July 13th, 2009
The Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) is devoting tomorrow morning to the consideration of 5 new individual landmarks in Manhattan, images of which can be viewed in this slideshow. Continue Reading>>
April 2nd, 2009
MAS testified yesterday to the City Council’s Economic Development and Land Use Committees, who held an oversight hearing on the development of Coney Island. We raised concern about recent recommended changes to the rezoning that we fear would harm the district, particularly expanding the size of retail units to 10,000 square feet, transforming the amusement area into a large-scale shopping district rather than one with local businesses and world-class amusements. MAS urged the City Council to reject this recommended change. Click here to read the entire statement.
Similar concerns about those troubling changes were echoed in a press release issued by a coalition of community, arts and planning groups, including MAS. The group affirmed that the City of New York is the only entity that can create a great amusement destination at Coney Island. It also highlighted the critical issue of land ownership. MAS President Vin Cipolla said, “We believe that the economics do not currently allow for the creation of an amusement park on privately-owned land, and we strongly support the city’s efforts to acquire private property in the amusement area.” Click here to read the entire statement.
On Tuesday, the City’s Deputy Mayor for Economic Development, Robert Lieber, announced the formation of the Coney Island Amusement Advisory Panel. The panel will also assist the City in continued planning efforts for a permanent amusement operation and development of a 27-acre amusement and entertainment district at Coney Island. MAS will be on the panel along with a group of leading amusement industry experts that will help structure and expedite the City’s plans for interim amusements at Coney Island in Summer 2010. Click here to read entire statement.
March 5th, 2009
The Municipal Art Society yesterday testified before the City Planning Commission expressing our concern about an 18-story building adjacent to the Brooklyn Bridge in DUMBO.
While 18 story buildings are not un-common in DUMBO, this site on Dock Street between Water and Front Streets, across the street from the Empire Stores at left (MAP), is exceptional because it abuts the Brooklyn Bridge — a local, state, and national landmark. In fact, a portion of the development site even runs underneath the Bridge’s span.
The Brooklyn Bridge is one of New York’s most iconic historic structures, and it is one of only 11 National Historic Landmarks — the highest recognition a building can receive in America — in Brooklyn. As such, it should be protected from large-scale development encroachments. MAS believes that the development proposed for the site will mar iconic views both of the bridge from DUMBO’s streetscapes, and from the bridge of DUMBO, the Manhattan Bridge, and the East River. The development is currently going through the city’s land use review procedure for zoning changes. Continue Reading>>
March 3rd, 2009
Over the past several months, over a thousand people have participated in the ImagineConey initiative. The results – on display at MAS through Wednesday, March 11 – have been extraordinary, convincing us that Coney Island’s potential is truly unlimited.
While we support the City’s overall goal of revitalizing Coney Island, we are concerned that their proposed rezoning would threaten that potential, by restricting the size of the amusement area, locating high-rise buildings between Surf Avenue and the ocean, and offering insufficient protection for historic buildings in the amusement area.
Tomorrow, Brooklyn Community Board 13 will hold the first public hearing of the ULURP process on the rezoning. Please consider joining MAS in asking the City to make critical changes to the plan to ensure that we create a great Coney Island.
WHAT: Community Board Hearing on Coney Island Rezoning
WHEN: Tuesday, March 3, 6:30 p.m.
