For two years, work has started and stopped, and started again, depending on the outcome of some lawsuits and the resolution of various Building Department violations. Every day, as if visiting a dying friend, I’d look outside to see how badly things were going.Watching the Past Come Crashing Down
Now, when I look outside my dining room window, I don’t see light coming from the casement windows but rather drawn curtains. The town house is gone, and taking its place is what I assume is the beginning of a foundation for the “stacked town houses,” the new sliver apartment building with its seven duplex and triplex apartments.
So a new era begins on my block, and once again I have a bird’s-eye view of history, one in which a 150-year-old town house is demolished so seven purchasers can spend millions and have the privilege of living in (or more likely visiting) our city.
1 comment:
I can certainly sympathize
with Manhattan's tragic loss.
But across the river in Queens,
we've been lamenting our loses for decades,
because they're occurring on a wholesale level.
We've been losing our history at a dizzying pace.
So much so, that we're almost getting used to it.
Each day that a gracious survivor of our past
sits in the middle of a high density zone,
we keep a somber vigil and realize that
such sites are on death row .
They sit there defenseless,
awaiting the execution of their sentence
to be carried out some day in the near future.
Death by the wrecking ball!
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