One of the big questions surrounding the landmarking of the Rainbow Room was whether or not it would win the support of Tishman Speyer, the august real estate firm that owns Rockefeller Center, home to the famed dance hall and eatery. But the space is lucky as a leprechaun, as the Rainbow Room’s landlord came out in support of landmarking yesterday, according to Crain’s. Read More
An assault on the city’s Landmarks Law has quietly been taking place in the corridors of power, through press releases and legislation, for going on a year now. But groups allied against landmarking are planning to fire their first public volley tomorrow, The Observer has learned, with the announcement of a coalition of development and labor groups known as the Responsible Landmarks Coalition.
Formed by the Real Estate Board of New York, it is made up of a number of influential real estate and labor organizations, “and it is only going to get bigger,” one person involved in the effort said. “We are going to have some very major institutions looking at these landmarks.”
The main issues of concern for the coalition are the increasing prevalence of historic districts, a lack of transparency in the landmarking process, and insufficient public input. The coalition will argue that the growing number of landmark buildings and historic districts are hampering the city’s economy and stymieing development. Read More
Affordable Housing or Lack Thereof
It used to house cast offs from some of the city’s oldest buildings, but soon it could house low-income New Yorkers.
The city’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development is seeking a developer to turn a Williamsburg warehouse that served as storage for the Landmarks Preservation Commission into an affordable housing development with 50 apartments. The development, at 337 Berry Street, sits on a 15,000-square-foot lot and calls for commercial or community space on the ground floor, as well as about 1,200 square feet of open space for residents.
The views are not too bad, looking out on the Williamsburg Bridge and Manhattan, though the rumble of the J-Train just might intrude on the apartments, as well, barring some good windows. Read More
While the Landmarks Preservation Commission is usually the great bane of architects and developers, it seems the commissioners have at least one soft spot in their preservationist hearts for, of all things, math. Read More
Downtown Brooklyn developers and cooperators, with a hefty helping hand from the real estate lobby, threw everything they could at the Borough Hall Skyscraper Historic District, a new landmarking effort aimed at saving the area’s historic highrises. In the end, the preservationists won out, as a City Council subcommittee voted unanimously yesterday to approve the historic district, all but ensuring its passage by the full council on February 1. Read More
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. Read More
“This is a collection of buildings that make Downtown Brooklyn, Downtown Brooklyn” Landmarks Preserveration Commission member Michael Devonshire declared in yesterday’s meeting on the Borough Hall Skyscraper Historic District. “If there’s controversy, it’s a misunderstanding of the benefits of landmarking a district.”
The area that Mr. Devonshire is referring to, is the proposed Read More
Sometimes landmark battles have happy endings. Read More
We’ve got mail!
In our earlier item on rezoning in far west Greenwich Village, we apparently overestimated the zeal of the Landmarks Preservation Commission to designate specific buildings in the district:
In “Wild, Wild West” you wrote “the rezoning also sets the stage for landmarking the entire district, something the Landmarks Preservation Read More
