Ridgewood Theatre Takes Step Toward Landmark Status

The outside half of the endangered Ridgewood Theatre may soon be a protected piece of work. The Landmarks Commission heard arguments on March 24 in favor of protecting the 1916 structure. Present was diner-saver-and-shipper-outer Michael Perlman who has made the former vaudeville house his latest cause. Perlman himself testified "on behalf of Friends of The Ridgewood Theatre as Chairman, and as Queens VP of the Four Borough Preservation Alliance Corp."

The man is nothing if not industrious. Perlman actually tracked down Tom Lamb, the great-grandson of Ridgewood Theatre architect, Thomas W. Lamb, and got him to provide testimony. Perlman also said that "The LPC claimed that if not for my role in submitting a Request For Evaluation form & accompanying research in March 2008, they wouldn't have known of the theater's existence," which is a little hard to believe. But you never know. When it comes to LPC incompetence, there is no bottom.

A vote on the matter is expected in late spring. The theater may reopen in July as a mixed-use films venue and retail establishment.

It's Landmarks Commission Article Season

Not only did the New York Post look at the landmarks problem in New York in a big way this weekend, so did the New York Times, wrestling the hot topic in three big articles by Robin Pogrebin. The first, published Nov. 26, was titled "PRESERVING THE CITY; An Opaque and Lengthy Road to Landmark Status"; the second, published Nov. 28, was "Preservationists See Bulldozers Charging Through a Loophole"; and the third, published Nov. 30, was "Houses of Worship Meet Landmarking Bureaucracy."

It was the second of the series that struck me the hardest. Read:

Hours before the sun came up on a cool October morning in 2006, people living near the Dakota Stables on the Upper West Side were suddenly awakened by the sound of a jackhammer.

Soon word spread that a demolition crew was hacking away at the brick cornices of the stables, an 1894 Romanesque Revival building, on Amsterdam Avenue at 77th Street, that once housed horses and carriages but had long served as a parking garage.

In just four days the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission was to hold a public hearing on pleas dating back 20 years to designate the low-rise building, with its round-arched windows and serpentine ornamentation, as a historic landmark.

But once the building’s distinctive features had been erased, the battle was lost. The commission went ahead with its hearing, but ultimately decided not to designate the structure because it had been irreparably changed. Today a 16-story luxury condominium designed by Robert A. M. Stern is rising on the site: the Related Companies is asking from $765,000 for a studio to $7 million or more for a five-bedroom unit in the building.

The strategy has become wearyingly familiar to preservationists. A property owner — in this case Sylgar Properties, which was under contract to sell the site to Related — is notified by the landmarks commission that its building or the neighborhood is being considered for landmark status. The owner then rushes to obtain a demolition or stripping permit from the city’s Department of Buildings so that notable qualities can be removed, rendering the structure unworthy of protection.

“In the middle of the night I’m out there at 2 in the morning, and they’re taking the cornices off,” said Gale Brewer, a city councilwoman who represents that part of the Upper West Side. “We’re calling the Buildings Department, we’re calling Landmarks. You get so beaten down by all of this. The developers know they can get away with that.”

And this:

Safeguards crumble because the landmarks commission and the buildings department lack an established system of communication, and commissioners often are unaware that permits have been issued. There is also no set procedure by which the buildings department alerts the commission when someone seeks a permit to strip off architectural detail.

Some City Council members are determined to change that. Tony Avella, who represents northeastern Queens, has introduced a bill that would require the buildings department not only to withhold demolition permits but also to suspend existing ones and issue a stop-work order when the commission schedules a hearing to consider landmark status for a structure.

Another bill, proposed by Rosie Mendez, a city councilwoman representing the Lower East Side and the East Village, would require the commission to notify the buildings department as soon as a property comes under consideration, even if a hearing has not been scheduled. The department would then alert the commission if an owner applied for a work permit. Both bills are wending their way through the council.

A school in Ms. Mendez’s East Village neighborhood galvanized her to introduce the bill. In June 2006 the landmarks commission designated former Public School 64, a French Renaissance Revival building on East Ninth Street near Tompkins Square Park, as a landmark over the objections of its owner, Gregg Singer.

After that designation, Mr. Singer used an alteration permit that had been granted in 2003 and stripped the terra-cotta elements and copper cornices from the building’s exterior. This month a State Supreme Court judge in Manhattan upheld the school’s designation as a landmark despite the architectural changes. But the damage remains.

Robert B. Tierney, the Landmarks Commissioner—who declined a budget increase in 2007 of $750,000 approved by the City Council, and earns an annual city salary of $177,698 for his crimes—must be removed. Now. That much is clear. If ever a man did not understand the nature or importance of his job, it's he.

Proposed Alice and Agate Courts Historic District to Be Reviewed by Landmarks Commission

The Landmarks Commission will on Sept. 16 review a sweet little piece of Bed-Stuy called Alice and Agate Courts and consider the tiny area for the status of historic district. Two pretty-as-a-picture, one-block sets of rows house sitting at right angles to Atlantic Avenue, between Albany and Kingston Avenues, the courts were built by Swiss-born metal-stamping magnate Florian Grosjean in the 1880s. (Agate was named for a tool of his trade, Alice for his daughter. Agate Court was built first; read into that what you may.)

