DISTRICT LINES1h0ani22bqjx9rwiu3w2now1-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/... · Avenues in Manhattan with 1860s cot-tages inside garden walls, visible from the street. There were also two side-by-side

Part One: By Intent

When the owner of a landmark takes uptools or hires a contractor to tear downhis or her building or parts of it anddoes so without permits or in violationof permits issued for alterations only, heor she commits demolition by intent. Itis a grievous violation of the LandmarksLaw and makes the owner liable for afine up to the fair-market value of thelandmarked parcel.

Owners who demolish withoutostensible intent, by failing to maintaindeteriorating buildings, commit demo-lition by neglect. A leaking roof thatgoes unrepaired long enough will col-lapse. This is common knowledge. It’show ruins come about. Owners whoallow demolition by neglect can be sub-ject to criminal action by the Land-marks Preservation Commission.

We deal first with six notoriousexamples of demolition by intent. Oneof the most egregious is:

Amster Yard, bulldozed in 2001.Amster Yard was a courtyard on East49th Street between Second and ThirdAvenues in Manhattan with 1860s cot-tages inside garden walls, visible fromthe street. There were also two side-by-side town houses facing the street. Thecomplex was one of the LPC’s first des-

ignations, in the 1960s, and deserved tobe. In 1970 the owner, hoping to pre-serve Amster Yard in perpetuity, soldthe air rights to a developer of an officebuilding on Third Avenue so that noth-ing could be built over the cottages. In

May 1999 the site was purchased by theInstituto Cervantes, a Spanish-govern-ment cultural organization, whichwanted an auditorium and, not allowedto build over the cottages, proposed tobuild underneath them. The instituteapplied to the LPC in August 2000 toexcavate the courtyard, demolish two ofthe four houses inside the courtyard andperform other alterations. The LPCheld four public hearings betweenOctober 2000 and February 2001 andfinally approved the application. Appar-ently, no concerns were raised duringthe hearings about how the structures

D I S T RI C T L I N E Snews and views of the historic districts council

Landmark Demolition, by Intent or Neglect

autumn 2003 volume XVII number 2

p.1 ~ Landmark Demolition, by Intent or Neglect p.2 ~ President’s Column p.3 ~ Landmarks Commission Proposes Fees for Permits—Update p.4 ~ District Profiles: Charlton-King-Vandam Historic District, Manhattan

p.5 ~ “Streams of Exotic, Devilish Creatures”—Herbert Muschamp’s Ideal City p.7 ~ Hart-felt Tribute: HDC to Lionize Kitty Carlisle p.8 ~ A Recent LPC Appointment p.9 ~ HDC Welcomes New Directors and Advisers p.10 ~ Latest Gifts and Grants

Historic Districts Council

Digging in the basement of photographer Annie Liebovitz’s house, left, on West 11thStreet in Manhattan led to the near collapse of the neighbors’ corner house.

photo: Catherine McNeur

In the past two or three years, many landmarks have been destroyed withoutLandmarks Preservation Commission permits and without Department ofBuildings permits. It has happened sometimes in the middle of the night withno one around, sometimes behind walls by workers with jackhammers and axes.Because this is such a major offense not only of the Landmarks Law but also,more importantly, to the buildings and neighborhoods in which the vandalismoccurs, District Lines is using this issue and the next to explore the topic.


District Lines ~ Autumn 2003 ~ page 2

My first privilege as the new presidentof the Historic Districts Council is tothank the past presidents who haveserved HDC so well—Joe Rosenberg,Tony Wood, Er ic Al l i son and HalBromm. They have given unstintingly oftheir time both while in office and after-ward. I only hope that with their contin-uing support and advice I can meet thehigh standard they have set.

The first chal lenge in my shorttenure has been to oppose the Land-marks Preservation Commission’s pro-posal to levy fees for permits to do workon individual landmarks and buildings inhistoric districts. HDC has consistentlyopposed LPC fees—see the article onpage 3 for details—and hopefully we willsucceed one day in reversing them. Weshould reward people who maintain his-toric properties, not charge them.

On the brighter side, there is goodnews for HDC in the form of a three-year capacity-building grant from theMertz Gilmore Foundation. This grantnot only enables us to expand our advo-cacy efforts throughout the city; it chal-lenges us to raise more funds to supportour efforts. We are fortunate also tohave received funds from the Manhat-tan delegation of the City Council. Athank you to Councilmember GaleBrewer for her continuing supportiveefforts. Both these items of good newsare testament to the hard work andskills of our directors and advisers, espe-cially Eric, Franny Eberhart and DavidFreudenthal.

Other good news is that we will behonoring Kitty Carlisle Hart as thisyear’s Landmarks Lion. Mrs. Hart has

given much encouragement to preserva-tion groups as a member and as chair ofthe New York State Council on the Artsand even supported advocacy groupswhen other funders shied away from it.Be sure to read our profi le of thisremarkable woman on page 7.

What do we hope to accomplish inthe near future? Our conference lastyear on “Preser v ing the SuburbanMetropolis” has spurred us to redouble

our efforts to get long-neglected andworthy areas in The Bronx, Brooklyn,Queens and Staten Island designated ashistoric districts, and we are workingwith local neighborhood organizationsto meet this goal. We are also expandingour educational efforts by holding mini-conferences on preser vation topicsthroughout the boroughs. In LowerManhattan we are focusing our effortsto preserve the historic fabric in a pro-posed John Street/Maiden Lane His-toric District.

Carrying out our goals has been inthe able hands of our executive director,Simeon Bankoff. His enthusiasm andhard work have contributed greatly toour growth and accomplishments overthe last few years. I would also like towelcome to the office our two newpreservation associates, Melissa Bal-dock and Catherine McNeur. Our staffhas brought a high level of professional-ism to all our efforts. I look forward toworking with both staff and volunteersin the coming years.

