Preserving the Seaport

The Seaport's 'historic character'. from Dan Bruno's flickr.

Is this for real?  The Historic Districts Council of New York thinks that re-developing the failed South Street Seaport would disrupt the area’s historic character.  This is why I think most preservation projects are really dumb – the South Street Seaport is functionally a mall right now, and an empty, boring one at that.  This stopped being a historic location when the fish-market was moved out, and when the waterfront became a luxury housing destination rather than a working class neighborhood – the upscale development that exists there now represents a fundamental rejection of what the waterfront meant for New York.  The landmarking process always comes up in favor of the wealthier upper class neighborhoods – the Lower East Side rezoning that ‘preserves’ 70% of CB3’s white housing but about a quarter of housing for families of color demonstrates how this process works.  Development is the priority until enough people with clout (ie privilege) get angry, and then the Community Boards or whoever suddenly changes tack and supports a rezoning or landmarking.  Bullshit.

Provincetown Playhouse Scaffolding Up

No new pics yet, but…

After a summer long preservation battle, scaffolding has been raised for the renovation of NYU’s historic Provincetown Playhouse on MacDougal St.. In late April, NYU announced that it wanted to demolish the playhouse where legends Eugene O’Neill, and e.e. cummings once worked and performed, setting off a public relations scrap with community activists – particularly the ever prickly Greenwich Village Historic Preservation Society. Thus began a months long back and forth played out in Community Board meetings, press-release recriminations, and the oh-so-angry NYC blogosphere.

NYU ran into resistance partially because former University President J. Michael Oliva promised to preserve the building when NYU first purchased it in 1998. Since then, NYU sparked other preservationist battles when it demolished one of Edgar Allen Poe’s homes (located around the corner from Provincetown) for a new Law School Building, and with the building of the 12^th Street Dorm, which functionally demolished the historic St. Anne’s church.

NYU eventually settled on a compromise that preserves the ‘playhouse’ part of the building, located on the south side of the building on the bottom floor. The other sections of the building – offices and apartments – will be torn down, and a new building constructed in their place. The new building will cantilever over the ‘historic’ sections of the building, and features an interpretive restoration of the site’s original façade.

(part of a series of test posts written for a college-blogging job prospect)

NYU: It’s all a facade

Just one example.

Today NYU released yet another set of images from it’s NYU 2031 planning process, meant to foster community dialog about the physical manifestations of NYU”s next 25 years of growth. Having attended 3 of these meetings, each more heated than the last, I can tell you the bullshit was so intense you could smell it. Many of the ideas were either impossible-idealistic (Lets shut down a whole street [Washington Place]!) to the outlandish-absurd (We can take over Governors Island!), with an occasional purely stupid thrown down (How about we demolish half of Washington Square Village!). By the last meeting, residents were straight-up yelling at NYU reps, and the whole process seemed to be grinding to an unproductive halt. The day after that meeting, NYU sprung their Provincetown Playhouse plans on preservationists, returning town-gown relations to square one.

Which is not to say I always agree with community outcry: a mix of obstinate preservationist backlash and administrative arrogance by NYU has turned many of NYU’s recent projects into grotesque hybrids of old and new, buildings fronted by flimsy facades and cheap imitations of a real city. NYU’s building Here’s a quick tour: