Goggla passed along this photo. And we took a look at the site ourselves yesterday. The workers are digging deep... any deeper and they'll be in Hollywood soon...
There are permits galore now on file with the DOB... we're looking at "the erection of a 6 story one family building."
According to permits, Cooper Union grad (and current Trustee!) Leslie Gill is the architect of record. (No sign of the renderings yet, but we look forward to seeing them!) Among the many projects during her distinguished career, she did the master planning for Warner Bros. Records, Los Angeles. (Did you know that "Friends" was filmed on the Warner Bros. lot from 1994 to 2004?)
Meanwhile.
A caller told the DOB on Nov. 30 that workers are "doing unsafe demolition and it is causing his building to shake and it may cause structural damage."
And now, a comment someone left on Nov. 25 on one of the other Schwimmer posts:
You know what the difference between LA and NYC is (having lived in both places I can speak with some some degree of knowledge)?
In LA they don't give a rat's ass about the character of the neighborhood. There's very little consideration given to architectural context, and they have very few buildings that have been around since the 1850s.
Here we take some pride in the fact that our neighborhoods have some character, and saying that someone can do 'anything they want' with an old building may be technically true, but is completely out of the spirit of what makes this city different and why neighborhoods like the LES/EV what they are.
If someone comes in and buys a perfectly nice old building (and one that might actually be landmark-worthy) and then razes it to put up some monolith that has no relationship to the what's around it, well, then that person is, um, well, an idiot.
Having some knowledge of the world that Mr. Schwimmer comes from, it's not strange that he did what he's doing, because in his world oversize garish houses on small lots is what you DO. You could really care less about what your neighbors do or think or even what their house looks like.
Here, however, that's really annoying and I'd even go so far as to say dramatically uncool. Welcome to NY, David. It's clear you're just an interloper with more cash than sense.
Previously on EV Grieve:
Is David Schwimmer the 'Friends' star who now owns the demolished 331 E. Sixth St. townhouse?
Outrage over total demolition of historic East Sixth Street townhouse
I think this might result in a new word entering our lexicon. When a historic building is being demolished, we can say it is being "schwimmered".
ReplyDeleteexample: Hey, I heard that St.Mark's Church is being "schwimmered" to make room for the new NYU dorm.
Soon this neighborhood is going to be unrecognizable. And by soon, I mean last week.
I share the outrage over the senseless destruction of this building...Though I would like to correct the post about LA and "rat's ass" about neighborhood... Along the coastal parts, California thankfully has a very effective means of controlling development anywhere within a half-mile I think it is of the shoreline, in the form of the California Coastal Commission. This was set up to keep the shoreline from becoming Miami Beach (or Trump Towers, take your pick)--its the equivalent of the Landmarks Commission here, except its not in the pocket of real estate and actually has teeth. A friend of mine lived on a block about to be sullied by a 3-4 story single family residence. The neighbors got together, went to the coastal commission which declared it illegal and the construction stopped. Unlike the LC here, it really did stop new large-scale development in its tracks.
ReplyDelete@ Barney
ReplyDeleteHa! I like it. Will be sure to use (and credit you!)
@ anon
Didn't The Edge lose a battle with state officials over building a gargantuan home in Malibu Hills?
hey david thanks for schwimmering east 6th st, you sack of sh*t
ReplyDelete