—David Goldfarb

D I S T R I C TL I N E S

news and views of thehistoric districts council

editor ~ Penelope Bareau

layout and production ~ Ross Horowitz

editorial consultant ~ Jack Taylor

contributors ~ Melissa Baldock, Simeon Bankoff,

Penelope Bareau, David Goldfarb, Eve Kahn,

Cathereine McNeur, Francis Morrone

the historic districts council is the

citywide nonprofit advocate for new

york’s designated historic districts,

and for neighborhoods meriting

preservation. the council is dedicated

to preserving the integrity of new

york city’s landmarks law and to

furthering the preservation ethic.

P R E S I D E N T ’ S C O L U M NU M N

New HDC president, David Goldfarb,left, hands Hal Bromm an antiquarianbook about New York as a token ofthanks for his service to HDC as the out-going president.

would withstand the proposed con-struction. A month or so after construc-t ion began, one wal l of the smal lcourtyard houses was judged to beunstable. Instead of just the wall, all ofthe buildings were torn down com-pletely. Today only the facades of thetwo former town houses on East 49thStreet and a small structure in the court-yard exist. The decision to demolish wasmade by the contractor, who did notconsult any government entity thatcould validate such a decision—theLPC, the Department of Buildings, theFire Department or any other agency.No penalty has been levied against thedeveloper because the Instituto Cer-vantes has promised to restore the gar-den to its predesignation 1949 state. Ithasn’t happened yet.

The house owned by celebrity pho-tographer Annie Liebovitz at 305-307West 11th Street, in the Greenwich Vil-lage Historic District, is another example.That house is next door to a corner housethat Ms. Liebovitz had apparently triedand failed to buy to enlarge her space. Shehad already combined two town houses bygutting them; the one on the cornerwould have been the third. In October2002, workers were digging in her sub-cel-lar to lower its floor when the party wall

with the corner house cracked andshifted, causing the wall to drop anddetach from the floor. A gas line rupturedin that house, and the owners were forcedto move out; the Department of Build-ings later declared it unsafe for occu-pancy. Subsequently the house wasbraced, but during the winter Ms.Liebovitz’s house was left without win-dows and was open to the elements, andthe corner house suffered rain damage


continued on page 3



Landmarks

Commission

Proposes Fees for

Permits—Update

Fiscal crises sometimes inspire bad ideas,and the current crisis facing New YorkCity is no exception. Asked by MayorMichael R. Bloomberg to raise anunprecedented $1.05 million in annualrevenue (more than a third of its annualbudget), the Landmarks PreservationCommission has proposed institutingfees for work permits on landmark prop-erties. Although this idea has been putforward several times before, the currentfee scheme is different in that it applies tolandmarks permits that also requireDepartment of Buildings permits.

LPC currently issues three kinds ofpermits:

• Permits for Minor Work (PMW),which apply to work such as facaderepainting and window and doorreplacement that do not requireDOB permits;

• Certificates of Appropriateness(COA), which affect the protectedfeatures of landmark buildings andare brought to public hearing forreview by the commissioners;

• Certificates of No Effect (CNE),which ensure that the work appliedfor at DOB, such as interior renova-tions and infrastructure enhance-ments, will not affect the protectedfeatures of a property.

The current proposal calls for feesequal to half of the existing Departmentof Buildings fees to be charged for allCOAs and CNEs—more than 80 per-cent of all applications, according to theLPC. This amounts to a surcharge onpreservation, and penalizes residentsand owners who seek to invest in his-toric properties.

That these fees will equally apply towork not affecting the protected fea-tures of a landmark does not make senseand only worsens the blow.

On July 8th the LPC held its firstpublic hearing on this proposal. Morethan 40 groups and individuals sent

continued on page 11

Landmark Demolition,

by Intent or Neglect

continued from page 2

Conical slate roofs of the Towers Nursing Home were ripped off in violation of LPC per-mits to stabilize. The towers have been left open to the elements for two years.


through the roof where it came apartfrom the wall. Minimal work has beendone by Ms. Liebovitz other than theinstallation of an emergency metal braceto prevent the buckling wall on the cornerbuilding from collapsing. She faces a viola-tion and a fine of up to $2,500 to be set ata court date. In March 2003, the ownersof the corner house sued Ms. Liebovitzfor $15 million, accusing her of conspiringto drive them from their building and oflaunching a “terror campaign of harass-ment, provocation, and ultimatelydestruction” after they refused to sell hertheir house. It is now so damaged that itwould have to be completely rebuilt, andthey have dropped the lawsuit and agreedto sell to Ms. Liebovitz. She still has notundertaken necessary repairs for thethree buildings.

The Towers Nursing Home onCentral Park West between 105th and106th Streets in Manhattan was origi-nally the New York Cancer Hospital, thefirst cancer hospital in the UnitedStates. Designed in the Romanesque

style by Charles Coolidge Haight, it wasbuilt in stages between 1884 and 1926.The building’s round towers with coni-cal slate roofs have long defined its pic-turesque profile. As a nursing facility,the building closed in 1975 and has beenvacant since then. Over the past quartercentury, this individual landmark hasbeen a victim of arson and has gonethrough a series of negligent ownerswho have al lowed it to deteriorate.However, it is the Towers’s most recentowner who is responsible for intention-ally demolishing significant portions ofthe landmark, including the building’ssignature conical roofs. In early 2001,the owner began work on the site using aCertificate of Appropriateness the LPChad issued eight years earlier that calledfor the stabilization and rehabilitationof the historic structure. It also allowedfor the construction of an adjacent 27-stor y tower. Ignoring the COA, theowner subsequently demolished signifi-cant portions of the Towers building andremoved the conical slate roofs, leavingthe interior of the building open to theelements. It is still open, two years later.The 27-story tower has been built, butthe landmark looks like a victim of the

continued on page 8



statements or letters against the pro-posal, and an additional 28 speakers fromacross the city testified against it, includ-ing City Councilmember Bill Perkinsand former LPC Commissioner AnthonyM. Tung. Elected officials who weighedin against the proposal were Coun-cilmembers Christine Quinn, MichaelMcMahon, Alan Gerson and Tony Avella,and Assembly member Deborah Glick.HDC has orchestrated a widespreadpublic-awareness campaign thatincluded coverage in The New YorkTimes, New York Newsday, the QueensChronicle, The New York Sun and televi-sion’s NY1.