WHERE: Lincoln High School (by the Ocean Parkway stop on the Q train)
ADDRESS: 2800 Ocean Parkway, Brooklyn, NY 11235 MAP
If you plan to testify, please consider mentioning the following points: Continue Reading>>
December 16th, 2008
The proposed Ridgewood North Historic District is comprised of the earliest examples of “Mathews Model Flats,” built by speculative developer Gustave X. Mathews and designed by architect Louis Allmendinger between 1908 and 1911. Considered to be some of the most innovative housing in New York City, these “new law” tenements were designed with more space and better sanitation than their overcrowded 19th Century counterparts. By making use of generous lot sizes, introducing wide air shafts to provide improved air and light quality, including bathrooms in each unit, and controlling occupancy, Mathews established a new housing paradigm that was a welcome departure from the congested, polluted slums of the Lower East Side. The three story apartment buildings were simple, sturdy, and relatively cheap to construct, and therefore became the standard for subsequent tenement house construction. Exhibited at the 1915 Panama Pacific Fair in San Francisco, the Mathews Model Flats were heralded as an exceptional achievement in affordable housing. Continue Reading>>
December 5th, 2008
On Monday, December 1, Community Board 4 held a public forum on the plans for the Eastern Rail Yards at Penn Station (the area of the rail yards between tenth and eleventh avenues and 30th and 33rd Streets). Related Properties presented their concept for the area, which abuts the Eastern Spur of the High Line along its Southern boundary.
Frank Sanchis, testifying for MAS, argued for the preservation of the Eastern Spur, which may be threatened by the development.
“Reference to a map of the High Line”, he said, “shows that its Northern segment (including the Eastern Spur) surrounds the Eastern and Western Rail Yards development, holding the entirety in its embrace and connecting the rail yards historically and visually to the southern segment of the High Line. This is just the way the MAS thinks it should be.”
October 27th, 2008
Now is your chance to tell the Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) that you support the designation of the Prospect Heights Historic District. The LPC will hold a public hearing on Tuesday, October 28, 1:30 – 3:30 p.m. at the Municipal Building. This hearing is the second step in protecting one of Brooklyn’s finest – and most endangered – historic neighborhoods.
Prospect Heights is threatened by the Atlantic Yards project, a proposal by the developer Forest City Ratner to build 16 towers and a sports arena on a 22-acre site that abuts the boundaries of the proposed historic district.
Encompassing roughly 870 properties, the proposed Prospect Heights Historic District is rich in historic architecture, with blocks of beautiful Italianate and neo-Grec rowhouses, interspersed with churches, small commercial and apartment buildings. Located just north of Prospect Park, the neighborhood has seen few changes since it was first developed in the late-19th Century. Click here to read more about the history.
MAS has worked in partnership with the Prospect Heights Neighborhood Development Corporation (PHNDC) in advocating for the designation of this neighborhood since 2006 Continue Reading>>
October 20th, 2008
Join MAS tomorrow at 2:00 p.m. for a news conference announcing our opposition to the South Street Seaport redevelopment plan proposed by General Growth Properties (GGP). The news conference will take place just prior to the hearing at the Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) at which MAS will ask the LPC to reject the GGP proposal on several grounds relating to inappropriateness to the historic district.
Most importantly, we believe that the project overwhelms the historic buildings of the district, further severs the Seaport from its history, and destroys the sanctity of views from and of the Brooklyn Bridge. MAS believes that the entire concept of the project is flawed and misguided, and that it should be entirely re-conceptualized.
The news conference will be held in the plaza just south of the Municipal Building, 1 Centre Street (at Chambers) at 2:00 p.m. The LPC hearing is scheduled to begin at 3:00 p.m. at the Municipal Building, 1 Centre Street, 9th floor.
Images of the proposed redevelopment can be found here.
October 15th, 2008
980 Madison Avenue was back at the Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) yesterday, but it did not yet get the go-ahead from the Commissioners. The project had been significantly redesigned after the LPC rejected the original proposal by Norman Foster to build a 30-story glass addition on top of the 1949 Parke-Bernet Galleries last year.
The re-conceptualized proposal for a four-story addition was originally presented to the LPC in June. Today, the architects presented additional modifications to this design, primarily a lightening of the color of the addition’s bronze cladding. Since several Commissioners were unable to make the hearing, the LPC decided to delay the vote on the project.
To learn more about 980 Madison Avenue, click here.
August 26th, 2008
Now that the state has officially declared Manhattanville “blighted,” on September 2 and 4, the Empire State Development Corporation will hold public hearings, the next stage of the process that will ultimately determine whether the state will support the use of eminent domain in Columbia University’s planned expansion. While many believe this is a done deal, there is still the opportunity to make your voice heard on this issue. Talking points on eminent domain from Task Force Supporters the Coalition to Preserve Community, a group that has long been fighting Columbia’s plan, are after the jump.
