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What We’re Up Against

On Friday, an investigation by The City revealed that the Mayor’s personal lawyers, to whom he is indebted over $300,000 for defending him in fundraising and ethics investigations, have been hired to lobby him against our preservation efforts. The report carefully outlined how the firm was hired after we submitted detailed research outlining why several endangered buildings on Varick and Hudson Streets should be considered for landmark designation, and how following their lobbying of specific city officials, that request was rejected.

The same controversial politically connected lobbyist who lobbied for the Tech Hub deal is now lobbying for an air rights transfer for a ‘Silicon Alley’ office tower on St. Mark’s Place.

This is not the first time lobbyists with questionable fundraising relationships with the Mayor have been employed to oppose our efforts, a dynamic we have faced consistently with this administration (the same firm was hired to lobby the Mayor and the City Council in favor of the Tech Hub deal, and is now lobbying for an air rights transfer for an office building on St. Mark’s Place to further extend ‘Silicon Alley’ in our neighborhood).

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Village Preservation doesn’t hire lobbying firms to advocate for our efforts. Our members are our lobbyists, who influence decision-makers with letter-writing campaigns, testifying at hearings, attending rallies, and contacting their elected officials. Through this work, we’ve managed to secure landmark protections for over 1,250 buildings, and zoning protections for nearly 100 blocks.

Members of Village Preservation Testified at the City Council Hearing on the Tech Hub.

Even in the hostile environment of this administration, we have managed to secure landmark designation for nearly 200 buildings, including some LGBT historic sites for which we have long campaigned, the former home and studio of Willem de Kooning, which we saved from the wrecking ball and replacement with a 300 ft. tall office tower, and a new historic district in the South Village. We’ve beaten back zoning variances that would have led to overdevelopment in the West and East Village, helped prevent construction of a hotel that could have endangered the Merchant’s House Museum, led successful campaigns to block efforts by the Mayor to roll back our hard-fought-for zoning protections and to cut the public out of the landmarks public review process, and won zoning protections from air rights transfers for the Greenwich Village waterfront. All since the Mayor took office in 2014.

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Nos. 827-831 Broadway, which we saved from the wrecking ball.

But there’s no denying we face an uphill climb and a deck stacked against us every day. That’s why we need your support and participation, so we can take on the lobbyists, the pay-to-players, and the corrupt interests, and win.  Please consider making a contribution to Village Preservation today to allow us to continue to wage this fight against the long odds, and send a letter to top decision-makers in support of one of our many ongoing preservation campaigns.

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