Those in opposition were unified intheir contention that this proposal under-mined the fragile ethos of preservation bypenalizing positive preservation action.Far better, most of them argued, to raiserevenues from violators of the LandmarksLaw, who currently are under-prosecutedand under-penalized. Others suggestedcharging a special fee to movie or televi-sion productions for permission to film indesignated historic districts.

Only three organizations came outin favor of fees, the Municipal Art Soci-ety, the New York Landmarks Conser-vancy and the Real Estate Board of NewYork. Frank Sanchis, executive directorof MAS, testified in person and said thatthe preservation committee had madethe decision to back fees but that it hadnot been unanimous. The Conservancydid not testify in person but sent a let-ter. The Real Estate Board has long beena proponent of fees.

LPC has said that a vote will be takenon this matter in the fall. Until then,

was bordered on the west by GreenwichStreet and the Hudson River (landfilllater added Wa shington and WestStreets). The house had been built for anemissary of George III in 1767 and wasused by George Washington as his head-quarters during the Revolutionary War.It was later used as a vice-presidentialmansion by John Adams when New Yorkwas the capital; Aaron Burr bought itwhen Adams’s term ended in 1797.

Records show Burr residing at otheraddresses, but his entertainments atRichmond Hill were said to be amongthe most lavish in the city. He must havebeen thinking early on about developingthe property because in 1797 he filed amap—still in the Hall of Records—dividing the six-acre property into 25-by-100-foot building lots and mappingCharlton, King and Vandam Streets.

In the presidential election of 1800,Burr became vice-president, and thecapital moved from New York to Wash-ington, so Burr would have had to movethere. However, he kept Richmond Hilland from there ran unsuccessfully forgovernor of New York State in 1804.Alexander Hamilton had published slursabout him, and the famous duel betweenthe two men took place that yearbecause of the insults. Burr mortally

HDC will continue to fight this proposal.If fees are enacted, HDC will endeavor tohave them removed from the budget forthe coming year and to have this amend-ment to the Landmarks Law rescinded.

The Landmarks Law and the Land-marks Preservation Commission havesur vived and prospered for 38 yearsworking in partnership with New York-ers who care passionately about our his-toric city. To tax citizens for that passionis a form of betrayal.

Charlton-King-

Vandam Historic

District,

Manhattan

In the early years of the Republic a fabu-lous Georgian mansion stood on a 400-foot-high hill where this designatedhistoric district now lies. The estate,known as Richmond Hill, was just southof what is now West Houston Street and

The New York Sun got it right with this car-toon drawn by Igor Kopelnitsky and usedhere by permission.

As cited by the designation report, the north side of Charlton Street “retains what is proba-bly the longest row of Federal and early Greek Revival houses in the City.”

photo: Penelope Bareau

D I S T R I C T P RO F I L E S



Mr. Morrone, author of the following arti-cle, is the architecture critic for The NewCriterion and a columnist for The NewYork Sun. He is also an architectural his-torian and the author of three books onarchitecture, with another to be publishedby Rizzoli later this year.

* * *When Herbert Muschamp became archi-tecture critic at The New York Times,few New Yorkers had heard of him. Somewithin the architecture field were wellaware of him, however. He had held anumber of prestigious positions, havingbeen architecture critic for the NewRepublic and for Artforum, and havingcreated, at Parsons School of Design (hisalma mater), a master’s degree program indesign criticism. He was also the authorof “Man about Town: Frank Lloyd Wrightin New York City,” published in 1983.

At first I thought this a marvelousbook. In its first half, Muschamp clearly

limned Wright’s complicated relationshipto a city he disingenuously professed todisdain. The second half of the book,however, was another matter. HereMuschamp strung together a bunch oforacular or otherwise cryptic remarks—and nothing but remarks, not in the leastamounting to critical discussion—on avariety of urban and philosophicalthemes. I sensed in this section the note-book—even the diary—jottings of aneager undergrad. Muschamp was a smartguy, to be sure. And young. As he matured,perhaps he might be a major critic.

And then he got the Times job. Hereplaced Paul Goldberger, a fine, plain-talking critic who had been promoted bythe paper to cultural-affairs editor. (Henow serves as The New Yorker’s architec-ture critic.)

Way back in 1992, Muschamp wrote areview of Frank Williams’s Trump Palaceapartments, on Third Avenue and 68thStreet, that was an exemplary piece of archi-

tecture criticism. I recall that I felt I was inthe presence of a critic maturing by theweek, a critic who might indeed carry onthe high standard set by his predecessors,Ada Louise Huxtable and Paul Goldberger.And later in that same year it was nice to seeMuschamp demonstrate his editorial inde-pendence by hammering away at the mis-conceived Times Square Center project,which his own newspaper had promoted.

Yet in that very piece Muschamp setthe tone for his next 11 years of commen-tary. He used one of his favorite conceits,the personalization of inanimate objects.Muschamp: “Perhaps the most construc-tive approach would be simply to stop,look and listen to Times Square’s ownideas about what it wants to be.”

