The landmark in question. (Daytonian in Manhattan)

Though the Responsible Landmarks Coalition has yet to take any public action beyond launching its web presence, preservationists are lining up to fight back. The Historic Districts Council just announced a town hall meeting “to defend the Landmark Law” next week. It will be held next Tuesday evening at the General Society of Mechanics and Tradesmen—a landmark on West 44th Street designated in 1988, no less.

This follows on a strongly worded fusillade last week from HDC director Simeon Bankoff, the preservationists' own cri de coeur.

As widely reported, the Real Estate Board of New York recently joined forces with a handful of construction and development industry groups to create a new coalition that is calling for a halt to landmark designation and an evisceration of the Landmarks Preservation Commission’s abilities to protect and regulate New York City’s historic architecture. The group claims that landmark designation lowers values, raises costs, stifles development and diminishes affordability. To hear them tell it, landmark designation will transform New York into an lifeless museum city with a “look but don’t touch” mentality. HDC feels that nothing could be further from the truth and that their proposed reforms, if adopted, will be very damaging to the long-term health of our city.

Preservation practices empower communities, celebrate our history, drive economic growth and sustain development efforts. Preservation enhances our streetscapes, nurtures tourism, encourages investment and employs local labor. It is a popular, populist movement driven by regular New Yorkers who value their homes and their city. The Historic Districts Council works with community groups throughout the five boroughs on efforts to save, preserve and enhance the special character of New York’s historic neighborhoods. We work with communities from areas as different as the Upper West Side and Bedford-Stuyvesant on the shared goal of empowering the community to have a voice in determining their own future. These two communities are ones whose efforts we honored this week at the Grassroots Preservation Awards and whose successes have been targeted as “over-reaching” by the new real-estate coalition.

It is a great credit to the Mayor and to many community representatives that they recognize New Yorkers’ desire to preserve the special qualities of their homes and neighborhoods. These elected leaders work with their constituents to do exactly that, realizing that a neighborhood where the residents have a say in determining its future is like a well-tended garden, it nurtures and sustains life. The reforms this new coalition proposes would raze our old-growth neighborhoods in search of short-sighted profit.

And so the first shots have been fired.

Per an advisory to supporters just sent out by Historic Districts Council executive director Simeon Bankoff, preservation groups are planning a 10 a.m. rally Wednesday at City Hall, which just so happens to be the same day that the Presbyterian church, West Park, is up for a vote.

Mr. Bankoff sounds a warning that Council members no longer seem to be brushing aside complaints about the proliferation of historic districts—often made by the real estate industry, which contends that too much of the city will be frozen in time, off limits to development, density, and change.

"There's been a recent cry in the press against preservation efforts—with the hoary old  lines about 'standing in the way of progress' and 'NIMBY'ism sometimes reaching fever pitch," Mr. Bankoff wrote. "This static unfortunately matters because our elected officials—some of whom are new to the job and others who have a long record of NEVER 'standing in the way of progress'—are beginning to listen.

"We must show City Hall that New Yorkers care about their neighborhoods and want them preserved." 

ebrown@observer.com

The neighborhood that was once the hub of the American music-publishing industry in the early 20th century has undergone many transformations since it became known as Tin Pan Alley. Between 1893 and 1910, nearly 20 music-publishing companies moved to West 28th Street, according to the Historic Districts Council. Over the years, they have been replaced by furriers, florists and, lately, mass-market wholesalers, but the five-story, 1852 rowhouses at 49-51 still exist in much the same condition today as when the first songwriters, M. Whitmark and Sons, first moved there.

In October, however, it looked like the last remnants of Tin Pan Alley could be demolished to make way for a condo, when the Lost City blog broke the news that all five buildings were on the market for $44 million.

As public opinion moves further against the plan and the economy plunges deeper into recession, a deal is looking increasingly unlikely. The five, mixed-use contiguous properties would yield over 111,000-square feet of “prime Chelsea Property” after demolition, according to the listing that first appeared on the real estate Web site LoopNet in the early fall, along with renderings of a 16-story residential building with 24 retail spaces proposed for the site. Though it remains up, the site says the “property is no longer available.”

Whether the buildings' owner Jo-Fra Properties bowed to public pressure or to the limitations of the credit markets is unclear, but the buildings no longer seem to be on the market, at least officially. As of Sunday, the HDC had amassed 414 signatures on its petition to the Landmarks Preservation Commission to put the Tin Pan Alley buildings on track for landmark status and, earlier this month, a LPC spokeswoman said the commission was “researching the history of the buildings and reviewing whether they'd be eligible for landmark designation.”

