Landmarked Bronx school is coming down

From the Daily News:

The Castle on the Concourse will face the wrecking ball — even though the city Landmarks Preservation Commission tried its best to save it.

Panel members said Tuesday they did not agree with the city’s plan to tear down the old Public School 31 building on the Grand Concourse in Mott Haven, but they could not stand in the way.

“It’s distressing,” Robert Tierney, the commission’s chairman, said at the hearing. “I do not see a solution. Right now, our options are severely limited.”

His fellow board member, Elizabeth Ryan, agreed.

“From a community point of view and an architectural point of view, I cannot condone this demolition,” she said.

Despite their reservations, they were unable to save the shuttered 114-year-old Gothic-style academy.

The Department of Buildings’ emergency order to wreck the structure, issued on Nov. 8, overrides the Commission’s advisory report.

City officials said Tuesday that the building was a public danger and would cost too much to shore up.

Still waiting for new LPC website

From Crains:

The Landmarks Preservation Commission has come under fire from one of its staunchest defenders, Brooklyn City Councilman Brad Lander, who chairs the Council's landmarks subcommittee. He accuses the commission of repeatedly breaking its promise to launching a $5 million website designed to bring transparency to a process by which the commission selects landmarks.

The site would not only provide a comprehensive and easily accessible list of the city's 1,323 individual landmarks and 109 historic districts but also a clear catalog of what would-be landmarks have been submitted for consideration and where they stand in the review process.

"If you're a neighborhood group filing a request or a business owner who wants to know the fate of your building, there is no easy way to track that now from the LPC's website," Mr. Lander said. "Transparency is at the heart of good government, it's at the heart of a thriving democracy."

Mr. Lander said that when he first took over the landmarks subcommittee, he had a meeting with LPC chairman Robert Tierney. It was at that point that Mr. Lander suggested the agency come up with a better website and was told by Mr. Tierney that one was in the works and it was only months away from completion. When Mr. Tierney repeated that statement last week at a Council hearing on the agency's budget, Mr. Lander was ready for him.

"You've been telling us the same thing, that it was months away, going on three years now," Mr. Lander shot back.

Delays may well continue.

"Until we get a system that meets our standards, we're not going to implement it," Mr. Tierney responded. When asked if that might be before the Bloomberg administration leaves office at the end of the year, Mr. Tierney responded that he did not know.

"Because we're working through these complex issues, it's not as simple, perhaps, as we once thought it was, for whatever reason, and the complexities have produced these issues that we have," Mr. Tierney said.

Robert Tierney insults Broadway-Flushing

Tierney letter to Avella re: B'Way-Flushing
"Based on the staff's review, the Commissioners' responses and my own review, considering the merits, staffing and priorities, I as the Chair, make the ultimate decision whether to bring a matter forward for formal consideration. In this case, and based on the review I described, I determined that it was unnecessary to further consider the proposal."

Allow me to translate. Bob basically just said that Mary Beth Betts nixed it off the bat, her biased analysis swayed the commissioners, and he only has staff available to push for "priorities" (i.e. anything in Manhattan and rowhouses in the outer boroughs).

As for Broadway-Flushing having been too altered to retain a "sense of place," there are SO many districts that have been adopted that have much less integrity than Broadway-Flushing, even after the last decade where they've had about 40 buildings demolished or altered (out of 1300).

Well, at least the great Democrat, Peter Koo, is happy.

Corrupt pols seek to honor another

From the Daily News:

Renaming the Queensboro Bridge after former Mayor Ed Koch moved a step closer to reality Friday after a City Council hearing that nearly doubled as a pep rally.

The testimony - much of it delivered by Koch's former colleagues in city government - was punctuated by laughter and fond memories of the ex-mayor.

"Mayor Koch is bold, tough, effective, charming and he stands firm, each and every day," former Queens Borough President Claire Shulman said with a chuckle. "The same can be said for our bridge."

"He helped saved all the city's bridges, including this one," said Robert Tierney, chairman of the Landmarks Preservation Commission.

A vote on the proposal to christen the span as the Edward Koch-Queensboro Bridge will be held within weeks.

Bones reburied at City Hall

From the NY Times:

Over the past 17 years, thousands of pieces of human remains dating back to the 18th century have been unearthed in the course of construction projects in and around City Hall.

In a quiet ceremony on Sunday afternoon presided over by Christian, Jewish and Islamic clerics, city officials reburied them and unveiled a marker in their remembrance, near a grove of ginkgo trees at the northeast corner of City Hall Park.

