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GVSHP
232 East 11th Street, New York, NY 10003
or fax (212) 475-9582
or e-mail: gvshp@gvshp.org
DATE
City Council Speaker Christine Quinn
224 West 30th Street, Suite 1206
New York, NY 10001
fax: (212) 564-7347
email: speakerquinn@council.nyc.ny.us
Dear Speaker Quinn:
YOU MUST ENSURE THAT THE THREE EXCLUDED SITES – NYU’S VANDERBILT HALL AND KEVORKIAN CENTER, AND THE 1840’S HOUSTON STREET HOUSES – ARE INCLUDED IN THE FINAL PROPOSED BOUNDARIES OF THE SOUTH VILLAGE HISTORIC DISTRICT.
I know you have already written to the Landmarks Preservation Commission encouraging them to include these sites, but you must do more. You brokered this deal with the City to approve a developer’s entire requested rezoning in exchange for a partial commitment on South Village landmarking. You also brokered the deal allowing NYU’s massive expansion plans in the Village to be approved. NOW YOU MUST ENSURE THAT THESE THREE SITES ARE INCLUDED IN THE LANDMARK DESIGNATION. Without this, these buildings which are integral to the history and character of the South Village will be unprotected, and there will be nothing to stop NYU from eventually demolishing Vanderbilt Hall and replacing it with a 300 ft. tall tower as the zoning allows.
We need YOU to act to ensure these sites are landmarked, and are part of the deal you made with the City.
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Sincerely,
NAME
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ADDRESS
DATE
Hon. Robert Tierney
Chair, NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission
One Centre Street, 9th Floor
New York, NY 10007
e-mail: rtierney@lpc.nyc.gov
fax: (212) 669-7960 or (212) 669-7955
I STRONGLY URGE YOU TO EXPAND THE PROPOSED BOUNDARIES OF THE SOUTH VILLAGE HISTORIC DISTRICT TO INCLUDE THE NORTH SIDE OF HOUSTON STREET BETWEEN MACDOUGAL AND SULLIVAN STREETS AND NYU’S VANDERBILT HALL AND KEVORKIAN CENTER.
It is difficult to understand why the few examples of sensitive, contextual development by NYU like Vanderbilt Hall and the Kevorkian Center would be excluded from the district. Kevorkian was designed by renowned architect Philip Johnson and combines modernism with a sensitivity to the scale and character of the South Village. Vanderbilt Hall is an even rarer example of a historicist design by NYU which consciously attempts to relate to the architecture, materials, and design sensibility of Greenwich Village. When constructed more than sixty years ago, it was a rare case of such sensitivity, and reflected not only developments in university expansions in this country, but battles over the preservation of the area surrounding Washington Square Park. It therefore has an extraordinarily important connection to the South Village’s history, and should be included in the district.
The houses along Houston Street were all built in 1844 along with what is now MacDougal Sullivan Gardens. Though altered, they maintain a connection to the earliest phase of urban development of this neighborhood, and have survived for 170 years. To exclude them from the proposed landmark designation would not only allow destruction of these historically significant structures, but potentially allow terribly out-of-scale and inappropriate development which would shatter the scale and character of MacDougal Sullivan Gardens and the rest of the historic South Village.
I hope you will expand the proposed district boundaries to include these very important sites.
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Sincerely,
NAME
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ADDRESS
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