Nearly a year has passed since the last time the developers of a proposed hotel next to the Merchant's House Museum made their case to the Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC).
The groups will reconvene tomorrow for the third hearing on the matter. Folks from the Merchant's House Museum on East Fourth Street between the Bowery and Lafayette as well as other local residents and officials are concerned that the proposed 9-story hotel would compromise the structural integrity of the Merchant's House.
During the second meeting before the LPC last March 12, the developers provided what Curbed described as a thorough nine-part presentation on how the construction would be completed in a manner that would not damage its historic neighbor. In the end, the LPC "had significant objections to the proposed design of the hotel itself" and were looking for a third-party expert to weigh in on the matter.
Here's the message from the Merchant's House website ahead of tomorrow's meeting:
A developer is planning to build a 9-story hotel at 27 East 4th Street, adjacent to and towering over the Merchant’s House Museum. The new 9-story building would not only overwhelm the 180-year-old landmark Merchant’s House and be strikingly inappropriate to the historic residential context of East 4th Street within the Noho Historic District, but the construction process for a building of this scale is absolutely guaranteed to damage the house.
The potential damage to our very fragile 1832 landmark building — a federal, state, and city landmark, inside and out — during demolition of the existing garage and construction of the new hotel is huge. According to analyses performed by structural engineers, if our building shifts, even 1/4 inch — as is predicted by the developers — the original landmark 1832 decorative plasterwork, considered the finest extant in New York City and a national treasure, will be damaged.
While there isn't any public testimony tomorrow, the Merchant's House is encouraging people to show up in support. (Find more details on the meeting, which starts at 2 p.m., here.)
Find Curbed's coverage of the proposed development here.
The Merchant's House was the sixth landmark designated in 1965, when LPC was first created.
The space next door to the museum is currently this one-level structure… housing Al-Amin Food Inc., which stores food carts…
[Via Google]
Previously.
9 comments:
NO, NO, NOOOO! Not another fucking hotel. It will be like the Vegas Strip.
Wait till the denizens start throwing up and peeing on the Merchant House facade...wooo!
This spot would be ideal for a "David Swimmer" mansion but not yet another trendy hotel for the Vegas-a-fied Bowery. If you have never been to the Merchant House please, please stop by and see it. The story of the house and the family are fascinating and to loose this historic gem to transient greed would be a disaster for our shared history.
The food cart storage place is cool, it's interesting to walk by and see vendors hauling them in and out. It's like a secret window into the city's works. Like so much of our basic human/city infrastructure that's disappearing in favor of luxury everything -- I wonder where they'll go?
Just talked to the woman who runs the museum the other day. This is sad. She was not happy.
The developers wouldn't weep for a second if the Merchant House were "accidentally" damaged to the extent where it had to be demolished, thus freeing up another hugely valuable parcel of land to be developed. Oops, too bad!
In fact it would be naive to expect anything else. A developer makes no money from respecting a historic building and protecting it. By definition, their business is demolishing old building and replacing them with new ones...and a businessperson who stops to do things contrary to business success will simply be overtaken by competitors in the same field. We simply can't expect a business to do things voluntarily that are against its own immediate interest -- this is why they have to be stopped by outside agencies.
"A developer makes no money from respecting a historic building and protecting it" - But communities ALWAYS see increased value from preserving historical buildings and areas due to increased tax revenues and economic activity.
Dumb NoHo Hoteliers
I feel like an idiot for not knowing this is on 4th Street. I must be sleepwalking through my life.
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