After constructing an addition without permits, the owner asked Landmarks to allow the illegal structure to be legalized and expanded. 160 East 92nd Street is a vernacular clapboard dwelling with Greek Revival and Italianate style elements. It was built in 1852-53 and was designated an individual landmark in 1988. Without Landmarks approval, Freud 92 Properties LLC, the building owner, demolished a two-story, wood frame rear yard addition and replaced it with an unarticulated, windowless, two-story addition that extended five feet further into the rear yard. Landmarks issued a notice of violation for Freud’s construction of the addition while a permit was pending.

Freud applied on April 6, 2005 to legalize the addition, offering to cut a notch in the addition at the point where it met the original building to attempt to reduce the addition’s mass. One week later, Freud applied again to legalize the existing addition and to increase its size by adding a new third story.

Landmarks denied both applications, finding that the two-story addition was already too large, concealed the openings on the original structure and was not in keeping with the scale and character of the original structure. Landmarks found that the notch proposed in Freud’s initial application was not an acceptable means of minimizing the impact of an addition that diminished the architectural character of the existing small-frame landmark.

Landmarks stated that if the addition remained in its current condition, Freud faced a second NOV and potential fines.

LPC: 160 East 92nd Street (CD 05-7766) (May 20, 2005); LPC: 160 East 92nd Street (CD 06-0336) (July 18, 2005). CITYADMIN