Alert: Plans for Oversized Additions to
21 Greenwich Avenue and 85 Sullivan Street
Get Landmark Hearing
Next Tuesday, September 24 – PLEASE WRITE!

Next Tuesday the Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) will be hearing two applications for troubling and potentially precedent-setting proposed additions (and in one case demolition) in the Greenwich Village and Sullivan-Thompson Historic Districts.  Village Preservation is strongly opposed to both, and we urge you to write the LPC expressing your opposition as well.

At 21 Greenwich Avenue at West 10th Street (above), a developer proposes to demolish a characteristic 1-story late-19th-century commercial rear addition to this early 19th-century residential structure and replace it with a 5-story jarringly-modern addition. The applicant has spent years refusing to repair the building and leaving it in a troublingly deteriorated condition.  Village Preservation opposes the proposed demolition of this structure, which is characteristic of rowhouse neighborhoods like Greenwich Village, and the scale and design of the proposed replacement.  See more about the application and public review and approval process here.

At 85 Sullivan Street between Spring and Broome Streets (above), a developer proposes a highly visible 3-story rear addition to this individually landmarked 1819 (rebuilt 1825) house in the Sullivan Thompson Historic District.  The proposed addition would more than double the size of the federal-style house, and destroy the symmetry between it and neighboring 83 Sullivan Street, built and rebuilt jointly with 85 Sullivan Street in 1819 and 1825. Each were individually landmarked in 1973, making them among the first houses in New York City to be landmarked, and in 2016 they were included in the Sullivan Thompson Historic District, covering these and about 160 surrounding buildings on a dozen blocks. Like at 21 Greenwich Avenue, the proposed addition would overwhelm the landmarked structure and its context; also like at 21 Greenwich Avenue, the owner has neglected and allowed to building to deteriorate for years. See more about the application and public review and approval process here.

Send a letter urging the Landmarks Preservation Commission to reject these two proposals