The sad fact about all of this is, money talks. All of this comes down to a profit margin, and whether or not the developers are willing to take a smaller profit margin to restore the original building than a larger profit margin to build new. The city, state, and federal governments should be stepping in on projects like this and offering the developers better tax incentives and grants to restore the original buildings. I thought--hoped--the Preserve America initiative would stop a lot of these types of projects, but that program has no teeth and is distributing minute sums of money. It was strictly a political move and hasn't done a thing to promote historic preservation.

Bern, I'm really sorry to see this happen on so many levels. It a shame that so many people have so little sense of the value of the past.

 

[MikeBravo]

Happens everywhere

We had a similar situation in my home town (Melbourne Australia, home of the MLX) in the late 60's and early 70's.

One of the main streets in the CBD is Collins Street. These money hungry rats turned the "Paris end" of Collins Street into a wind-swept barren wasteland of glass and concrete.

It took the union movement to put a stop to the destruction. They (the Builders Labourers Federation) placed "green bans" on the work. this meant that there would be no work done on the site if it had significance.

They eventually compromised and retained the streetfront facades and built the new developments behind them. Of course, the developers claimed they were wonderful for doing it when in fact not a lot of them had a choice.

The union was criticised at the time, and eventually delisted, but today we are thanking God for what they did.

:arated:

 

[MrBern]

you can fight to win

:arated: Good news about the demolition:

Dear Neighbor:

I am pleased to report that all of our hard work has paid off. *Thanks to your help and involvement, our community has won an important victory.

City and Suburban is saved!

On Tuesday, November 21, 2006, the Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) voted unanimously to designate 429 East 64th Street and 430 East 65th Street as landmarks. This means that all fifteen buildings in the First Avenue Estate are now legally protected and are technically landmarks. We have succeeded in saving this important piece of our country’s history.

As I have stated before, I am particularly proud that tenants and activists of all ages and backgrounds joined me in the fight to save City and Suburban. Working together, we defeated the owner’s plans to demolish these buildings and erase an important structure in the affordable housing movement by replacing them with two large glass towers.

Now that the LPC has voted, the application will be sent to the City Planning Commission for review. The last step in the process is City Council approval.

As you may know, I chair the City Council’s Land Use Sub-Committee on Landmarks, which will review this item shortly after we receive it from City Planning. I have already begun speaking with my colleagues and the Speaker about these buildings and am optimistic about its approval.

Thank you again for your activism on this issue. I look forwarding to our continued work on important issues facing our community.

Sincerely,

JESSICA LAPPIN
Council Member***
5th District - Manhattan ***

 

["Doc" Devereux]

Splendid news - well done to everybody involved! :eusa_clap

 

[Serial Hero]

That's great to hear:eusa_clap :eusa_clap :eusa_clap

 

[Miss Neecerie]

What great news to come back home to!

Hurrah!