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A couple of weeks old, but worth pondering...
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/01/arts/design/01pres.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&oref=slogin
Architecture
In Village, a Proposal That Erases History
By NICOLAI OUROUSSOFF
Published: April 1, 2008
Correction Appended
The passionate battles surrounding the birth of New York’s preservation movement nearly a half-century ago seem like distant memories now. For some New Yorkers the main threat to architecture in the city is no longer the demolition of its great landmarks, but a trite nostalgia that disdains the new.
Well, think again. Over the last few years the growing clout of developers has gradually chipped away at the city’s resolve to protect its architectural legacy. The agency most responsible for defending that legacy, the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission, has sometimes been accused of putting developers’ interests above the well-being of the city’s inhabitants.
A proposal before the commission to tear down several buildings in the Greenwich Village Historic District is shaping up as a crucial test of whether those critics are right. A hearing on the issue is scheduled for Tuesday morning, and New Yorkers would do well to follow the proceedings if they care about the city’s future.
The application by the St. Vincent Catholic Medical Center calls for the demolition of nine structures on West 11th and 12th Streets, near Seventh Avenue, to make way for a towering new co-op building and a hospital. The threatened buildings range from the 1924 Student Nurses Residence Building to the 1963 O’Toole Building, one of the first buildings in the city to break with the Modernist mainstream as it was congealing into formulaic dogma.
The question facing the commission is which, if any, of these buildings contribute to the character of the neighborhood, a protected historic district. (If the agency sides with preservationists, the battle is not necessarily won; St. Vincent’s, which is financially troubled, still has the option of pleading economic hardship.)
Sadly, the hospital’s application reflects the pernicious but prevalent notion that any single building that is not a major historical landmark — or stands outside the historical mainstream — is unworthy of our protection. Pursue that logic to its conclusion, and you replace genuine urban history with a watered-down substitute. It’s historical censorship.
St. Vincent’s board would like you to believe that this is a purely practical decision. The project, planned in partnership with the Rudin Organization, a local developer, would be built in two phases. In the first the five-story O’Toole Building would be demolished to make room for a 21-story tower that would house the entire hospital. (Because of the floors’ unusual height, this is roughly equivalent to a 30-story building.) A 21-story residential tower, flanked by rows of town houses, would replace the hospital’s seven other buildings between 11th and 12th Streets.
The hospital expects to get $310 million from the sale of that land, which would go toward the construction of its new $830 million tower. (It would raise the remainder through private donations and other sources.)
In patronizing fashion, hospital officials have suggested that preservationists are choosing buildings over lives, as if the two were in direct opposition. This is the kind of developer’s cant that is ruining our city. The addition of up to 400 co-op apartments is about money, not saving lives. There are plenty of other ways that the hospital could upgrade its facilities.
The existing buildings that make up the hospital’s main campus east of Seventh Avenue do not rank as major historic landmarks. Even preservationists concede that the George Link Jr. Memorial Building, a bland brick box dating from the mid-1980s, is not worth saving.
But it is not their status as individual objects that makes these buildings important; it’s their relationship to the historic fabric of the neighborhood. The designation of the neighborhood as a landmark district in 1969 was intended to protect humble structures like these. Established after local activists brought attention to the destruction wreaked by urban renewal projects, the designation was an affirmation that the city’s character is rooted in the small grain of everyday life.
The threatened demolition of the O’Toole Building is most troubling of all. Designed by the New Orleans architect Albert C. Ledner, it is significant both as a work of architecture and as a repository of cultural memory.
It was built to house the National Maritime Union, as the era of longshoremen and merchant sailors was nearing an end. Its glistening white facade and scalloped overhangs, boldly cantilevered over the lower floors, were meant to conjure an ocean voyage and a bright new face for the union. (Think of “On the Waterfront.â€) Its glass brick base, once the site of union halls, suggests an urban aquarium.
In short, you don’t need to love the building to grasp its historical value. Like Ledner’s Maritime dormitory building on Ninth Avenue or Edward Durell Stone’s 2 Columbus Circle, the O’Toole represents a moment when some architects rebelled against Modernism’s glass-box aesthetic in favor of ornamental facades.
Viewed in that context, the O’Toole Building is part of a complex historical narrative in which competing values are always jostling for attention. This is not simply a question of losing a building; it’s about masking those complexities and reducing New York history to a caricature. Ultimately, it’s a form of collective amnesia.
At St. Vincent’s, the damage is likely to be only compounded by the design of these new co-op buildings, a sentimental faux version of the past.
If we continue down this path, we’ll end up with the urban equivalent of a patient on meds: safe, numb, soulless. Is this choosing lives?