The burials were associated with an almshouse built in 1736 where City Hall now stands, two prisons, a barracks for British soldiers and the African Burial Ground.

“Some of the earliest New Yorkers were laid to rest on and near this site,” the landmarks preservation commissioner, Robert B. Tierney, said at the ceremony. “It is my hope that this marker might compel anyone who comes upon it to stop, read it, and maybe consider for a moment the New Yorkers who were a part of a settlement that evolved into the great city New York is today.”

Let's not dwell on the other locations of graves that have been disturbed in order to accommodate development. Rarely are the remains ever reburied and the dead commemorated with plaques. (It tends to be bad for real estate sales.)

Bloomberg reassigns LPC commissioner for trying to protect landmarks

From the NY Times:

Roberta Brandes Gratz, a member of the Landmarks Preservation Commission known for taking a hard line on protecting historic buildings, has been removed from the commission after seven years. She is expected to be appointed to the mayor’s sustainability advisory board.

Asked why the commission asked Ms. Gratz to go, Elisabeth de Bourbon, a spokeswoman for the commission, said only: “She was asked to do something else.”

Ms. Gratz has often been a thorn in the side of the commission, freely speaking her mind, even if her views clashed with other commissioners, City Hall or the chairman, Robert B. Tierney.

Altered house gets a pass from LPC

The Hubbard House in Brooklyn was designated as a landmark this past week, which is definitely a good thing. But the main reason given for its designation was quite interesting:

“The house retains an exceptional amount of original fabric,” said LPC Chairman Robert Tierney.

Really? Here are photos of the house:

1915

2002

Photos from the Brooklyn Museum.

Caroline supports Queens preservation

A Richmond Hill elementary school may be the first in Queens to gain landmark status after the city Landmarks Preservation Commission considered the school’s case last week.

PS 66 was constructed in 1898 and has Victorian features, including round arches and a bell tower used to notify children on farms that school was starting.

PS 66 was known as the Brooklyn Hills School when it opened in 1901, after the name of a nearby development. It was renamed the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis School in 2001, Leinwand said, in part because she promoted literacy and had a passion for historic preservation.

At the Manhattan hearing last week, Leinwand said LPC Commissioner Robert Tierney read a letter of endorsement from Onassis’ daughter, Caroline Kennedy.

Rich. Hill’s PS 66 up for landmark

Protecting distinctive houses of worship

Houses of worship are among the most sensitive issues facing the landmarks commission. Mandating that a church be preserved can not only impose a heavy financial burden on a congregation, it also raises the specter of state interference with religious freedom. So the commission has been especially loath to take on churches or synagogues that don’t want to be designated.

Preserving the City: Church and State

But many preservationists and at least one commission member argue that the landmarks commission has not been aggressive enough in protecting churches from the overheated real estate market of the last few years. Given that churches tend to be low-rise buildings in choice residential locations, they note, the structures became prime targets for developers intent on building high-rise apartment towers.

Mr. Tierney defended the commission’s record on houses of worship, citing 12 it has designated in his five-year tenure. Five were named individual landmarks and seven won protection as part of historic districts.

He then goes on to rattle off the names of a bunch of religious institutions in Manhattan...

Tierney the Terrible

Ruling on a lawsuit filed in March against the landmarks commission’s top officials by a preservationist coalition, the judge called the agency’s inaction “arbitrary and capricious” and ordered it to start making timely decisions on every designation request. To allow such proposals “to languish is to defeat the very purpose of the L.P.C. and invite the loss of irreplaceable landmarks,” the judge, Marilyn Shafer, wrote.

An Opaque and Lengthy Road to Landmark Status

The city says it will appeal. Still, the ruling was a significant victory for preservationists and politicians across the city who have long accused the commission of lacking the responsiveness and accountability that citizens expect from a watchdog of the city’s architectural history.

A six-month examination of the commission’s operations by The New York Times reveals an overtaxed agency that has taken years to act on some proposed designations, even as soaring development pressures put historic buildings at risk. Its decision-making is often opaque, and its record-keeping on landmark-designation requests is so spotty that staff members are uncertain how many it rejects in a given year.

Defenders and detractors alike agree that, with 16 researchers, the commission does not have the manpower to accede to that demand.

Yet in 2007 Mr. Tierney declined a budget increase of $750,000 approved by the City Council; instead the commission ended up getting an increase of just $50,000 for a total Council allocation of $300,000. (The current budget is $4.7 million.)

