City Council Rejects 184 Kent as "Piece of Trash"
In a vote whose lopsidedness left no room for uncertainty, the City Council dealt the death blow to preservationists’ attempts to have the Austin Nichols building at 184 Kent Avenue in Williamsburg landmarked. 43 council members voted against the designation and 6 in favor; a handful of others couldn’t be bothered to get up to…
In a vote whose lopsidedness left no room for uncertainty, the City Council dealt the death blow to preservationists’ attempts to have the Austin Nichols building at 184 Kent Avenue in Williamsburg landmarked. 43 council members voted against the designation and 6 in favor; a handful of others couldn’t be bothered to get up to speed on the issue. In a quote that will hopefully follow him around until the day he’s voted out of office, Simcha Felder had this to say about the building: “This is a piece of trash. We should knock it down and put something nice up.” Gee, Simcha, wonder if Moishe Kestenbaum’s written you any checks recently. Affordable housing deal in hand, David Yassky was happy to do his part to ensure that a hideous rooftop addition would grace the Brooklyn waterfront skyline. “This is simply not worthy of landmarking,” said Yassky. What’s the point of having realtively knowledgeable and cultured people on the Landmarks commission if their recommendations can be shot down by a bunch of politically-motivated bureaucratic philistines?
City Council Stated Meeting [Gotham Gazette]
Does anyone know if the sponsors of a bill in the City Council that can compel the LPC to hold public hearings also voted to overturn the last two LPC decisions regarding the modernist 1969-era bank in Queens and this building?
I belong to just about every preservation group in the city, and even *I* don’t see this building as something to get all worked up about. BTW, I do like the “lollipop” building at Columbus, which is hardly a majority opinion and I think the new Hearst building is hideous!!!
John K – usually these votes go down 51 – 0, so this was hardly the usual council rubber stamp. There was actually considerable debate (for the council) on the floor before the vote.
The council has to approve all land-use actions – including zoning actions and lpc designations. They don’t have approval power over permits (DCP, DOB, LPC, etc.). Its part of the charter – checks and balances.
I don’t understand WHY city council has the power to overturn recommendations made by the landmark preservation committee (LPC). LPC makes recommendations informed by their expertise as to which buildings should be designated; expertise that our city council members lack. That is why the mayor appoints these experts in real estate, development, history and architecture to serve on LPC – to guide the city council to make intelligent, objective and conscious decisions about the buildings we live in. LPC should make these decisions for the city and I see no reason why city council members have vetoing power.
Suzy –
The windows are over 3′ wide and 7′ tall – that is a lot of glass area, certainly enough for residential use. The space between the windows is only 12″, so blowing everything out to create “loft-like” windows doesn’t net all that much. Its only because the building is so big that the windows appear so small – that’s why the windows are a truly important design element on this building.
Formerly know as is pretty much on the money regarding what LPC might approve – the light court alterations, an appropriate rooftop addition (1 story, stepping back to 2 or 3 in places, perhaps), new windows in the existing openings, the shore walk, etc.
Hearst was always intended to have a tower – this building wasn’t. But it was originally designed to be a fair bit taller, with a penthouse.
clarification – didn’t mean to state that each apartment only had three windows, rather than each window bank (of which the apartments had at least two depending how they carved up) had three windows. And they are/were tall – about 6 – 7 feet.
when it comes time to reonovate the building, landmark status or not, there will also be interior courtyards carved out for light & air requirements, so that the interior rooms will have light. That’s pretty typical with large, formerly industrial buildings – you see it in Tribeca pretty often, and they did it in Park Slope in the Ansonia Warehouse as well.
Suzy,
the major proposed change to the facade itself are the windows (not talking about the scoop & dump of the interior or the proposed towers for a momment). How are 3 foot windows tiny? They’re not. They’re fine. One would need to put extensions on an average A/C unit to fit into a 3-foot window. And each current apartment has three of them, seperated by 14 inches of space so the effect from inside is astonishing.
If the Landmark designation was upheld, someone would doubtlessly propose a rooftop addition and Landmarks would doubtlessly approve it after making certain that the design of the addition was not inappropriate to the design of the building. Remember, Landmarks approved the 37-story Norman Foster addition to the Hearst building on 57th Street & 8th Avenue.
” … the renovation scheme will replace the pattern of three 3-foot windows with a single pane of 10 feet of glass, dumbing down a major design element.”
how could the building’s facade be preserved ‘as is’? that is, what other use for it could be made to work, money wise? it’s a massive building.
if housing is the only viable use for it, then the windows would probably have to be changed, no? a living space with high ceilings and little bitty windows might be kind of grim.
BTW, ‘nothingnew’ – you really ought to pay attention to your spelling, and to your lack of grammatical skill, before you suggest of another that “Maybe you just don’t understand English …”
one other thought ice, you claim to be civil yet you are calling people things like lackey. How is that civil? You called people conspirators, how is that civil? You called me juvinille and that therefore I can not understand logic. That is so civil. You don’t get to claim aggrevied statuts when you start it.
Maybe you just don’t understand English because juveunile means child. I know plenty of childern who can recognize logic, facts, and truth, and can tell the difference between bs and facts. Apparently however, you can not.