City Looking to Demolish East River Park’s Historic Fireboat House

From a historic preservation perspective, the East Side Coastal Resilience (ESCR) project’s East River Park work scope has been pretty much of a disaster. Two original 1939 Art Deco/Moderne structures - the Track House and Tennis Center - that the State Historic Preservation Office deemed eligible for the National Register of Historic Places have been demolished or slated for demolition. The City barely acknowledged LESPI’s and our allies calls for moving/reusing the structures. We look forward to seeing some of the buildings’ historic terra cotta ornament in the new Track House, but this does not compensate for the loss of these important buildings. (See HERE for more information on the history of these buildings).

Now, as the last nail in the coffin, the historic 1941 Fireboat House, which also dates to the park's construction, is now targeted for demolition. The building was built at a time when the East River was still a busy commercial shipping thoroughfare, and the Fireboat House replaced an earlier fireboat house located on a pier at the end of Grand Street. Since 1987, the Fireboat House has served as home to the  Lower East Side Ecology Center. This organization has educated generations of school children and others on the local environment, while providing local composting and e-waste services.

The City's ESCR originally called for restoring the building for re-use by the Ecology Center. Now the City asserts that the building’s structural problems appear to be too severe to address. We’ve requested documentation to back up these claims. Demolition of the Fireboat House would mean that ESCR has resulted in the destruction of all three of the park’s National Register eligible historic buildings. As a Consulting Party to the ESCR, LESPI will be formally reviewing the proposed demolition or, hopefully, structural repairs, and commenting/advocating accordingly. We’ll keep you posted.

Some Good News on West-Park Presbyterian Church

We received some good news in January when the West-Park Presbyterian Church decided, at the last minute, to pull its application to the NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) to demolish this stunning 1889 Romanesque Revival structure, located on the Upper West Side. This happened just the day before the LPC Public Meeting scheduled to decide the church’s fate. Legal complications involving the church and the current tenant reportedly prevented the church from proceeding with their request for demolition. Hopefully the reprieve will give the tenant and community more time to propose an alternative to demolition, or find a new preservation-friendly buyer that the church will accept.

LESPI has been very concerned about the outcome of this application. Not only is the building an exceptional work of architecture with an important history, but if the LPC had voted to allow demolition, it would have set a terrible precedent for historic religious institutions around the city, including in the Lower East Side. You can read LESPI’s two testimonies on the church HERE.

New York's Livable, Historic Neighborhoods Under Attack

A New York Times Opinion Piece Goes for the Preservation Jugular

The New York Times recently published an Opinion piece that caused our mouths to drop. Binyamin Appelbaum’s "I Want a City, Not a Museum" (wrongly) places a lot of the blame for the city’s housing shortage on our landmarked historic buildings and neighborhoods, which cover less than 4 percent of the city’s lot area. Additionally, it calls out historic districts as essentially Colonial Williamsburgs that run counter to the spirit of New York, which in his view is confined to unmitigated change and unhampered growth. There’s no mention of how much residents, commuters and visitors cherish our city’s magnificent historic buildings and districts, or the economic vitality these irreplaceable resources provide.

Conversely, in the same edition of the Times, Vishaan Chakrabarti’s “How to Make Room for One Million New Yorkers” outlines how the city could greatly increase its housing stock without destroying its historic buildings and neighborhoods, or building sky-high towers on every block. His architecture firm, Practice for Architecture and Urbanism, identified underutilized lots outside of historic districts that, if built to the height of neighboring buildings, would add significantly to the city’s housing stock, as would converting unused office space to housing.

Check out LESPI’s Letter to the Editor rebuttal to Appelbaum’s “I Want a City, Not a Museum” HERE.

More Upzonings on the Way?

Two major upzoning proposals, from the city and state, are heading our way again. This comes at the heels of Mayor De Blasio’s 2016 blanket upzoning of the city, against the recommendation of almost all of the city’s community boards, and his 2021 Soho-Noho upzoning, which also passed in spite of strong community opposition.

The city’s latest rezoning proposal, the three part “City of Yes,” is already in the works. The first part, called “Carbon Neutrality,” has already passed and become law. Currently the city’s community boards are reviewing the second part, called “Economic Opportunity.” This proposal is more problematic, as it calls for mixing manufacturing, warehouse, commercial and residential uses in the same building, where previously they were mostly separated. Excessive mixing of uses can expose residents to loud noises, unpleasant fumes, and other environmental nuisances. Allowing manufacturing and warehouse uses in current commercial/residential districts can degrade the commercial life of our streets, and drive up the price of commercial space, driving out mom-and-pop stores.

The “City of Yes’s” third part, called “Housing Opportunity,” is still in development, but promises more blanket upzonings. Stay tuned. In the meantime, you can contact your local City Councilmember and let them know your concerns.

At the state level, Governor Hochul has stated that she wants to reactivate her previous proposal to remove any state-mandated floor area-based height restrictions on residential properties. Current restrictions have allowed such mega-towers as seen at Billionaire’s Row on 57th Street, which stretch some 90 stories and 1,500 feet into the sky. Removing these restrictions? Who knows how high developers can reach, but for sure we’ll be exchanging light and air for more billionaire luxury housing and pied-a-terres.

SAVE THE DATE: Zoom Webinar Event

On Thursday February 29 LESPI and the Museum at Eldridge Street will join forces to present a Zoom webinar on local history and architecture. Keep your eyes open for our invitation—coming very soon—which will include more details as well as the Zoom webinar link.