14 Jul '15

A Round-up of Our News, Zoning Reform, and the New Greenwich Hotel

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Posted by LE
Tourists and artists enjoy the view from the Clocktower Gallery, date unknown.

Tourists and artists enjoy the view from the Clocktower Gallery, date unknown.

the interior of the public space, taken during an opening.

the interior of the public space, taken during an opening.

  • Our petition to protect Tribeca is 65 names short of our goal.  Sign here so we can deliver it to the elected officials.

 

  • We are one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit over public access to the specifically landmarked interior gallery space of this landmarked building.  The city sold off the building to a developer who wants to turn the space into a condo.  The Gothamist had a good summary of the situation here. 

 

  • The architectural critic (and practicing architect and Tribeca resident) Michael Sorkin recently wrote about the problems of Tribeca and the city at large in The Nation.  The article is called “Another City” and can be found here.  Anybody listening over there in the progressive Mayor’s office?

 

  • Tribeca has two buildings at stake in the recent uproar that the Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) provoked: 315 Broadway and 143 Chambers.  We think both buildings belong in an expanded historic district.  The background is this: last spring, the LPC tried to boot 96 buildings out of its pipeline for decision-making as potential landmarks. They trashed them in one fell swoop, without a hearing.  Some had been in the pipeline for 20 years.  Some have had public hearings already.  There was the uproar, which Tribeca Trust participated in.  Gale Brewer, our Borough President, and the Historic Districts Council came up with compromise ways to handle the backlog and LPC agreed.  There will be hearings for two Tribeca buildings, possible in the fall.

 

  • If you haven’t heard, the activist group trying to prevent NYU from over-building on LaGuardia Place recently lost their case.  The NYU Faculty against the Sexton Plan (and others) put up a good fight.  Their Facebook page is here.

 

  • The recent rumors over how Related Properties wants to own the site ofBMCC and build immense glass towers make one thing perfectly clear:  Tribeca needs zoning reform.  We are developing our wish list, so more later, but it will likely include:
    • height restrictions
    • downzoning
    • regulation of air rights transfers and lot mergers
    • an end to plaza bonuses for the elusive public benefits of “public private plazas”
    • ?  Make a suggestion, we’re listening.

 

  • The new hotel for Greenwich street in North Tribeca (renderings have been around a while, here is one shown at the developer-funded site, YIMBY).  On the upside, it more or less uses the historic architectural language, and it is not a glass tower (hurrah!).  Yet the scale is truly excessive.  It should have been broken up to look like several buildings of varying dimensions as has been done for hundreds of years elsewhere.  Also, the massing on the roof is too much, but it all went through our community board 7-1. And, really, it is so sad to put a hotel there.  Whatever happened to affordable housing?  The last thing we need is rich tourists.  Don’t we have enough of them and more coming from the new Four Seasons?  We don’t need tourists, we need residents here who care about the neighborhood. Once again, this tells us we need to rezone Tribeca.  Add, “get rid of neighorhood-killing hotels” to our zoning wish list above.  Or maybe we should rezone as a residential district and handle it that way.

 

  • There are lots of groups in London banding together to fight the destruction of London’s skyline and to fight “hyper-density.”  New Yorkers need to do the same and some of us intend to help out that campaign.  Here is a link to the Londoner’s entertaining 5-minute slideshow.