Back from the rubble
Landmarks panel oks plan to rebuild demolished facades
BY MAX PARROTT
When the city ordered
the demolition of nine
landmarked houses in
the Gansevoort Market Historic
District in the midst of a restorative
construction project
it effectively reduced the developer’s
plans to rubble. On Jan.
8, the city’s Landmarks Preservation
Commission greenlit
a new plan to fi nish the project
using the original bricks from
the raised historical buildings.
The plans to build on the
plot of landmarked brick 1840s
rowhouses, located at 44-54
Ninth Ave. and 351-55 West
14th St. in the Meatpacking
District, has long been a magnet
of controversy among the
neighborhood’s preservationists.
But the sudden demolition
of the historic brick exteriors
sparked outrage.
In the summer of 2020, the
LPC approved the developer’s
plan to construct a nine-story
commercial tower behind the
landmarked facades of the rowhouse
with the condition that
it expand the scope of its effort
to preserve the landmarked
exteriors of the original buildings
and reduce the size of
LOCAL NEWS
The aff ected buildings in the Meatpacking District.
the new building.
But that renovation plan
came down like a ton of bricks.
After construction on the project
began, engineers found
that the layers of brick composing
the facade were at risk
of collapsing onto the street.
Department of Buildings inspectors
PHOTO COURTESY OF GREENWICH VILLAGE SOCIETY FOR HISTORIC PRESERVATION
issued an emergency
order calling for the full removal
of street-facing facade of all
nine buildings.
The Greenwich Village Society
For Historic Preservation
(Village Preservation) argued
during the LPC hearing that the
demolition of the structure has
negated the developer’s original
plans to renovate the buildings’
historic facades. The group
called on the LPC to scrap the
whole development project,
which would involve stopping
the construction of the tower
behind the landmarked houses.
“Something is deeply wrong
when plans that are approved
by both the LPC and DOB either
don’t fi nd or lead to conditions
that supposedly create an
imminent danger requiring the
dismantling of landmark buildings,”
said Andrew Berman, of
Village Preservation, during
Tuesday’s hearing.
Dov Barnett, the head of
Tavros, the project’s developer,
pointed out that his architectural
fi rm Walter B Melvin associates
had done probes prior
to the construction, but none
of those probes had exposed
the walls’ deterioration until a
layer of sheetrock plaster was
removed during construction.
Barnett said that DOB and
the LPC had concluded that
the severe decay was a result
of “decades of weathering
wear and tear, lack of maintenance
and trauma from
previous alterations.”
In demolishing the exteriors,
Barnett’s team salvaged much
of the structures’ original bricks
by hand, and plans to intersperse
them with new matching
brick as much as possible. The
facades were also documented
with laser scans prior to their
demolition to ensure the reconstruction
is as authentic
as possible.
But the commission ruled
that the most proactive outcome
of the demolition is to work
closely with the developer to
move forward with the project
and ensure that the brick work
resembles that of the historic
structures as much as possible.
City defers Q’boro Br. bike path fi x
BY KEVIN DUGGAN
Cyclists and pedestrians
will have to fend for space
for a year longer than expected
on the Ed Koch-Queensboro
Bridge’s dangerously-tight
shared path because the city decided
to postpone giving walkers
their own lane until the end
of next year.
The bridge’s south outer
roadway was supposed to be
dedicated to foot traffi c by late
2022, but the Department of
Transportation pushed that
deadline back to December
2023, when the agency wraps
up a 20-month construction
project on the upper deck of
the span, according to a notice
DOT sent to local stakeholders
Thursday morning.
Currently, cyclists and pedestrians
have to share the notoriously
narrow northern outer
roadway, while vehicle traffi c
takes up nine lanes across two
levels of the bridge.
The plan announced by former
Mayor Bill de Blasio a year
ago was to give the southern
outer roadway to pedestrians
and make the northern one
bikes-only, mirroring the setup
on the Manhattan Bridge.
But DOT wants to leave
the southernmost lane open
to cars 24/7 while other lanes
are closed for the rehabilitation
of the top level in order
to to avoid traffi c jams
during the project.
Local councilmembers representing
both ends of the bridge,
Julie Menin (D–Manhattan)
and Julie Won (D–Queens),
urged the agency’s new Commissioner
Ydanis Rodriguez to
speed things up.
“This current situation is
quite treacherous already as
pedestrians and bikes cross
the bridge together in a narrow
space on the north outer
roadway,” the pols wrote in a
Feb. 3 letter.
DOT’s contract for the work
was already “well out the door”
before the then-mayor’s announcement,
an agency rep revealed
to Queens Community
Board 2 in November.
DOT has since bundled the
bike and pedestrian revamp
into the same project, according
to the agency.
The overhaul will extend the
upper deck’s lifespan by between
50-75 years after more
than a century of wear and tear
since it opened in June 1909.
Cyclists and pedestrians on the Queensboro Bridge.
During the repairs, one lane
on the upper deck will be closed
at all times and another one will
be out during off-peak travel
times, leaving the bridge with
seven or eight lanes for cars, depending
on the time of day.
FILE PHOTO
Agency reps have described
the 112-year-old Queensboro as
the “workhorse” of its four East
River bridges, carrying around
89,000 cars a day, compared to
51,000 on the Brooklyn Bridge,
according to April fi gures.
6 February 10, 2022 Schneps Media