510 Fifth in better days. (City Review)

While there's no official word yet on whether or not there has been any "K-I-S-S-I-N-G," it seems like some pouty lips are being puckered by both parties on the matter of Vornado's ongoing renovations of 510 Fifth Avenue, the former Manufacturer's Hanover Trust building.

As reported in The Times last week, a series of email correspondence has come to light that details a line of communication so open that it not only verges on "hand holding," it actually includes the phrase itself. the story has been picked up by Curbed and Architect's Newspaper, and it seems likely to get even more attention.

Former Landmarks Preservation Commission chairwoman Meredith Kane was retained by Vornado boss Steve Roth in advance of his acquisition of 510 Fifth last January. In her role as counsel to Vornado, Ms. Kane wrote an email to her successor, Bob Tierney, in which she implored the current chair to aid Mr. Roth's potential acquisition of the then-available 510 Fifth.

“What I think he’d most like is a little bit of hand-holding directly from you—he won’t believe it when it comes from me!" Ms. Kane wrote to Mr. Tierney, according to The Times. "That even though we have a lot of detail to work through, and you will need staff and the commissioners to be satisfied with the proposals, that we are going to ‘get through’ this project.”

Ms. Kane's unsubtle use of the phrase "hand-holding" is actually characteristic of the bold language used in a number of the emails, republished online by Curbed, but what makes the seemingly clear collusion most discomfiting to lovers of New York architecture is how controversial Vornado's plans for the building have become.

The Observer detailed the issues surrounding the renovation back in February, and the minutiae of the variously rejected plans have become even more entangled and hotly debated as the issue continues to go unresolved. And while 510 Fifth isn't the only building in the borough having troubles getting signed off on by Landmarks (as evidenced by the LPC's denial of plans to renovate the Puck Building), it now seems that it might be the only one that got behind-the-scenes pre-approval from the city agency.

So the question must now be asked if the LPC whispered sweet nothings into Mr. Roth's ear while he bid on 510 Fifth, does he have a right to be upset that the same commission is now not living up to its non-promises?

tmcenery@observer.com

Determining that is the job of the city commission bearing that name, and yesterday it decreed that 510 Fifth Avenue, built in 1954 as a five-story marquee bank branch for Manufacturers Trust (later Manufacturers of Hanover, later Chase Manhattan), was so worthy of preservation that not only should its exterior be saved in perpetiuty, as had happened in 1997, but so should its interior. After all, the Gordon Bunshaft-designed building was pathbreaking because it was the first transparent glass structure of its kind, with the insides plainly visible, a daring construction that
turned all preceding bank buildings—stoic, impenetrable stone structures-—on their heads.

In a release, Landmarks Preservation Commission Chairman Robert Tierney declared the designation an important step in the commission's concern for modern buildings, which have far different concerns from their stone and brick forebears (and of which there are only a dozen or so, compared to tens of thousands "regular" landmarks). "The interior is as remarkable from within as when you're standing on the sidewalk looking inside. Its luminous ceilings, spacious floor plans, white marble piers and other minimalist features blur the distinction between the inside and out, and in the mid-20 century set a new standard for American bank design."

But is a landmark still a landmark even if a piece of it, however small, goes missing?

Yet some preservationists were dismayed because part of the landmark went missing—would it really be one anymore without it? The part in question was a sculpture created specifically for the space by Harry Bertoia, which was taken down in October by Chase, when it vacated the building. At the time, Ada Louis Huxtable decried the move in The Wall Street Journal.

The removal of the Bertoia screen wall is a perverse form of preservation that begins with a profound misunderstanding of the sculpture's function as an essential architectural element. It is a site-specific piece, commissioned, created and installed for a particular purpose in an architect-specified location. Its loss not only damages the architectural integrity of the building irreparably, it also compromises the sculpture's meaning as art. Beauty is not easy to define, particularly in an age that resists it as simplistic and sentimental.

Now that the building's new owner, Vornado, wants to transform the space into a retail store—as The Observer reported, the front runner for the space is the McDonald's of Canadian fashion, Joe Fresh—the sculpture would have become superfluous anyway, just another clothing rack. Simeon Bankoff, head of the Historic Districts Council, believes the battle may be lost, but the commission ultimately won the war in designating the interior. "At least whatever Vornado wants to put in there will have to get approved now," Bankoff told The Observer. "Chase had gotten pretty crass, just filling up the thing with signs, so hopefully now we will get something more respectful."

After all, when you're dealing with a giant vitrine, the picayune concerns of the preservation commission become pretty clear.

mchaban@observer.com