Jean Grillo
is our District Leader for the 66th Assembly District of the Democratic Party. She has a been an early supporter of Tribeca Trust (thanks Jean!). Jean is a resident of Duane Street and reports that the replacement door on the landmarked Fire Department Building on Duane Street has finally been replaced with something more like the original. In the photo above, you will see the first replacement door with no glass openings. It has now been replaced with one with glass (see photo below). Thanks go to Jean as well as to Steven Olson of the Fire Department and Roger Byrom, Chair of our Landmarks Committee on the community board for making this change happen. The old doors apparently were seen as outdated and can still be seen inside the house.
For those of you who are curious, the Firehouse or “Hook and Ladder #1” at 104 Duane was designated an individual landmark in 1993. Two of the other buildings on the south side of that particular block are in Tribeca South Historic District, but all the other buildings are bizarrely without any landmark protections. That block is very much under threat so it is important to treat each remaining asset with care.
Here is a quotation of what the designation report said about the building: “designed in the Beaux-Arts style, or what at the time was described as the modern French style by the prominent architectural firm of Trowbridge and Livingston, it was built in 1904-05,.. it is a building of great architectural quality.” The facade is “remarkable for its symmetry and emphatic horizontality. It is visually unifed by super-imposed architectural elements drawn from early seventeeth century French civic architecture.”
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