What?“And what it mostly wants to be is a

version of the Freudian id. It’s the greatmaw of pleasure, desire and fear, openingitself wide for our entertainment like thehell’s mouth in a medieval morality play.We’d feel cheated if we didn’t see streamsof exotic, devilish creatures come skip-ping out of those jaws in search of cheapthrills and tawdry glamour, and we’d beequally disappointed if we couldn’t alsodepend on the morality brigade to comescampering right after, like the Save-a-Soul Mission in ‘Guys and Dolls,’ wieldingnightsticks, Bibles and urgent referrals tosocial service agencies, prodding the littledevils to clean up their acts.”

Mind you, that’s what Times Squaretold Herbert Muschamp it wants to be.Eight years later, Lincoln Center said toMuschamp:

“I want glass and travertine walls. Nodiamonds, please. Give me rhinestones.Arches that look paper thin. An operahouse with Sputnik chandeliers that riseheavenward at curtain time. A massivegrand staircase that goes nowhere. Just aplace to pose on yards of red carpet. Thebiggest bad Chagalls in this poor diva’sworld.”

Okay, that’s a critical tic, I thought;annoying, to be sure, but not necessarilyrelated to his substantive worldview.

Times Square speaks to Herbert Muschamp, and that’s saying a lot. Here is what the “greatmaw of pleasure” looked like on a recent afternoon.

photo: Simeon Bankoff

“Streams of Exotic, Devilish Creatures”—

Herbert Muschamp’s Ideal City

Francis Morrone critiques The Times’s Architecture Critic



As time went on, however,Muschamp became that avant-gardecliché: the self-conscious revolutionarywho wishes to subvert an establishment inorder to impose his own. To wit: “Conflictremains the most important culturalproduct a great city puts out.” Or:“Gehry’s great gift is to present aestheticdisobedience and urban disturbance aspure exercises in social responsibility.” Orthis: Rem Koolhaas’s goal, in his plan forthe Museum of Modern Art, “was toweaken the existing boundaries betweenprivate (the museum) and public space(the street). His design resumed the mod-ern task of relaxing the conventions ofsocial and psychological encounter.” Or,in the aftermath of 9/11: “Patriotismwould have a greater depth right now ifour surroundings reflected a more mod-ern and progressive outlook.”

Muschamp loves to cite his favoritearchitects as beleaguered outsiders cryingfor a chance to be heard. In a 2001 pieceon Morris Lapidus, Muschamp wrote:“Have you been wondering, perhaps, whyFrank Gehry, Rem Koolhaas and PeterEisenman have been criticized for main-tenance problems with their buildings,while Richard Meier, Charles Gwathmeyand Norman Foster have gone relativelyunscathed? I have. Buildings that are notnormative, that appeal to the emotions,that find beauty in the commonplace,transgress rules of decorum that are evenmore rigid now than in Lapidus’s time.They are all too close to the beach, too farfrom the rational, sensible and orderly,too nomadic in their aesthetic sensibility.As for Philippe Stark, he’s too … swanky.”

How “not normative” can you bewhen, like Koolhaas, you have a PritzkerPrize and billions of dollars in commis-sions? As for Muschamp, he’s so “not nor-mative” that he can find no bettermedium than The New York Times fromwhich to spout his views!

In addition, Muschamp cameincreasingly to employ the language of themorally righteous and to attack in themost ad hominem ways those he dis-dained. His shrill invective bore the flavorof religious fundamentalism. Robert A.M. Stern “represents a brand of themepark design that has misrepresented itselfas classicism—as architecture, for thatmatter—for three decades.” The Munici-pal Art Society is “a group that shouldhave been keeping the city on its architec-

tural toes [and] has instead contributed tothe city’s creative torpor.”

When the first chair of the LandmarksPreservation Commission, Harmon H.Goldstone died in 2001, David Dunlapwrote in The Times: “Mr. Goldstone livedto see a day when the preservation move-ment was regarded by its critics as so pow-erful and influential that it had stultifiedthe development of innovative modernarchitecture in New York City.” Dunlapclearly had Muschamp in mind. Muschamploathes most preservationists. In a 2000piece, he wrote of the “good buildings thathave gone unbuilt because preservation hasabsorbed much of the energy that oncesupported the idea of architecture.”

His animosity is so great that if Mar-cel Breuer’s 1970s scheme for a Modernisttower atop Grand Central Terminal were

“…Muschamp came increas-ingly to employ the languageof the morally righteous…”

revived, Muschamp would probablyendorse it. After all, the ’70s was the lastperiod of real architectural verve in NewYork, as he repeatedly avers.

Writing in 2001 about RockroseDevelopment’s Queens West project,Muschamp opined: “For a site whereviews are paramount, the [design] guide-lines restrict the use of glass in favor ofmasonry walls. Instead of encouragingnew approaches to planning, the masterplan mandates neo-traditional towers onbases with uniform street lines. Can thebishop’s-crook lampposts, world’s-fairbenches, hexagonal pavers and othertheme-park accessories be far behind?Will we have Gene Kelly look-alike door-men dancing to ‘Singing in the Rain’?”

Writing of French architect JeanNouvel’s proposed Broadway GrandHotel in 2001, when some local preser-vationists said it broke too harshly fromthe prevailing architecture of the SoHo-Cast Iron Historic District, Muschampbrutally dismissed their concerns andpraised Nouvel’s design thus: “Thishotel is made for ‘Moody’s Mood forLove’ as performed by King Pleasure, ona rainy weekday afternoon, downtown,in a room surrounded by low-rise build-ings. Think Edward Hopper crossedwith Pedro Almodóvar. Not least, thisdesign is about sex... Modulating the

visual texture of glass with reflectivity,fretted patterns, screened-on images,blurring, veiling, coloration, supportsystems, and other techniques, theseprojects summon forth states of narcis-sism, exhibitionism, voyeurism, veiling,vamping, elusiveness, disconsolation,Hitchcock’s blonde.”