The Coldwell Banker agent marketing the buildings did not respond to a request for comment, and Jo-Fra Properties could not be reached.

Simeon Bankoff, director of the HDC, was unsure whether the buildings were still for sale. Regardless, he said they are still “very much under threat."

“When we last had contact with [brokers at] Coldwell Banker and Helmsley-Spear in mid-October, we got contradictory information,” Mr. Bankoff said. “The buildings still need work and we would feel much more comfortable with the LPC overseeing that work.”

Most Tin Pan Alley tenants and neighboring business owners on 28th Street have heard rumors about the sale, but they believe that a low appetite for real estate should keep developers at bay for the time being. One ground-floor retail tenant of one of the buildings said existing apartment tenants are one of the biggest obstacles for potential investors.

“The problem is whoever is going to buy it has to deal with the rent-stabilized tenants," he said, but did not want to risk his relationship with his landlord by having his name published. “If you want them out to raze the building and put up a luxury apartment you have to buy them out and they all want a lot of money. It’s time-consuming. That’s a trial, that’s long litigation. So whoever buys the building buys it with that in mind.”

Meanwhile, Jo-Fra has to meet its obligations to the tenants of 51, 53 and 55 West 28th Street who won a suit to get their homes zoned for residential usage in August 2007, according to one of the tenants involved in the case, Leland Bobbe. Though he had not been surprised to learn the buildings were up for sale, he expected it to be a “long process.”

Mr. Bobbe pays less than $1,000 per month for the 1,000-square-foot apartment he has lived in since 1975—when he first arrived his rent was just $160. The landlords have begun work to bring 55 West 28th Street up to code, Mr. Bobbe said, but plans have yet to be approved for the six other units slated for renovations under the case. Before a potential buyer can even submit a demolition application, all the apartments need to be brought up to code and then the tenants need to be offered new two-year leases. “So it’s going to be a while, at least five or six years [until the demolition becomes a possibility]. Plus, now the buildings come with tenants,” Mr. Bobbe said. “So the value of the buildings is lower ‘cause they would have to buy us out. I don’t think it’s imminent.

“It kind of got people going because of the history, but they are asking $44 million in a lousy economy. I can’t imagine anyone outside a Shah from the Middle East or some Japanese businessman would buy the building for that.”

We stopped by the party after 6 before any real dancing had begun, but the Gramercy Park church hall was already packed with mainly elderly residents decked out in denim, flannel, and other Western regalia, fuelling up on dinner before the main event.

Gaining protective status for Stuy Town is not a new idea. The Historic Districts Council first endorsed the proposal seven years ago and five years later told the Tenants Association that the complex was eligible for honorary state landmark status.

But the square dance was the first push to get the landmarking process off the ground since Tishman Speyer paid $5.4 billion for the planned community in 2006, though the tenants we spoke to Saturday night insisted the campaign is not related to their new landlord.

“I don’t connect this to Tishman Speyer,” Mr. Garodnick, clad in apropos jeans, told us.

“The landmarking effort in Stuy Town is based on its unique configuration and contribution to the social history of New York City. Even if you were to landmark the buildings it doesn’t take away the developers’ right to [charge market-rate].”

But it would prevent Tishman from building a big luxury condo in some of Stuy Town’s underutilized public space, as other developers who’ve bought planned communities in the city have done. Simeon Bankoff, the executive director of the Historic Districts Council, said preserving the configuration and layout is probably driving the “renewed push for landmarking.”

“They are fairly plain buildings so this is not about the windows,” he said.

The Historic Districts Council (HDC) has formally asked the Landmarks Preservation Commission to hold a hearing on proposals to protect the old McKim, Mead & White-designed hotel, which owner Vornado Realty Trust has threatened to demolish.

"Much discussion, planning and money have gone into the planning of the revival of the Pennsylvania Station area. It is ironic that the Hotel Pennsylvania, designed by the same architectural firm as the station, should not be part of these plans," wrote HDC Executive Director Simeon Bankoff in a Dec. 4 letter to Commission Chairman Robert Tierney.

The old hotel, Mr. Bankoff added, "should not be consigned to the dustbin of history."

Commission staffers previously argued the dowdy yet imposing hotel didn't merit a landmark designation.

But Assembly member Dick Gottfried, the Historic Districts Council and Community Board 6 are trying to get a hearing in front of the Landmarks Preservation Commission before then to see if they can get the building, built in 1922, landmarked. They sent a letter asking for just that to the L.P.C. earlier this week.

SJP bought the bought the building late last year for $40 million.

-Matthew Grace