The quiet area made the news in 2006, when, reported the Times, a parvenu developer named Shlomo Menashe bought the property "then designated as 412 Herkimer Street, which backs up directly onto Agate Court, separated only by a retaining wall that appears to have been added after the original houses. He then received permission from Marty Markowitz, the borough president, to rename his Herkimer plot “19 Agate Court.”" Jeez, if he really wanted to be part of Agate Court, why didn't he buy on house on the street to begin with?

Interestingly, the Commission's boundary descriptions for the district would seem to include Mensche's plot. (Marty Markowitz at work again?)

Also on the docket:

*The Art Deco/Viennese Secessionist-style Wheatsworth Factory, at 444 E. 10th Street, which was built in 1927 as a biscuit factory.

*The Public National Bank, at 106 Avenue C and 7th Street, built in the early 1920s.

*Fire Engine Company No. 53, 175 East 104th Street, Manhattan.

Noho Gets Bigger, Windemere Is Warned

The New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission today added onto the Noho Historic District, upping the number of protected buildings from 167 to 223. The new area is called NoHo Extension, which builds onto the NoHo and NoHo East historic districts. That's a lot of districts named Noho.

Meanwhile, the Landmarks Commission recently issued a press release saying, "A Manhattan Supreme Court justice today issued a preliminary injunction ordering the owners of the Windermere apartment complex to halt the deterioration of the vacant landmark, requiring them to bring the 127-year-old building into compliance with the City’s landmark regulations."

The Hell's Kitchen Windermere has been in a hell of a condition for some time. Such bad shape, in fact, that the City, which usually doesn't lift a finger to preserve landmarks, took its Japanese owner, Masako Yamagata of Toa Construction Co., to court.

"This decision should make it clear to every owner of landmarked properties that the Landmarks Commission will not abide the deliberate erosion of New York City’s historic fabric," said Commission Chairman Robert B. Tierney.

Uh-huh. Yeah, that's exactly what it will do. The owner lives in Japan.

Some Stuff That's Interesting

A roller rink opens in Coney Island in a former Childs restaurant. Gee, Childs has been in the news a lot for a defunct chow chain.

The Landmarks Commission seems seems to think tearing landmarks down may be appropriate.

More evidence that the Department of Building's ineptitude and corruption leads to deaths.

An old-style newsstand survived on the Upper East Side despite an assassination attempt from the self-appointed eyesore police.

Some Stuff About Landmarks in Distress

The City, in an unusual pro-preservation move, took the landlord of the landmarked, but ailing, 1881, Hell's Kitchen apartment complex The Windermere to court for failing to keep the buildings in good repair. Scumlord Masako Yamagata didn't show (no surprise, since he's 89, ailing and lives in Japan), but sent his scumlord lawyer Steven S. Sieratzki, who said he hadn't read all the materials.

More untended landmarks. 287 Broadway is now leaning eight inches to the south. The villain in this case also lives out of town: John Buck Company of Chicago, which ripped down the building that surrounded the landmark, so it could erect a 20-story condo tower, thus removing the landmark's support system. So far, no one at Buck has said "sorry."


170 Smith Street is a-comin' down. Another red-letter day for the DOB.

The Kosciuszko Bridge is a-comin' down, too, but on purpose.

Part of a Childs restaurant mosaic is still visible on lower Broadway.

Landmarks Commission Found in a Giving Mood

The Real Deal reports that today's meeting of the Landmarks Commission went well for the following properties and proposals:

*The East Village music venue Webster Hall.

*The synagogue Beth Hamedrash Hagadol Anshe on E. 7th Street.

*Elizabeth Home for Girls on E. 12th Street.

*The Free Public Baths of the City of New York on E. 11th Street.

*The Allerton House on E. 39th Street.

*1 Chase Manhattan Plaza, including both the tower and the plaza, will be considered for landmark designation.

*The Fiske Terrace-Midwood Park historic district in Flatbush, which "includes about 250 houses, most of which were developed in 1914 by two prominent builders, the T.B. Ackerson Company and John R. Corbin Company."

Landmarks Commission Keeping Busy

The Landmarks Commission is hearing out a big batch of cases today, including bid for landmark status for Webster Hall, the Free Public Baths on E. 11th Street, as well as proposed landmark districts for Fiske Terrace-Midwood Park, West Chelsea, and extensions of the historic districts in Noho and Douglaston. Stay tuned.

Landmarks Commission to Consider Whether Ugly Towers Are Pretty

The Landmarks Commission has learned how to fuck up in a new way.

Not only do they ignore buildings and districts that should be landmarked, they now consider buidlings that have no right to the status of preserved, treasure buidling. The Commission "is expected on Tuesday to schedule a hearing on whether to designate Silver Towers/University Village, a concrete complex designed by I. M. Pei that was part of Robert Moses’s vast urban renewal program, as a historic landmark," wrote City Room.