Preservationists say the larger issue is the manner in which Requests for Evaluation are handled at the agency. Currently they are funneled through the commission’s staff and Mr. Tierney, a former counsel to Mayor Edward I. Koch, who was appointed in 2003 despite having no background in architecture, planning or historic preservation. (Mr. Tierney, whose second three-year term ends in June 2010, earns an annual city salary of $177,698; the other commissioners are unpaid.)

Touchy Tierney

Dear Editor:

Re “The Missing Landmarks Commission” (editorial, Oct. 18):

Far from “missing,” the record shows that during the Bloomberg years the Landmarks Preservation Commission has experienced its most productive period in recent history. In fiscal year 2007 alone, 1,158 buildings were designated — more than in any other single year since 1990.

And the total number of buildings designated during this administration — 2,317 to date and counting — eclipses the number designated under any mayor since Edward I. Koch.

If the present pace continues, we will have designated more historic districts than any other administration since the commission was founded in 1965. A larger number of those districts will be outside Manhattan than ever before, too.

Adding to this effort, the commission recently conducted its largest survey in nearly two decades — completing an evaluation of more than 22,000 buildings in all five boroughs to identify the next generation of landmarks. This unparalleled activity has been made possible through close collaboration with the public and the preservation community.

Robert B. Tierney
Chairman, New York City
Landmarks Preservation
Commission
New York, Oct. 20, 2008

Yes, and the list will be deposited into the circular file. Mr. Tierney should answer why all neighborhoods in the city don't have at least one landmark and why some seem to get a disproportionate amount of attention.

Judge decides in LPC's favor in UES crap case

A real estate company is being blocked from redeveloping two Upper East Side tenements by a state court's ruling that they are historic landmarks.

The decision caps a two-decade tug-of-war in which the buildings were granted landmark status, lost it, got it back with the City Council's help, and most recently faced the prospect of losing it again. The tenements were built in 1915 as part of a model complex that aimed to improve the quality of "affordable" housing.

Landmarks Ruling Caps Long East Side Tenements Battle

The 15-structure development, occupying a block on York Avenue between 64th and 65th streets, was first designated as a landmark in 1990. In a compromise with owners four months later, the now-disbanded Board of Estimate stripped two of the buildings of their status.

The Landmarks Preservation Commission restored the designation in 2006, and the City Council backed it by a unanimous vote. The owner sued in state Supreme Court but lost in the decision announced yesterday.

The ruling allays fears that the owner, Stahl Real Estate, would tear down the tenements to make way for a pair of glass office towers.

Some of the tenements' architectural details have been altered, including their original paint color and façade material. The owner admitted to making those changes simply so it could argue that the buildings lack value as landmarks, according to the court's written opinion.

The court's decision "will make owners throughout the City think twice before removing certain features from their properties in an effort to stave off landmark designation," the Landmarks Preservation Commission chairman, Robert Tierney, said in a statement.

A representative for Stahl, Brian Maddox, noted that Judge Goodman cited the buildings' history and structure — rather than their architectural detail — in concluding that they are landmarks. The company is considering an appeal, Mr. Maddox said.

Previously featured here: Saving Upper East Side Crap

Anthony Como, preservationist?

During a two-hour meeting Tuesday at Landmarks Commission headquarters in Manhattan, Como told Tierney he supports historic districts in Richmond Hill and Ridgewood, as well as landmarking the Forest Park Carousel in Woodhaven.

The pair also talked about St. Saviour's Episcopal Church in Maspeth, built in 1847 but denied landmark status when the commission ruled that repairs after a 1970 fire had altered it too much.

Kate Daly, a commission spokeswoman, said the meeting with Como was "constructive," and that the agency was evaluating the sites he mentioned.

New councilman Anthony Como vows to push landmarking in Queens

You read that right, folks. Anthony really, really cares about historic preservation. While he was campaigning, he constantly mentioned that he helped form a historical society to save St. Saviour's. See for yourself:



However, after taking a peek at next year's expense budget, I couldn't help but notice that Anthony only allocated a combined total of $5,000 toward the preservation organizations in his district (peanuts), and completely left out the one he claims to have founded.

So I guess he's just full of shit.

LPC will be in landmarking overdrive

With less than 18 months left in Mayor Bloomberg's final term, the city's Landmarks Preservation Commission is in a race against the clock to approve historic designations for more than 1,000 buildings.

The number of proposed designations includes a planned new historic district in Prospect Heights with 860 of the buildings.

Last year, only 369 buildings were approved citywide.

"The clock is ticking, and we're trying to do as much as possible while we have the momentum and the resources," said Landmarks Preservation Commissioner Robert Tierney.