That architecture should “summonforth states” of exhibitionism andvoyeurism, that this is something the Land-marks Preservation Commission shouldget behind, is a remarkable notion. We canonly conclude that Muschamp’s ideal city isbased on puerile fantasies of watching peo-ple disrobe in uncurtained, glass-walledrooms. I think he could use a cold shower.

In the end, Muschamp is an intellec-tual poseur. Nothing underscored this forme more than a piece that began thus:“Oh, what can you do with a man likeJacques Barzun?” Barzun is, of course, theeminent cultural historian and one of thegreatest scholars of the 20th century. Atthe time of Muschamp’s writing, Barzun’smagnum opus, entitled “From Dawn toDecadence,” had just come out and occu-pied a spot on the Times best-seller list,rare for a book of intellectual heft. ButMuschamp invoked Barzun’s name onlyto supply a cutesy intro to an articleabout Frank Gehry. Muschamp charac-terized “From Dawn to Decadence” as“the best-selling jeremiad on the cultureof our times.” Yes, it was a best seller. No,it’s not a “jeremiad” and no, it’s not “onthe culture of our times.” If Muschamphad done more than look at the title ofthe book he would have known that, butHerbert Muschamp saw fit to takeBarzun to task for his failure to appreci-ate that we live in a golden age defined inlarge part by the achievements of thearchitect of Guggenheim Bilbao. “Youcan send Mr. Barzun and all the other evileyes out there to the Solomon R.Guggenheim Museum,” where they couldsee a show that “goes far toward dis-pelling the anger that has restricted ourage from acknowledging artistic great-ness in our midst.”

We have Muschamp the implacablefoe of preservation, Muschamp the nar-cissistic revolutionary and Muschampwho believes that voyeuristic sex fantasiesform a perfectly reasonable basis of archi-tectural judgment.

Oh, what can you do with a man likeHerbert Muschamp?



“I’ve called them all ‘Governor, darling,’”said Kitty Carlisle Hart, with her custom-ary twinkle. She was reflecting on herdecades of public service to cultural organ-izations and her knack for increasing gov-ernment arts funding under fourgovernors so far,: from Nelson Rockefeller,to George Pataki. From 1976 to 1996 shechaired the New York State Council onthe Arts, and is currently titled chairmanemeritus. “When I came aboard, we wereonly funding a handful of institutions,” sherecalled. “I was like Johnny Appleseed,running around the state, figuring outwhere to give money next and pushing formore funding. The staff would tell me,‘There’s a tiny organization doing wonder-ful things, it’s five flights up in the north-west corner of the state, where it’s snowingnow,’ and I’d say, ‘Let’s go!’ ”

In early November the Historic Dis-tricts Council will honor Mrs. Hart as its2003 Landmarks Lion with a benefit cele-bration. As a new Lion, Mrs. Hart joins adistinguished group of preservationists,among whom are Margot Gayle, founder ofFriends of Cast Iron; Joan Davidson, formerNew York State Parks and Recreation chair;and Otis Pratt Pearsall, former chair of theLandmarks Preservation Commission.

Saying how thrilled he is to be honor-ing Mrs. Hart, HDC President DavidGoldfarb commented, “Preservationgroups blossomed while Mrs. Hart waschair of NYSCA. Her advocacy forpreservation organizations has enabledthem to survive and flourish across NewYork State. Everyone in the preservationmovement owes her a debt of gratitude.”

“On Mrs. Hart’s watch, NYSCAcommitted over $20 million for historic-preser vation projects and groups,”explained Anne Van Ingen, NYSCA’sdirector of the Architecture, Planning andDesign Program and Capital Projects,who oversees some $2.5 million in yearlygrants out of NYSCA’s $46 million annualoutlay. When Governor Rockefellerestablished the agency in 1960, Ms. VanIngen added, “A core principle of theenabling legislation was the celebration,protection and reuse of the state’s historicarchitecture. The vast majority of otherstate arts councils don’t fund preserva-

tion, or have had those programs cut dras-tically or altogether, and no other artscouncil gives operating money to historic-preservation groups.”

NYSCA funds 25 staffed preserva-tion organizations, including the Preser-

vation League of New York State, theLandmarks Society of Western NewYork and the Historic Districts Council.“Mrs. Hart,” Ms. Van Ingen continued,“has been an unflagging champion ofour program through the good budgettimes and the bad. She has fought tokeep it flourishing.”

Born in New Orleans as CatherineConn, Mrs. Hart was a young girl whenher father died, and she grew up mainlyin Europe, traveling with her mother,who encouraged her to study music anddrama. In the 1920s the family alightedin New York. “I’d ride the bus from ourapartment on Riverside Drive and 98thStreet to Gramercy Park and back,” shesaid. “That was my big excitement on a

Saturday afternoon, and the top of thedouble-decker bus was my bailiwick.”

As Kitty Carlisle, she has been per-forming as a singer and actress since herBroadway debut in 1931 at the 1919Empire-style Capitol Theatre, a moviepalace and legitimate house on 50thStreet designed by Thomas W. Lamb (itwas demolished, she laments, in 1967).She married playwright-director MossHart in 1946, and the couple collabo-rated and socialized with dozens of Hol-lywood and Broadway legends includingIrving Berlin, George S. Kaufman, theMarx Brothers, Cole Porter and NoëlCoward. Beginning shortly after Mr.Hart’s death in 1961, she devoted herselfto charitable work and has served onmuseum, university and foundationboards around the U.S.

She raised her children, Christo-pher and Catherine, in an apartment onthe Upper East Side where she still lives(and is frequently visited by three grand-children). The building, a 1907 Neo-Classical palazzo, was designed byWilliam E. Mowbray. It is as flawlesslykempt as the ever-elegant Mrs. Hartherself. Cartouches are sculpted onto itscream-colored-brick exterior, and rowsof lions’ heads gaze out from the denselybracketed cornice—which, of those onthe many landmarks she has helped save,is one of her favorites.

