Build every block in manhattan into space, pressurize the buildings and have nuclear powered elevators.
The Landmarks Comm. is composed of incompetent morons. I walked by Watts St. between 6th and Varick on Nov. 3, 2007 and noticed that a building that appeared to date from the 1820's was being demolished. Something just to the west of it already had been razed, and I believe it probably dated from the same era. That f...ing area has empty parking lots everywhere, so why would they let some schmuck developer razed a nearly 200 year old building? I was (and still am) fuming!!!
The old one that just came down on Watts is number 66 Watts Street.
It was a forlorn little beauty with a tragic past.
CURBED has a sad picture of how it looked last week:
The blockfront along Varick that has recently come down were two contiguous
3-story buildings circa 1950 (but built in a neo-Federal style so they fit right in
with the buildings along Watts Street).
Location is 100 Varick and it has its own thread.
Below is shown what was previously planned for 100 Varick (but apparently there
is now a new / larger proposal for the site):
The word on the street is that the remaining four brick buildings along the north side
of Watts (between this development site and the new blue Poon Hotel) are all in a
developer's sights for something new and big.
Here's how they looked before 66 Watts came down (66 is the one with the two dormers at the far left):
I can't restrain myself. This is an f...ing crime. How could the morons that run this city let anyone raze those buildings? The members of the "LPC" should be waterboarded.
^ All buildings should be automatically landmarked when they turn 150.
No hearings, no questions, no ifs, no ands, and no buts.
I agree. Anything Pre-WWII should be landmarked. Moreover, for those buildings whose facades have been ruined by greedy owners, they should be forced to restore their cornices and ornamentation.
^ Pre-WWII ? A tad too much of a good thing, don't you think?
That's how it should be. Tierney is a schmuck. I hate the guy.Originally Posted by ablarc
In the case of 66 Watts i don't know that it was ever brought before LPC for landmarking consideration.
LPC does NOT give much consideration to buildings, no matter their age, which have been significantly altered -- and as you can see 66 Watts had a driveway cut through the center (where the big roll-down gate can be seen). However that alteration seems as though it could have been a fairly easy change to fix.
Or not fix, as the case may be. Old buildings don't always have to be restored to their "original" state; the vagaries of change over time often have their own interest, and their mere antiquity is often justification enough for preservation. Boston's Quincy Market buildings were "restored" to a historical consistency that they had never originally achieved. They were more interesting before being "improved" to pseudo-authenticity.
I agree with you on this.
Get rid of the pull-down metal gates and the facade would be just fine.
However LPC gets tripped up by trying to "preserve' a moment in time, rather tnan allowing the best of various periods to co-exist (although there has been more leniency shown in recent years, sometims to good effect and sometimes to bad).
One of LPC's more obstinate positions has been to vote against tree planting within the SoHo Historic District, claiming that as a warehouse district trees are out of character and would only have been in the way of the commerce of the area. Most likely that was true when there were mule drawn wagons lined up and unloading onto the sidewalks. But such a position seems silly in this day and age.
Often wondered why SoHo lacked street trees. I agree, this is a silly reason.
Flat out no there. I like ablarc's 150 year old rule.
I actually am in the LPC in the municipal building once or twice a month next time ill leave them a note!
Rewriting the History of New York Preservation
NY TIMES
City Room Blog
By Sewell Chan
November 27, 2007
A new book challenges the widely held notion that the destruction of the original Pennsylvania Station in 1963-64 — a watershed event in New York’s postwar history — gave birth to the movement to preserve landmarks and save the city’s architectural heritage.
To be sure, the demolition of Pennsylvania Station is widely seen today as a tragedy. The eagle-topped Beaux-Arts edifice had served since 1910 as an elegant neoclassical gateway; it was replaced with the squat, drab and never widely loved Madison Square Garden complex. In recent years, the destruction of Penn Station has assumed a greater and greater importance in the public imagination.
Ric Burns’s landmark PBS documentary series, “New York: A Documentary Film,” released in 1999, called the event a watershed in public awareness about the city’s architectural heritage and the need to preserve it. “Conquering Gotham,” a book by Jill Jonnes, published this year, described the construction of the original train terminal as an epic event of the Gilded Age. And advocacy groups, like the Municipal Art Society, that are calling for turning the James A. Farley Post Office Building into a new Penn Station are evoking the lost grandeur of the destroyed landmark.
As the story goes, the destruction of Penn Station galvanized advocates like Jane Jacobs to take up New York City’s history as their rallying cry, leading to the passage of the city’s 1965 Landmarks Law, which created the Landmarks Preservation Commission. Even the commission’s Web site cites the demolition of Penn Station as an event that galvanized the landmarks movement.
“The power and romance of this straightforward explanation of how New York City won the right to protect its landmarks is hard to resist,” Anthony C. Wood writes in the new book. “As the answer to the question ‘How did New York get its Landmarks Law?’ it suffers from just one fundamental problem. It is a myth.”
The book, “Preserving New York: Winning the Right to Protect a City’s Landmarks,” traces the history of the modern preservation system all the way back to the City Beautiful movement of the early 20th century. Mr. Wood is the founder and chairman of the New York Preservation Archive Project and executive director of the Ittleson Foundation, a private philanthropy. His work was recognized at a Nov. 5 book signing at the Museum of the City of New York, attended by some of the city’s leading preservationists.
“Tony is something of a conscience for the preservation community,” said Roberta Brandes Gratz, who founded the Eldridge Street Project and sits on the Landmarks Preservation Commission. “He really understands what is right, what is wrong, what is missing, what is there.”
Mr. Wood noted that two events occurred on Oct. 28, 1963, relating to landmarks preservation: a gathering at the Museum of the City of New York to celebrate Alan Burnham’s book “New York Landmarks,” and the lowering of the eagles from their perch atop the old Penn Station, marking the start of the demolition.
“What grew out of the rubble of Pennsylvania Station was the powerful myth that New York’s Landmarks Law owed its very existence to the loss of that station,” he said. “As wonderful a morality tale as that has become, it has just one problem: It just isn’t true. It’s robbed us of 50 years of wonderful history that is inspiring, informative and instructive.”
He added that his book marked an effort to “reclaim” that history.
Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company
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