LANDMARKS BLOOMBLITZ

Landmarks lawsuit

On March 5th, the Citizens Emergency Committee to Preserve Preservation filed a lawsuit against New York City's Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) in State Supreme Court.

In the suit, CECPP challenges LPC Chair Robert Tierney's absolute power over the Commission's landmarking process. Currently, Chairman Tierney makes all decisions on whether landmark requests will be brought before the full commission for consideration. CECPP believes that this practice is an "unlawful usurpation of the power of the full Commission, and is authority in excess of his jurisdiction." As stated in the arguments before the court: "If staff members or a subcommittee, or the Chair alone, can reject proposed landmarks with no input from the full commission, who will protect the public interest against political pressures, lobbying, bias or just plain ignorance?" CECPP believes that Chairman Teirney's actions violate city, state and federal law and lead to unnecessary delays in the landmarking process, while excluding the valuable input of the full roster of commissioners, whose knowledge and participation are desirable.

In addition, CECPP is challenging LPC's "standards" by which Landmark applications are judged. Many taxpaying citizens, including knowledgeable preservation experts and professionals, have submitted landmark Requests for Evaluation (RFE) to LPC requesting that specific structures or neighborhoods be considered for either individual landmark status or inclusion within/as historic districts. These applicants have received letters stating that their proposed site or structure did not meet LPC's “criteria”. However, it is not clear who created the criteria since LPC has never published them in any way that is accessible to the public. It is critical that the LPC make public and fully transparent any criteria it considers relevant to judging the merits of RFE's so that preservation professionals and members of the preservation community have full understanding of the process and practices used by LPC.

By bringing this lawsuit, CECPP hopes to bring more transparency and openness to the city's landmarking process, and to make it a fair public process free from political interference and influence, as dictated by the 1966 NYC Landmarks Law. For a full copy of CECPP's petition, go to www.savelpc.org/images/mandamus.pdf. To review a copy of CECPP's Memorandum of Law associated with this case, go to www.savelpc.org/images/mol.pdf.

If you have questions regarding this case, please email them to
citizens@savelpc.org or call Mark at 646-228-6370.

DUMBO landmarked

DUMBO's industrial facades and celebrated view of the Manhattan Bridge will be preserved, as the city's Landmarks Preservation Commission yesterday voted unanimously to designate the area New York's 90th historic district.

DUMBO Area Gets Landmarked

While some critics consider the designation a hurdle to development, the chairman of the commission, Robert Tierney, said it was an opportunity to attract more interest in the area. "Preserving the neighborhood's character will make people want to come here," Mr. Tierney said.

You mean property values in landmarked neighborhoods go up?! Why does the Queens machine like to tell us the opposite?

Photo from Wired New York

"Landmarking lollapalooza"

The defensive shield that protects historic buildings from the whims of real estate developers grew significantly Tuesday, after the city designated seven new landmarks, including a former pencil factory in Greenpoint, Lord & Taylor on Fifth Avenue, and the former apartment tower home of Grace Kelly and Benny Goodman on East 66th Street.

In a city famous for a teardown mentality fostered by soaring real estate values, the idea of preservation may itself seem endangered. But it is the very speed of development that may have sparked the current wave of landmarking activity.

Landmarking booms as developers loom

In fiscal year 2005, only 46 buildings were landmarked. In fiscal year 2007, 1,158 buildings received protection, the highest number since 1990. The commission has also been aggressively landmarking in other boroughs, such as Queens and Staten Island.

"There is a lot of very aggressive activity going on here in support of historic designation," said commission chairman Robert B. Tierney Tuesday. "We have the support of the mayor, and that makes it easier."

Apparently Mr. Tierney got cut off. He surely must have said that if you are in a tweeded redlined area then you have a snowball's chance in hell of getting a landmark in your 'hood. And he forgot the part about focusing landmarking efforts in areas that either are already wealthy or where the city is leading gentrification efforts.

Are Tierney & company tops?

Recent criticism must really be getting to the LPC if their chair feels compelled to trick a reporter into write a vanity piece about it:

"In addition to preserving history," [LPC Chair Robert Tierney] says, "landmark status on a building or a neighborhood can increase the appreciation on home ownership and immediately improve the reputation of a neighborhood."

City Champions: Preserving the best of New York

In Prospect-Lefferts Gardens, the price of a brownstone in the designated historic district can sell for $100,000 to $150,000 more than a non-designated area with the same architecture three blocks away.

So they are admitting that preservation of neighborhoods boosts property values. How did they let that slip out? Now you understand why Queens is at the bottom of the barrel. It's called redlining.