This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:
Correction: April 2, 2008
The architecture column on Tuesday, about a development proposal by St. Vincent’s Hospital Manhattan and the Rudin Management Company, misstated the number of buildings they are seeking to raze to make way for a new hospital and residences in Greenwich Village. It is nine, not eight.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/01/arts/design/01pres.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&oref=slogin
Architecture
In Village, a Proposal That Erases History
By NICOLAI OUROUSSOFF
Published: April 1, 2008
Correction Appended
The passionate battles surrounding the birth of New York’s preservation movement nearly a half-century ago seem like distant memories now. For some New Yorkers the main threat to architecture in the city is no longer the demolition of its great landmarks, but a trite nostalgia that disdains the new.
Well, think again. Over the last few years the growing clout of developers has gradually chipped away at the city’s resolve to protect its architectural legacy. The agency most responsible for defending that legacy, the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission, has sometimes been accused of putting developers’ interests above the well-being of the city’s inhabitants.
A proposal before the commission to tear down several buildings in the Greenwich Village Historic District is shaping up as a crucial test of whether those critics are right. A hearing on the issue is scheduled for Tuesday morning, and New Yorkers would do well to follow the proceedings if they care about the city’s future.
The application by the St. Vincent Catholic Medical Center calls for the demolition of nine structures on West 11th and 12th Streets, near Seventh Avenue, to make way for a towering new co-op building and a hospital. The threatened buildings range from the 1924 Student Nurses Residence Building to the 1963 O’Toole Building, one of the first buildings in the city to break with the Modernist mainstream as it was congealing into formulaic dogma.
The question facing the commission is which, if any, of these buildings contribute to the character of the neighborhood, a protected historic district. (If the agency sides with preservationists, the battle is not necessarily won; St. Vincent’s, which is financially troubled, still has the option of pleading economic hardship.)
Sadly, the hospital’s application reflects the pernicious but prevalent notion that any single building that is not a major historical landmark — or stands outside the historical mainstream — is unworthy of our protection. Pursue that logic to its conclusion, and you replace genuine urban history with a watered-down substitute. It’s historical censorship.
St. Vincent’s board would like you to believe that this is a purely practical decision. The project, planned in partnership with the Rudin Organization, a local developer, would be built in two phases. In the first the five-story O’Toole Building would be demolished to make room for a 21-story tower that would house the entire hospital. (Because of the floors’ unusual height, this is roughly equivalent to a 30-story building.) A 21-story residential tower, flanked by rows of town houses, would replace the hospital’s seven other buildings between 11th and 12th Streets.
The hospital expects to get $310 million from the sale of that land, which would go toward the construction of its new $830 million tower. (It would raise the remainder through private donations and other sources.)
In patronizing fashion, hospital officials have suggested that preservationists are choosing buildings over lives, as if the two were in direct opposition. This is the kind of developer’s cant that is ruining our city. The addition of up to 400 co-op apartments is about money, not saving lives. There are plenty of other ways that the hospital could upgrade its facilities.
The existing buildings that make up the hospital’s main campus east of Seventh Avenue do not rank as major historic landmarks. Even preservationists concede that the George Link Jr. Memorial Building, a bland brick box dating from the mid-1980s, is not worth saving.
But it is not their status as individual objects that makes these buildings important; it’s their relationship to the historic fabric of the neighborhood. The designation of the neighborhood as a landmark district in 1969 was intended to protect humble structures like these. Established after local activists brought attention to the destruction wreaked by urban renewal projects, the designation was an affirmation that the city’s character is rooted in the small grain of everyday life.
The threatened demolition of the O’Toole Building is most troubling of all. Designed by the New Orleans architect Albert C. Ledner, it is significant both as a work of architecture and as a repository of cultural memory.
It was built to house the National Maritime Union, as the era of longshoremen and merchant sailors was nearing an end. Its glistening white facade and scalloped overhangs, boldly cantilevered over the lower floors, were meant to conjure an ocean voyage and a bright new face for the union. (Think of “On the Waterfront.â€) Its glass brick base, once the site of union halls, suggests an urban aquarium.
In short, you don’t need to love the building to grasp its historical value. Like Ledner’s Maritime dormitory building on Ninth Avenue or Edward Durell Stone’s 2 Columbus Circle, the O’Toole represents a moment when some architects rebelled against Modernism’s glass-box aesthetic in favor of ornamental facades.
Viewed in that context, the O’Toole Building is part of a complex historical narrative in which competing values are always jostling for attention. This is not simply a question of losing a building; it’s about masking those complexities and reducing New York history to a caricature. Ultimately, it’s a form of collective amnesia.
At St. Vincent’s, the damage is likely to be only compounded by the design of these new co-op buildings, a sentimental faux version of the past.
If we continue down this path, we’ll end up with the urban equivalent of a patient on meds: safe, numb, soulless. Is this choosing lives?
This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:
Correction: April 2, 2008
The architecture column on Tuesday, about a development proposal by St. Vincent’s Hospital Manhattan and the Rudin Management Company, misstated the number of buildings they are seeking to raze to make way for a new hospital and residences in Greenwich Village. It is nine, not eight.
