1st and 65th: Landmark fight

[londonlawyer]

New Yorkers can be so retarded. The morons that are waging war over these eyesores are wasting their time. I live around the corner from these filthy, simplistic buildings and would love to see them go. Why didn't these morons fight the rape of the 55th St. townhouses, The Drake, The YMCA, the forced anal sodomy of the beautiful building on 72nd and B'Way, etc.?

Council Member, Building Owner at Odds Over Landmarking
By DAVID LOMBINO
Staff Reporter of the Sun
November 10, 2006

A building owner and a City Council member are squaring off over an upcoming landmarking battle on the Upper East Side.

Most of the buildings in the City and Suburban Homes complex, which takes up an entire block between York and First avenues and 64th and 65th streets, were designated as landmarks in 1990. Two buildings that were excluded from the designation could yet be redeveloped, and neighbors fear the building's owner, Stahl Real Estate, is moving toward constructing two soaring glass towers on the site.

The local council member, Jessica Lappin, chairwoman of the Landmarks Committee, is pushing for landmark designation of the two light-colored six-story buildings on York Avenue, opposite Rockefeller University in a sleepy corner of Manhattan. At her request, the city's Landmarks Preservation Commission will hold a public hearing on the designation of the two buildings on Tuesday.

At a time when housing conditions in parts of the city were overcrowded, dangerous, and unhealthy, the City and Suburban Homes company was founded by prominent philanthropists who placed limits on their profits to build model tenements with abundant light, air, and running water. Completed in 1915, the buildings were part of the largest affordable housing complex ever built.

"This was a revolutionary idea, it was part of a social struggle for clean and safe affordable housing," Ms. Lappin said yesterday, touring the outside of the buildings. "It became a national model."

She stopped short of calling the complex attractive. "It's charming," she said.

For nine years, area residents and preservationists fought to landmark the full block of former tenements, along with another cluster of City and Suburban Homes farther north along York Avenue between 78th and 79th streets. At the northern complex, developer Peter Kalikow, who now heads the MTA, sought to raze the block and build an 80-story apartment building.

Eventually, both complexes were designated as landmarks, but as a "favor" to the building owners, Ms. Lappin said, the now-defunct Board of Estimate decided against designating two buildings at each complex. After neighbors sued, a court ruled that the entire 79th Street complex be landmarked. Ms. Lappin said residents could not afford a legal challenge for the 64th Street complex.
This is an opportunity to right a wrong, to fix what was a bad backroom deal in 1990," Ms. Lappin said.

In 1977, Stahl Real Estate purchased the complex. It contains 850 rental units, many of which are still rent-regulated. Yesterday, scaffolding going up around the building for a renovation.

A spokesman for Stahl Real Estate, Martin McLaughlin, said there is an existing agreement between the city and the owner, dating back to 1990, that the site where the two undesignated buildings sit would be reserved for development. He said the owner would consider challenging a landmark designation in court.

"The buildings are not by any stretch of the imagination landmark quality," Mr. McLaughlin said.

He said the building owner made an offer to Ms. Lappin, asking her to hold off on pushing for landmark designation. In return, he said, Stahl Real Estate would have poured $20 million into building renovations and when it developed the site, and would have reserved about 20% of the units as affordable housing. The company, he said, was at least five years away from developing the site.

"Landmarking is not going to do anything for anybody," Mr. McLaughlin said. "It is not going to improve the site. Down the road, it might prevent somebody from getting their views blocked."

Ms. Lappin said the landlord's offer was informal and that the existing buildings are already affordable. The council member said representatives of Stahl Real Estate had shown her architectural renderings for a pair of 28-story towers on the site.

"If something deserves to be landmarked, it deserves to be landmarked. There is no wheeling and dealing," Ms. Lappin said.

[londonlawyer]

Landmark agency told of City & Suburban First Estate stripping 14-NOV-06

The Landmarks Preservation Commission held a hearing this afternoon on whether to designate as landmarks two buildings on First Avenue between 64th and 65th Street whose landmark designation had been overturned by the Board of Estimate in 1990.
The buildings are part of the 15-building, full-block development known as the City and Suburban Homes Company, First Avenue Estate and some members of the public testified today that decorative elements of their facades were being removed as the hearing was proceeding. The designation of the rest of complex as a landmark was not overturned by the Board of Estimate. Another, very similar, full-block model tenement development by City & Suburban on the block bounded by 78th and 79th Streets, York Avenue and the FDR Drive was the subject of a major landmarks controversy and eventually was designated a landmark.

Chairman Robert B. Tierney said the commission would keep the hearing open and make a decision next Tuesday. Later in the day the commission held a hearing on the Dakota Stable building at 350 Amsterdam Avenue that the Related Companies wants to demolish and replace with a new residential condominium building and the commission decided, with considerable outrage, to remove the item from its calendar because the building was recently stripped of its ornament legally because it had a permit from the Department of Buildings.