I mean look at them. Look at them!! This is modern architecture at its cold, faceless, soulless worst! I don't care is I.M Pei is famous and has a cool-looking name, and put that glass pyramid in the middle of The Louvre, this is crap work, and particularly egregious in that it's in the middle of the Village. The bodegas on either side on my block are more worthy.

Five Days Left

Hey, Landmarks Preservation Commission! Update your freakin' website!

The next public meeting is on Tuesday and there's still no agenda posted on the website. A call to the commission yesterday received a response that the agenda would be posted today. Still not there. The details for the Jan. 22 and Feb. 5 meetings were online 10 days to two weeks beforehand.

Though I guess they have until 5 PM to get it down, in today's development atmosphere in which every landmark is in danger of the wreaking ball, it's this kind of delay that breeds conspiracy theories. What exactly is on the agenda they they don't want the public to be prepared for?

I am no doubt overreacting. Hey, it's what I do.

UPDATE (Friday, 9 PM): Ah, the agenda is up. What a little whining will do!

Is Queens Temple Sacred?

The borough of Queens suffers from a criminal paucity of designated landmarks, a situation, I have learned over time, that has much to do with Manhattan-centric bigotry, neglect and rotten, back-room Queens politics.

The borough stands to gain a precious tally in the win column on Tuesday, Jan. 15, when the Landmarks Preservation Committee holds a public hearing in which it will hear out the case for preserving Congregation Tifereth Isreal, a temple at 109-20 54TH Avenue, Queens. Built in 1911 in Corona, it very much resembled the kind of synagogues one finds on the Lower East Side, as Queens Crap noted. (I am indebted to QC for the picture.) It's a sweet little thing, in my opinion, and deserved to get the nod.

The meeting will also consider the calendaring of proposal to extend the Noho Historic District. Right now, the district basically covers a narrow area bordered on the south by Houston, on the north by Wanamaker Place (E. 9th), on the west by Mercer and on the east by Lafayette, with a little jag over to the Bowery for a few blocks.

There's also a little historic district called Noho East—basically a bunch of building on and around Bleecker between Lafayette and Bowery. Who knew?

Heartening Numbers

It seems the Landmarks Commission has gotten the message that a lot of people think its been doing a lame job protecting the City's cultural heritage from ravenous overdevelopment.

In addition to landmarking a whopping eight properties across four boroughs at its meeting yesterday (including the Eberhard Faber Pencil Factory, above), as well as showing all signs that it likes the idea of a DUMBO historic district mighty fine, observers marked that the Commission is currently on a record-breaking landmarking spree.

AM New York noted that in fiscal year 2007, the Commission has anointed 1,158 buildings, the highest number since 1990. In 2005, by contrast, it offered protection to only 46. Woo-hoo! Now that's what I call progress.

Now I just have five words for the landmark-happy Commission: Expanded Carroll Gardens Historic District.

Eight, Count 'Em, Eight

The Landmarks Preservation Commission met on Tuesday, Oct. 30, to vote on a mess of proposed landmarks and, when the dust had settled, eight NYC buildings were untouchable.

The biggies were arguably Brooklyn's Eberhard Faber Pencil Factory complex and Manhattan's Lord & Taylor Building. Others included the Manhattan House on the Upper East Side, 511 and 513 Grand Street in the Lower East Side, Staten Island's Standard Varnish Works Factory and Gillette Tyler Mansion, and The Voelker-Orth Museum, Bird Sanctuary and Victorian Garden in Queens.

Which is all great. But what about Webster Hall? It was up for landmark status. Not good enough for the Commission? What happened?

Landmarks Commission's Got It Going On Oct. 30

The New York City Landmarks Commission has got a heap of important decisions to make at its next meeting, on Oct. 30.

Not only, will it be hearing arguments for making DUMBO a historical distict, but it will be considering casting its lanmarking magic ward over a couple dozen other significant properties. Among them: the Standard Varnish Works Factory Office in Staten Island; the Voelker Orth Museum, Bird Santuary and Victorian Garden in Queens; the Eberhard Faber Pencil Company in Brooklyn; the Lord & Taylor Building on Fifth Avenue; the 11th Street Public Bath; the Wheatsworth Factory in the East Village; and good old Webster Hall, also in the East Village.

Landmarks Commission Tries to Do the Write Thing

Today, the New York City Landmarks Commission will hear arguments for the landmarking of the proposed Eberhard Faber Pencil Company Historic District.

Everyone knows the Faber name from the sides of their yellow No. 2 pencils. Those beauties were produced in the Greenpoint factory until 1956, when the company moved to Pennsylvania. The factory was built in the 1870s, and was Faber's second place of business in New York City. (The first one, in Manhattan, burned down.) The factory is being packaged together with a few adjoining structures from the 1820s to create a district evoking old-time Greenpoint.

Eberhard Faber's real name, by the way, was John Eberhard Faber. For some reason, he dropped the "John" after opening his first U.S. factory. Perhaps a marketing decision; Eberhard is a much more memorable name than John. Johnny Boy died shortly after completing construction of the Greenpoint building.

Also scheduled to be considered for "calendaring" is Webster Hall, the large, red-brick building on E. 11th near Fourth Avenue that was once the site of many a marriage; and the East 11th Street Public Baths, between Avenues A and B.