City champions? I think not.

Photo from the City Review

Gioia leads Tierney around Sunnyside

Recently, Councilman Eric Gioia and the Landmarks Preserv- ation Comm- ission (LPC) led a tour of the proposed Sunnyside Gardens Historic District for City Council members who sit on the Council’s Landmarks Subcommittee.

Councilmembers from across the City, including Jessica Lappin (D-Manhattan), Chair of the Landmarks, Public Siting and Maritime Uses Subcommittee, and Melinda Katz (D-Queens), Chair of the Land Use Committee, walked the streets of Sunnyside to observe the neighborhood firsthand. The Landmarks Subcommittee will hold a hearing on landmarking Sunnyside Gardens on October 9 at 11am at City Hall. The hearing marks the beginning of the final phase of the landmark designation process and will be followed by a vote by both the Landmarks Subcommittee and the Land Use Committee
and, finally, by the entire City Council. Members of the community are invited to attend the hearing, where they will have the opportunity to offer testimony.

“Sunnyside Gardens means a lot to me,” Gioia said. “It’s a neighborhood I know and love well, and it’s where I’ve chosen to live with my family and raise my daughter. At the hearing, I will speak in favor of landmark designation, as I believe that landmarking represents the best way to preserve the unique and special character of the Gardens.

I urge all of my neighbors, whatever their point of view, to join me at City Hall on the morning of the 9th to have their opinions heard as well.”

Community members who have questions about the hearing or the landmarking process can call Councilman Gioia’s office at 718.383.9566.

Earlier this year, Councilman Gioia engaged in a neighborhood wide listening tour to solicit opinions from residents regarding the proposal to landmark the Gardens.

Gioia met with residents in his office, sent letters and emails, and had his staff call through residents to solicit input. In addition, he and his staff went out into the neighborhood, knocking on doors and trying to determine what people would like to see changed and what people considered most important to preserve.

Sunnyside Gardens was built in the 1920s as a leafy, green enclave for middle class families, just 3 miles from downtown Manhattan. It was the first American adaptation of the English garden city model, with buildings covering just over a quarter of the total land area.

The Landmarks Preservation Commission voted to designate Sunnyside Gardens on June 26. If approved by the Council, it will become Queens’ largest historic district.

Endangered rowhouses need your help

Letter Campaign To Preserve Oldest Forest Hills Rowhouses & Most Endangered (Please help)

June 21, 2007

I am Michael Perlman, Chairman of the "Rego-Forest Preservation Council," which advocates for the preservation of potential individual landmarks & potential historic districts, throughout Forest Hills & Rego Park, and proudly supports the efforts of other Queens neighborhoods. I would like to inform you of an effort that Jeff Gottlieb (Pres of Central Queens Historical Assoc.) & I are working on. We would appreciate your assistance by composing a letter of support to the Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC).

We are hoping to spare an extremely significant piece of Forest Hills history; the unique "Manhattan-style" rowhouses that are on the west side of 72nd Ave between Austin St & Queens Blvd (108-11, 15, 17, 19, 21 72nd Ave). They are Forest Hills' oldest buildings & the only remaining rowhouses of its type. They were erected in 1906 by Cord Meyer, on the first street to be cut through, Roman Ave (now 72nd Ave). They are also synonymous with the naming of Forest Hills by Cord Meyer. They were dedicated in 1991 by the Central Queens Historical Association, and re-dedicated in Aug 2006 in honor of the 100th anniversary of the rowhouses and Forest Hills' 100th. A plaque notes their significance.

Sadly, the rowhouses on the east side of the street have been completely demolished over the last few years. Out of the 5 remaining rowhouses on the west side, 2 are imminently endangered. They're presently for sale, and being pitched as "a perfect site for developers &/or investors."

Current & vintage photos are as follows: [Click here to view them.]

My proposal to the LPC is here: [Click here to view the text of the letter.] Please feel free to reference any facts, and send your version of the letter to the following addresses:
• Chairman Robert Tierney (rtierney@lpc.nyc.gov & comments@lpc.nyc.gov), and
• Dir. of Research Mary Beth Betts (mbetts@lpc.nyc.gov)
and carbon copy:
• Michael Perlman (unlockthevault@hotmail.com) &
• Jeff Gottlieb (jeffgottlieb@hotmail.com).

Also, please encourage other potential supporters to take out a few moments, and do their share. It is important that we unite in solidarity for noteworthy causes in our neighborhood(s).

Thank you for your support!

Michael Perlman
unlockthevault@hotmail.com