The First Avenue Estate buildings are located at 429 East 64th Street and 430 East 65th Street and were built in 1914 and 1915 and designed by Philip H. Ohm and are very similar to the earlier buildings on the block that were designed by James E. Ware.

These two buildings are owned by the Stahl York Avenue Company and Paul Selver of the law firm of Kramer Levin Naftalis & Frankel, which represents the owner, told the commission that “No one can honestly claim that they are by themselves exceptional or standout buildings....designation of these buildings does not do justice to the legacy of City & Suburban homes....It is best remembered by allowing the private sector to redevelop this property so as to create on the balance of the block, high quality affordable housing for the 21st Century.”

Seri Worden of the Friends of the Upper East Side Historic Districts told the commission that despite “an outpouring of community and political support for the designation of these buildings, the current owners have begun erecting a scaffold to fulfill existing permits to stucco over the brick of the exterior of 429 East 64th and 430 East 65th Street and sadly they have also begun to demolish the parapet. This is an unconscionable attempt of unsympathetic owners to thwart the reinstatement of the rightful designation of these very worthy buildings….stuccoing the buildings, while an egregious action, is simply not enough to render these structures unworthy of designation. The shape and massing of the buildings, including the important light wells can not be altered under the existing building permits.”

Mr. Selver said that Stahl Real Estate had shown City Councilperson Jessica Lappin Levine a few months ago preliminary plans for a residential condominium building of about 28 stories that it wanted to develop on the site of the two buildings. The plans were designed by The Polshek Partnership and Mr. Selver said that Stahl Real Estate indicated it would make substantial upgrades to the other properties on the block and assure that about 200 units of affordable housing would be guaranteed there.

Councilperson Lappin told the commission today that a 28-story tower “will not only destroy these buildings, but destroy the meaning and validity of the landmark designation of the other thirteen buildings in the complex....This will go from being a light court tenement to a dark court tenement. We can’t let that happen. So, I ask today that the Commission do the right thing – again.”

[pianoman11686]

From http://cityrealty.com/new_developments:

Landmarks Commission redesignates 2 "First Estate" buildings 22-NOV-06

http://www.cityrealty.com/graphics/uploads/1164226386_citysub2.jpg

The Landmarks Preservation Commission voted unanimously yesterday to designate as landmarks two buildings on First Avenue between 64th and 65th Street whose landmark designation had been overturned by the Board of Estimate in 1990.

The buildings are part of the 15-building, full-block development known as the City and Suburban Homes Company, First Avenue Estate and some members of the public testified at the commission’s hearing last week on the buildings that decorative elements of their facades were being removed as the hearing was proceeding.

The designation of the rest of complex as a landmark was not overturned by the Board of Estimate. Another, very similar, full-block model tenement development by City & Suburban on the block bounded by 78th and 79th Streets, York Avenue and the FDR Drive was the subject of a major landmarks controversy and eventually was designated a landmark.

The First Avenue Estate buildings are located at 429 East 64th Street and 430 East 65th Street and were built in 1914 and 1915 and designed by Philip H. Ohm and are very similar to the earlier buildings on the block that were designed by James E. Ware.

These two buildings are owned by the Stahl York Avenue Company and Paul Selver of the law firm of Kramer Levin Naftalis & Frankel, which represents the owner, told the commission last week that “No one can honestly claim that they are by themselves exceptional or standout buildings....designation of these buildings does not do justice to the legacy of City & Suburban homes....It is best remembered by allowing the private sector to redevelop this property so as to create on the balance of the block, high quality affordable housing for the 21st Century.”

Seri Worden of the Friends of the Upper East Side Historic Districts told the commission that despite “an outpouring of community and political support for the designation of these buildings, the current owners have begun erecting a scaffold to fulfill existing permits to stucco over the brick of the exterior of 429 East 64th and 430 East 65th Street and sadly they have also begun to demolish the parapet. This is an unconscionable attempt of unsympathetic owners to thwart the reinstatement of the rightful designation of these very worthy buildings….stuccoing the buildings, while an egregious action, is simply not enough to render these structures unworthy of designation. The shape and massing of the buildings, including the important light wells can not be altered under the existing building permits.”

Mr. Selver said that Stahl Real Estate had shown City Councilperson Jessica Lappin Levine a few months ago preliminary plans for a residential condominium building of about 28 stories that it wanted to develop on the site of the two buildings. The plans were designed by The Polshek Partnership and Mr. Selver said that Stahl Real Estate indicated it would make substantial upgrades to the other properties on the block and assure that about 200 units of affordable housing would be guaranteed there.

Councilperson Lappin told the commission last week that a 28-story tower “will not only destroy these buildings, but destroy the meaning and validity of the landmark designation of the other thirteen buildings in the complex....This will go from being a light court tenement to a dark court tenement. We can’t let that happen.”

“I believe that these buildings are as worthy today as when they were first designated 16 years ago,” Chairman Robert B. Tierney declared, adding that “the entire complex was a visionary model for decent, affordable housing in this City, and deserves to remain intact.”