NYU 400 ft tall Tower Landmarks Hearing Tonight; Huge Turnout at Rally Yesterday


REMINDER: There will be a public hearing and vote tonight by Community Board 2 on the landmarks application by NYU for their proposed 400 ft. tall hotel/residence tower on Bleecker Street in Silver Towers, the first part of their massive proposed 20 year expansion plan (see details on our Landmarks Application webpage HERE). IT IS CRITICAL THAT WE HAVE A STRONG TURNOUT TO URGE THAT THE PROPOSAL BE REJECTED! The hearing takes places at Grace Church School, 94 Fourth Avenue (nr. 11th Street), starting at 6:30pm. You can sign up to testify, or just come and wear a sticker GVSHP will provide to show your opposition. See the flyer for tonight’s hearing HERE.

GVSHP worked very hard to secure landmark status for the I.M. Pei-designed Silver Towers complex, its Picasso sculpture, and the surrounding open space, and strongly opposes this proposal.

Tonight’s hearing follows a huge turnout at the rally yesterday led by GVSHP and the Community Action Alliance on NYU 2031 by hundreds of Village residents, NYU faculty and students, and other New Yorkers to show opposition to the NYU 2031 plan, especially the 400 ft.tall tower proposal. Speakers at the rally included not only a broad cross-section of Village community leaders, but representatives of NYU faculty and students. See images of the rally HERE. The event received extensive press coverage, including on NY1 News, Channel 11 News, El Diario (in English), the Epoch Times, Curbed, and Washington Square News.

Thank you to everyone who participated in and helped organize the rally and make it such a success!

Critical Items Before the Landmarks Preservation Commission


Tomorrow the Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) will hold public hearings on two proposed building alterations of serious concern to GVSHP.  One is a proposal to add a 7-story addition to a 1 1/2 story meat market building in the Gansevoort Market Historic District at 837 Washington Street (see details on our Landmarks Application webpage HERE). The other is to add a large rooftop addition and alter the rear facade of a historic former stable in the recently-designated South Village extension of the Greenwich Village Historic District at 23 Cornelia Street (see details on our Landmarks Application webpage HERE).

GVSHP worked very hard to secure historic district designation for the areas covered by both of these proposals, and is opposed to both proposed additions. The proposed addition to 837 Washington Street would be out-of-scale with the predominantly low-rise nature of the Meatpacking District, is much too large compared to the existing 1 1/2 story building, and would set a far-reaching precedent for the many remaining 1 and 2 story meat market buildings in the designated historic district. The proposed addition to the stable at 23 Cornelia Street also does not relate to context of the surrounding historic district or the former stable itself. Additionally, this was one of several cases where alterations were rushed in before designation of the historic district took place and architectural details of the building removed, and there have been numerous complaints by neighbors of illegal work.

GVSHP is also very concerned about an application before the LPC to legalize a garish 2-story storefront which was installed without permits at 47 West 8th Street. This application was heard at the last LPC meeting, at which the Commission indicated it would approve it with only minor changes (see details on our Landmarks Application webpage HERE). GVSHP testified strongly against the application; when the Commission asked for only minor changes to the facade, we wrote to the Chair of the Commission urging that they not reward blatantly illegal work and or make permanent a woefully inappropriate intrusion into the historic district (the applicant had received multiple violations from the city for the illegal work now being legalized). Read GVSHP’s letter to the Commission HERE.

You can write to the Landmarks Preservation Commission to state your objections to any of these applications; contact information is on our Landmarks Application webpage HERE.  You can also testify at the public hearings for 837 Washington Street and 23 Cornelia Street, which will be heard at the LPC tomorrow afternoon; details on time and location can be found HERE (items 21 and 22).