“We had that cornice restored in thelate 1980s,” she said. “It’s one of thelargest in the city, with a huge uphol-stered room behind it—you could prac-tical l y l ive there!” Her dècor is anexample of devoted preservation, too;even the flocked red wallpaper in thedramatic foyer has not changed in fourdecades and has held up well. The onlytraces of modernity in sight, amid theEuropean and Asian antiques and the-atrical memorabilia, are dozens of crys-tal and silver thank-you mementos fromarts organizations across the country.

Her life remains a whirl of culturaland social events and singing perform-ances. “And I’m still discovering won-derful things in the city,” she said. “Ihoof it, I try to walk miles each day. I’venever lost my curiosity.”

Kitty Carlisle Hart, the HDC’s LandmarksLion for 2003. Mrs. Hart, singer, actress andenthusiastic preservationist, headed theNew York State Council on the Arts, whereshe aided preservation groups during theterms of four governors.

Hart-felt Tribute:

HDC to Lionize Kitty Carlisle



wounded Hamilton and soon afterwardleft New York.

But first he made an arrangementwith John Jacob Astor, New York’s mostactive property developer of the time, totake over the house and property, providedBurr could buy it back within a period of20 years. In 1817, back in New York andpracticing law, Burr completed the sale toAstor and received a generous payment forthe property. Development began.

The house was rolled down the hill tothe southeast corner of Charlton and thenewly opened Varick Street, where itserved as a space for public gatheringsuntil it was demolished in 1849. The hillwas leveled, lots laid out according toBurr’s plan and by the mid-1820s all thehouses on Charlton and Vandam Streetsand many on King Street were built.Except for four Greek Revival houses onthe north side of Charlton built to replaceones destroyed in an 1840 fire, all thatexist today are original.

They were built on speculation by asmall number of architect-builders, and theLandmarks Preservation Commission’sdesignation report of August 1966 creditsthat circumstance for the “exceptional har-mony of old houses built within a few yearsof each other. On the north side of VandamStreet,” the report goes on, “there is anunbroken row of Federal houses, almost allretaining their original steps and entrances,their pitched roofs and dormers and theirironwork. Charlton Street, on its north side,retains what is probably the longest row ofFederal and early Greek Revival houses inthe City. Such continuity of period and suchexcellent state of preservation are notknown to exist anywhere else ...”

The original residents of these streetswere successful builders, lawyers and mer-chants involved in marketing the foodproducts moved off the nearby wharves.As early as 1822, landfill was in place westof Greenwich Street up to and includingWest Street. “For some reason,” accordingto the designation report, “the neighbor-hood ... remained settled, serene and gen-teel, while comparable nearby streets ofsimilar age became less fashionable orentirely commercial ... Many houses werekept in the same family for generations,and many people who led lives of distinc-tion in the City continued to live here.”This was especially remarkable during the1920s, when large factories and commer-cial buildings took over the corners ofVarick Street, bringing rumbling trucktraffic with them. Now, except for thisquiet domestic enclave, the area is com-mercial all the way to the river.

A Recent LPC

Appointment

In February 2003 Roberta Brandes Gratzwas appointed as the second new commis-sioner of the Landmarks PreservationCommission in six years. Robert B. Tierney,now the chairman, was the first, in January.

Ms. Gratz is a distinguished authorand urban critic whose 1994 book, “TheLiving City: Thinking Small in a BigWay,” earned her the sobriquet of thisgeneration’s Jane Jacobs. Her mostrecent book, “Cities Back from theEdge: New Life for Downtown” (JohnWiley & Sons, 1998), documents urbanrecovery in different cities in the United

A splendid Greek Revival doorway in theCharlton-King-Vandam Historic Districtwith fluted columns, entablature and origi-nal leaded-glass lights.

photo: Penelope Bareau

Map of the Charlton-King-Vandam Historic District in Manhattan, one of the first dis-tricts to be designated by the LPC, in August 1966.

courtesy Landmarks Preservation Commission

Charlton-King-Vandam

Historic District,

Manhattan




States and details successful techniquesfor bringing it about.

Ms. Gratz first gained attention inthe preservation community in the 1970swith an award-winning series in the NewYork Post on the workings of the LPC.Her subsequent urban-planning andpreservation activities have been numer-

ous, including membership in the NewYork Governor’s and Mayor’s Task Forceon the West Side Highway and Water-front, founder of the Fire Island Histori-cal Society, founder of the Eldridge StreetProject, trustee of the Preser vationLeague of New York State and boardmembership in the Salzburg Conferenceon Urban Planning and Development. Sheserved as the keynote speaker at HDC’s4th Annual Preservation Conference in1998.

HDC Welcomes

New Directors and

Advisers

This year the Historic Districts Council ispleased to be adding two directors andseven advisers to our boards. All of themhave a history and record of work inpreservation, whether in district designa-tions, in well-established preservationorganizations, in work on individualbuildings or a combination of all these

things. Geographically, they represent abroad swath of the city

Joining the Board of Directors are: Linda C. Jones, who returns as a

director after a pause of several years.During that time and before, she wasactive in the Preservation League ofStaten Island and for her efforts was hon-ored with an HDC Grassroots Preserva-tion Award in 2002. Ms. Jones runsWinter Hill Associates, a company thatmaintains computer networks and Websites, and through it provides technologi-cal assistance to many preser vationgroups throughout the city.

Ronald L. Melichar, who lives inHamilton Heights in Manhattan andworks as director of the CommercialRevitalization Program for the New YorkCity Department of Small Business Serv-ices. He was actively involved in the desig-nation of the Hamilton Heights and SugarHill Historic Districts and is a foundingboard member of the MorningsideHeights Historic District Committee andthe president of the HamiltonHeights/West Harlem CommunityPreservation Organization.

