Vinyl wall advertisement installed without approval. In response to a June 2, 2004 warning letter, the owner of 600 Broadway, an 1883 loft building located in the SoHo-Cast Iron Historic District, sought to legalize the installation of a Steve Madden vinyl wall advertisement installed on the buildings’ north wall without Landmarks’ approval. Landmarks issued permits to 600 Broadway in the past for wall advertisements including a 47’ x 55’ sign at the east end of the north wall.

Landmarks denied the permit, finding the sign was not in keeping with other wall signs in the district. Noting the size and color palette, it found that the advertisement would overwhelm the scale of the building and the streetscape. Landmarks felt that the juxtaposition of the new sign with the previously approved DKNY painted wall sign, still in place, would detract from the historic district. (read more…)

New two-story house okayed for vacant lot. Geoffroi Flournoy, of BRP Development Corp., sought Landmarks approval to build a twostory, red-brick building at 302 Waverly Avenue, a vacant lot in the Clinton Hill Historic District, Brooklyn. Following three public hearings in 2001 through 2003, the new building was approved based on the design’s replication of other two-story carriage houses within the district.

In approving, Landmarks noted that the design’s proposed cornice, red brick and large wooden garage door related to the existing carriage houses on Waverly Avenue and were in keeping with the historic district. Further, the new building would only be slightly visible from Clinton Avenue, which contains several notable mansions once owned by the Pratt family. (read more…)

Modern apartment building in traditional manufacturing district approved. The Brodsky Organization applied for a permit to build an 18- story apartment building in the Ladies’ Mile Historic District on a vacant lot at 4-10 West 21st Street, which had been rezoned in August 2004 to permit as-of-right residential development. Hugh Hardy, of H3Hardy Collaboration Architecture, LLC, designed the 93,000 sq.ft. building to contain 62 apartment units, 105 parking spaces and 6,000 sq.ft. of retail space. Hardy characterized the process of designing a new building within a historic district as a balancing act, trying to “honor tradition without being trapped by it.”

The design responds to the materials and the traditional grid design of the surrounding historic lofts, but implements a secondary asymmetrical grid, which “slides over” the traditional one. Community Board 5 and the Municipal Art Society both supported the modern design, but the Historic Districts Council and Jack Taylor of the Drive to Preserve Ladies’ Mile objected to the “chaotic” asymmetrical infill pattern and use of bay windows as disruptive to the historic district. (read more…)

Owner denied access lift, sidewalk excavation and a new passageway. The owner of 313 315 West 91 st Street, two Renaissance- style rowhouses designed by Charles True and built in 1897, sought a permit to excavate the sidewalk along the western end of 315 West 91 st Street to create a passageway. The buildings, two of a series of seven historic mansions, are located within the Riverside Drive-West End Historic District designated by Landmarks in 1989. Within the passageway, the owner proposed to build a new stairway, an access lift and a glass and cement mortar stairway railing.

Landmarks denied the application, finding that a passageway was not a historic feature present in any of the mansions comprising the historic district and the proposed access-lift design would detract from the integrity and architectural character of 315 West 91 st’s b owed- frontage. In making the determination, Landmarks . stated that the West 91 st rowhouses were comprised of four distinct designs that varied in a unique pattern down the street. The subject buildings differed in design, with 315 West 91 st having a full bow-fronted facade, while 313 West 91 st has a projecting bay. The owner’s proposed changes to the full bow-fronted facade at 315 West 91 st were too significant to approve. (read more…)

Landmarks designates a Queens single-family cobblestone building. Supported by the owner and at the urging of Council Member Tony Avella, Landmarks designated the single-family home at 35-34 Bell Boulevard in Bayside, Queens, noting its construction entirely of rugged, uncut cobblestones as its most distinguishing feature. Built in 1905- 1906, 35-34 Bell Boulevard is a Colonial Revival-Style home influenced by the Arts and Crafts movement. It was part of a subdivision of the last 1 00 acres of the Abraham Bell farm, in Bayside, where cobblestone walls had been used to mark the farms’ boundaries. (read more…)