The hearings will be held from 1-4pm and 5:30-9:30pm both days, at Aaron Davis Hall of the City University of New York, located at West 135″‘ Street at Convent Avenue. Speaker sign-up begins 15 minutes before each session.
Talking points on eminent domain:
EMINENT DOMAIN SHOULD NOT BE INVOKED ON BEHALF OF COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY’S PROPOSED EXPANSION FOR THE FOLLOWING REASONS;
(1) THE COMMUNITY UNEQUIVOCALLY OPPOSES IT
At every forum of the West Harlem Local Development Corporation and at every public hearing in the ULURP process, the community has been united in opposing the use of Eminent Domain as a first principle and most community members have demanded that the University take it off the table as a precondition for any negotiations with Columbia. The community seeks an integrated community, where private owners who have provided good-paying jobs to community workers can stay in their historic locations. Condemnation would create a “company town” solely for Columbia University’s use and enjoyment. Columbia’s “all of nothing” demand is unnecessary to their expansion, but not to their “fire-sale” land grab, and destructive of the neighborhood.
(2) THIS PROJECT IS NOT “CIVIC” NOR “FOR THE PUBLIC GOOD”
This proposed project would transfer private property to another private entity, which will use the property in public/private biotech business projects akin to Stanford University’s research park (a development Columbia has sought to emulate since the 1960s). This is not an “educational” or “-”civic” use, despite the title of this hearing, but an income-producing use by a not-for profit entity which will not even pay real–estate taxes.
(3) ANY “BLIGHT” IN THE EXPANSION AREA HAS BEEN CREATED BY THE PROPOSE BENEFICIARY OF EMINENT DOMAIN
If it is true, as Columbia has repeatedly claimed, that the University owns 70-80% of the property in Manhattanville (a claim put into question by the list of properties which it seeks to have the ESDC condemn) any ill-maintained and unoccupied property has been the result of the University’s own deliberate actions. I should not benefit from those actions. Availabl e industrial real estate is at a severe shortage in the City. Any vacant properties could have been rented immediately if maintained and truly offered for occupancy. The University has used the threat of condemnation, based on its own creation of blight, to threaten and intimidate landowners into selling their properties, saying “sell to use now or deal with the State later.” Columbia has also emptied the area of commercial tenants like Reality House and the mechanics at 3150 Broadway and is in the process of removing long-time residential tenants and potential owners.
(4) THE CONDEMNATION PROCESS HAS BEEN CORRUPT AND FULL OF CONFLICTS OF INTEREST
The University has paid at least $300,000 to the ESDC to move the condemnation process forward (a payment unacknowledged by the University until an FOIL request uncovered it) while denying its role in the Eminent Domain process. There is an irresolvable conflict of interest in the condem nation process because the consultant AKRF was hired by the University to perform its Environmental Impact Statement for the ULURP process and at the same time created the “blight study” being relied upon by the ESDC as a basis for Eminent Domain. That conflict has not been resolved by the newly minted “blight study” by another consultant which uniformly mimics the AKRF study. Moreover, AKRF also drafted responses for the City Planning Commission in response to points brought up by Community Board 9 critiquing the “Draft Scope of Work” during the ULURP process. Thus it is seeks to serve three masters: the University, the City, and the State. That is not possible.
(5)THE USE OF EMINENT DOMAIN AT THIS STAGE IS PREMATURE
Columbia has never demonstrated its need for the entire proposed expansion area. We don’t have even one set of completed plans for a building. The safety and economic-feasibility of its proposed “bathtub” basement has never been demonstrated and has served primarily as a rationale for the attempted acquisition of the entire footprint. Columbia has made no commitment to building the bathtub or developing the proposed expansion area within any designated time period. The footprint may sit fallow for years as the University struggles to raise funds in a depressed economy. Present businesses are already operating, paying wages to workers and taxes to the City.