Joining the Board of Advisers are:Andrew Berman, executive director

of the Greenwich Village Society for His-

toric Preservation and the Save Ganse-voort Market Project of the GVSHP. Heis a co-founder and co-coordinator of theCitywide Coalition for Community Facil-ity Reform and prior to his work atGVSHP was chief of staff for Thomas K.Duane in his capacities as both New YorkCity Councilmember and State Senator.

Nicholas Evans-Cato, a painter ofcityscapes whose work is included in thecollections of the Museum of the City ofNew York, The New-York Historical Soci-ety, Brooklyn College, the Brooklyn His-torical Society and many galleries. Mr.Evans-Cato has been working since 1998to designate the Thompson Meter Build-ing in DUMBO, Brooklyn. He has alsobeen very active in preservation through-out Brooklyn, particularly in the down-town waterfront area. Many historic areasappear in his cityscapes.

Thomas A. Fenniman, principal ofthe architecture firm bearing his name.Mr. Fenniman specializes in the analysisand rehabilitation of existing buildingsand the restoration of historic structures.He did the restoration of the facade ofCarnegie Hall; the Langham Apartments,for which he received an award; SaintFrancis Xavier Church and the BrisbaneHouse, to name just a few in Manhattan.

Appointed February 2003, Roberta BrandesGratz is the newest commissioner at theLandmarks Preservation Commission.

photo: Susan K. Freedman

HDC director and former executive director, Franny Eberhart with Mitchell Grubler,new HDC adviser and longtime preservationist active in Queens and Staten Island.




Paul Graziano, an urban planner andhistoric-preservation consultant, who isthe zoning and land-use chairman of theQueens Civic Congress. He has been aconsultant for the rezoning of RichmondHill and Greater Flushing and has workedto preserve areas and individual propertiesthroughout Queens such as Waldheim,Richmond Hill, and the Kabrinski Man-sion, to name but a few. Mr. Graziano was aspeaker at HDC’s 9th Annual PreservationConference last spring and a GrassrootsPreservation Award winner in 2001.

Mitchell Grubler, a resident ofStaten Island, who has been the executivedirector of the Queens Historical Societysince 2000. Mr. Grubler has also served asa consultant for the Preservation Leagueof Staten Island and was president of thatorganization for ten years. Also on StatenIsland, Mr. Grubler has acted as a consult-ant for the Clay Pit Ponds State Park Pre-serve and was a long-serving executivedirector of the Alice Austen HouseMuseum.

Jo Hamilton, who has been co-chairof the Save Gansevoort Market Projectsince 2000 and won a Grassroots Preser-vation Award for that work in 2002. She isan active member of Manhattan Commu-nity Board 2, serving on the Landmarks

and Environment Committees and as co-chair of the Traffic Strategies Committee.She is also a trustee of the Greenwich Vil-lage Society for Historic Preservation, aboard member of the Chelsea VillagePartnership and founding chair of theJane Street Association.

Kate Wood, who has been activelyinvolved with New York City preservationon many fronts, most recently as executivedirector of Landmark West! since 2001.She was the co-chair of the Save theCoogan! Coalition in the Midtown Southarea of Manhattan and for that workreceived a Grassroots Preservation Awardfrom HDC in 2000. She is currently aboard member of the Victorian Society inAmerica, Metropolitan Chapter.

Latest Gifts

And Grants

The Historic Districts Council is gratefulto all those groups and individuals whocontribute so generously to make ourwork possible. Without their assistance,we would be unable to carry out our advo-cacy, planning and education activities.The most recent contributors are:

Foundations: Falconwood Founda-tion, Ford Foundation, Mertz GilmoreFoundation.

Organizations: Association of VillageHomeowners, Brooklyn Heights Associa-tion, Defenders of the Historic Upper EastSide, Ditmas Park Association, The Driveto Protect the Ladies’ Mile District,DUMBO Neighborhood Association, EastHarlem Historical Organization, Friendsof Terra Cotta, Fort Greene Association,Gramercy Neighborhood Associates,Gramercy Park Block Association, GreaterAstoria Historical Society, Greenwich Vil-lage Society for Historic Preservation, TheGreen-Wood Cemetery, Historic Land-marks Preservation Center, LandmarkWest!, Municipal Art Society, Murray HillNeighborhood Association, NaturalResources Defense Council, New YorkLandmarks Conservancy, Parkway VillageHistorical Society, Queens Historical Soci-ety, Richmond Hill Historical Society, TheSave Gansevoort Market Project of theGVSHP, State Street Block Association,Stuyvesant Park Neighborhood Associa-tion, Union Square Community Coalition.

Corporations: Charisma Graphics.Friends: Alan M. Ades, Thomas

Agnew, Timothy Allanbrook, AIA, AICP,Oliver & Deborah Allen, Rhiannon Allen& Arthur Reber, Bernadette Artus, Eliza-beth Ashby, George Beane & Patricia Beg-ley, Sharen Benenson, Joel & Judith Berger,Andrew Berman, Minor L. Bishop, AnnBragg, Hal Bromm & Doneley Meris,Robert Buckholz Jr. & Anne ElizabethFontaine, George Calderaro, VincentColangelo, Elizabeth Rose Daly, Georgia& William A. Delano, Alan & BarbaraDelsman, Mary Dierickx, Phillip Dodd,Andrew Scott Dolkart, Frances A. Eber-hart, Rebecca & Yehuda Even-Zohar, Mar-jorie Ferrigno, Ann Walker Gaffney,William Gambert, Linda Gillies, DavidGoldfarb, Christabel Gough, Rudie Hur-witz, David I. Karabell Esq., Edward S.Kirkland, Robert Kornfeld Sr., AbigailMellen, Gerard O’Connell, NormanOdlum, Evelyn & Everett Ortner, Mr. &Mrs. Otis Pratt Pearsall, Robert W.Phillips, Shepherd Raimi, Joseph S. Rosen-berg, Susan Sanders, Mr. & Mrs. FrederickR. Selch, John B. Senter III & MaryFrances Loftus, Beverly Moss Spatt Ph.D.,Deirdre Stanforth, Jack Taylor, Robert M.& Sue Wasko, Gloria Withim, F. AnthonyZunino III & Sally Auer Zunino.

New HDC Director Ronald L. Melichar (left) was active in the Hamilton Heights andSugar Hill Historic Districts designations, shown here with Adviser John Reddick.




blitzkrieg. Robert Silman, a structuralengineer who has assessed the conditionof the Towers several times since themid-1980s, was recently asked by Land-mark West! to have another look at thestructure and was taken aback by howmuch damage had been done. In a letterto the LPC he wrote, “A great deal oforiginal fabric was demolished thatcould have been saved.” The LPC hasbeen silent on the issue.

Renovations on the landmark IRTsubway stations at 110th and 116thStreets on the Upper West Side of Man-hattan began in February 2003. Colum-bia University, in preparation for its250th anniversary in October 2004 andbecause the stations service its campus,gave $1 million to the MetropolitanTransportation Authority, according toan article in The New York Observer onJuly 7th. Columbia wanted the money tobe used to move the project along so thatit would be completed in time for theanniversary celebration. Unfortunately,the Landmarks Preservation Commis-sioners did not review the proposedwork; staff-level permits were granted.Upon investigation it became clear thatthe work being done was destructive. By

late March many of the historic ceramicelements were destroyed during theprocess of “restoration.” The plans notonl y incorporated inappropriatel yplaced moder n amenit ies such a sgarbage-storage areas but also contro-versial artwork designed by the MTA’sArts for Transit Project. The LPC didnot review the design, impact or place-ment of the artwork in its blanketapproval of the project. In March theNew York State Historic PreservationOffice intervened and halted the MTAconstruction on the stations as well asthe Arts for Transit Project. SHPO wasconcerned that the MTA was not han-dling the fragile historic tile and iconicmosaics with care. Friends of Terra Cottaand Landmark West! have been workingto have the removed tiles replaced withceramic that more closely replicates thetiles destroyed by the contractors hiredby the MTA.

Many bui ldings in the FarmColony-Seaview Hospital HistoricDistrict on Staten Island have suffereddemolition by neglect, but the districthas undergone demolition by intent aswell. In 1999, a 1909 Dutch Revival dor-mitory building in the Farm Colony sec-tion of the district was intentionallydemolished at the request of StatenIsland City Counci lmember JamesOddo. The dormitory was located inclose proximity to two ball fields that

had been built in the district without theapproval of the LPC. CouncilmemberOddo convinced the city to declare anemergency and demolish the buildingbecause he believed it was unstable andposed a threat to the children playing at

Become a Friend of the Historic Districts Council Today!

Douglaston, Queens; Charlton-King-Vandam, Manhattan; FortGreene, Brooklyn; Longwood, The Bronx are all designated historicdistricts, protected from inappropriate alterations and develop-ment. Unfortunately, many more neighborhoods throughout the cityare not, though they are seeking designation. That’s where the His-toric Districts Council can help.

As the citywide advocate for New York’s historic neighbor-hoods, HDC works to preserve and protect the city’s architecturaland cultural heritage. We consult with building owners in historicdistricts to help them understand what Landmarks PreservationCommission regulations mean and how to comply with them. Wetalk with communities that are not designated but want to be, help-ing them with the process and advising them on how to proceed.

It’s a big city and our advocacy is never finished. Our agendawould not be possible without you and preservation partners likeyou. You are the backbone of HDC.

Yes, consider me a Friend of HDC!

Enclosed is my gift of

$50 ___ $100 ___ $250___ $500 ___ Other $ ________________

Please make check payable to Historic Districts Council andmail to: 232 East 11th Street, New York, NY 10003. For information,call 212-614-9107.

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Historic tile was torn off the wall at the116th Street station of the IRT subway.Work has been halted by the New YorkState Historic Preservation Office untilreplacements can be made.

photo: Landmark West!

Landmark Demolition,

by Intent or Neglect



Church was leveled shortly after athree-alarm fire. The fire was started byworkers who were using heat guns toremove paint from the wooden building.Although the church claims to have hadpermission from the LPC to use theheat guns, the LPC has never confirmedthis. The church, a landmark since 1967,suffered severe damage during the fire,and it was demolished at 5 a.m. on a Sat-urday under an emergency order of theDepartment of Buildings. Although theDOB and the church cited hazardousconditions, they never persuasively

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the nearby ball fields. A New York Timesarticle quoted the councilmember asstating that the building “resembledsomething you’d see in Berlin in 1945,”and that he did not discuss the issue withthe LPC because he thought the agencywould be “obstructionist.” Lost forever,the Farm Colony dormitory buildingillustrates how vulnerable our historicstructures are when up against powerfuland determined opponents.

Another Staten Island landmarkwas intentionally destroyed in 1996when the Brighton Heights Reformed

demonstrated that no other steps couldhave been taken to secure the buildingat least until a salvage plan could bedeveloped. Despite the fire, the struc-ture was largely intact except for theroof, and the walls could have beenbraced as an interim measure.

Demolition by intent is not an easything to prevent. However, with a stricterenforcement of the Landmarks Law andthe imposition of harsh fines when abuilding owner illegally demolishes a land-mark, perhaps an owner will be deterredfrom breaking that law.

Art: Ann Walker Gafney

Documents

DISTRICT LINES1h0ani22bqjx9rwiu3w2now1-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/... · Avenues in Manhattan with 1860s cot-tages inside garden walls, visible from the street. There were also two side-by-side