Atrocities

Losing Ground at Chelsea Square

Architect Charles C. Haight modeled the General Theological Seminary's bell tower on Magdalen College's, Oxford. This view of it from Tenth Avenue and 20th Street would be blocked by Beyer Blinder Belle's proposed addition to the Seminary's 1836 West Building. The Seminary's mid-block grounds were designed to complement set-back garden fronts and distinguished row houses across 20th Street. Together they make one of New York's best blocks and form the heart of the Chelsea Historic District. The addition will go before a public hearing of the Landmarks Preservation Commission at 11 AM tomorrow, June 21st. Beyer Blinder Belle's rendering of the proposed addition, at center above, shows it replacing part of the block's distinctive open space with standard street line construction. In addition to the open space it would take up, the addition would block sunlight and views deeper into grounds behind it. It stands forward of the set-back, gray stone West Building, seen beyond. A smaller addition, proposed as office space for the Seminary, was approved for the same site by the Landmarks Commission in 2008. With declining enrolment, the Seminary no longer needs the addition, but is in the process of selling the West Building and the addition site to the Brodsky Organization for development as luxury condominiums. Approval of the addition can be passed on without regard for a change in ownership or function, allowing it to be sold as well. The addition's north elevation, facing away from the street, would be a decidedly non-contextual seven stories. (The full first floor is conveniently obscured in this drawing, which shows the ground plane forward of the building's areaway.) Beyer Blinder Belle replicates Polshek Partnership's formula for the new Chelsea Enclave condominium at the Ninth Avenue end of the Seminary block: one-story brownstone base, four brick stories, and two penthouse floors set back and clad in an alternate material so they don't visually contradict the lower cornice line of the masonry bulk below. BBB even adopts Polshek's glazed corners, creating the impression that Chelsea Enclave is colonizing the Seminary grounds. Polshek's building was in a taller, avenue context, while BBB's is surrounded by shorter buildings not just on the Seminary block but across 20th Street, which is lined with fine Greek Revival and Italianate row houses. Here, BBB doesn't even bother adjusting the brick cornice line to its surroundings. The design appears to assume that the Landmarks Commission's approval of Chelsea Enclave opened the door to matching construction elsewhere on the block. Relating to previous approvals for Chelsea Enclave and BBB's own earlier approved West Building addition, the current design operates at a remove from its real context. What's lost sight of is the appropriateness of any addition at all. BBB's already approved design for a five-story addition is shown at center in the top image. Below it is the currently proposed addition, its recessed seventh story camouflaged against background rooftops in light gray. The addition's glass link to the historic gray stone of the West Building was originally meant as a new Seminary entrance and a connection between office functions on either side. It would now be a luxury condominium entrance. The new design has a slightly smaller footprint than its unbuilt predecessor, which may be used as a selling point to the Landmarks Commission. Shoe-horning a new owner and program into a building shell and image that hasn't been built yet is absurd enough, but the real elephant in the room is that the earlier addition was approved to fill the vital space needs of an institution with centuries-deep roots in its site, while the current one would let rich people live in a park. The Seminary's open space has been celebrated as a public amenity since its creation, and publicly protected as part of the Chelsea Historic District since 1970. Justification for its loss should be the top consideration. By rules it counts for nothing. Singled out by the Chelsea Historic District's 1970 Designation Report for its "picturesque medievalism," the northwest corner of the Seminary grounds is a set-piece of architectural composition. Views of it from 20th Street are now largely obscured by ivy covered fences, serving the purposes of Seminary administrators who would sell these views from under the public. Street views would be permanently blocked by luxury condominiums, set up like cushy chairs on on the raised stage of the seminary grounds without regard for the house seats. Thomas Janvier's In Old New York celebrated the view that would be diminished, as it was taking form in 1894: “Only one of the original edifices, the West Building, still is standing; and now the larger part of what was Chelsea Square is covered with great brick halls, and the brick chapel, erected within the past ten years. Even with all this growth of new buildings there still remains a wide extent of trimly kept lawns dotted with flower-beds and shaded by wide-branching trees; and there is no more delightful bit in all New York than the deeply recessed space in the south front, where the yellow-green lawn has for background the ivy-clad red brick walls . . .” A detail of Matthew Dripps' 1852 New York map shows the Seminary's original East and West Buildings occupying Chelsea Square, created by Clement Clarke Moore from his apple orchard and donated to the Episcopal Church expressly for a Seminary in 1817. In the same stroke, Moore gave a value enhancing focus to the residential neighborhood he was developing from his estate as it was subdivided by the encroaching street grid. The grounds surrounding the Seminary's two original buildings were spatially complemented by ten-foot front garden setbacks Moore instituted across 20th and 21st Streets from the Square. According to the Chelsea Historic District's Designation Report, “The resulting effect was the adaptation to Chelsea of the residential square concept. In this instance, the Seminary block (Chelsea Square) acts as the square. The ten-foot setbacks on West 20th and 21st Streets simply protected and enhanced it. . . . Thus the first houses, which were built in a park-like setting, were either mansions or large town houses.” Like its contemporaries, Washington Square and Gramercy Park, Chelsea Square would attract high-end residential development, including 20th Street's Cushman Row, seen just below and to the right of "Seminary" on the map. The Designation Report calls it the “outstanding feature” of the Chelsea Historic District and “one of the most splendid and best preserved rows of town houses in New York City” ranking "with the row at the northeast corner of Washington Square." This map shows architect Charles C. Haight’s design of the Seminary as documented in a street atlas before his original Ninth Avenue buildings were demolished. The grounds of his original master plan are shown in green. The pink and green striped area at right shows original campus grounds now covered by the recent Chelsea Enclave condominium development. The striped area at left would be covered by the currently proposed addition to the Seminary's historic West Building. At the bottom of the plan, across 20th Street, historic ten-foot front garden setbacks are colored green. The Chelsea Historic District Designation Report states that “the ten foot deep yards enhance the individual buildings on this side of the street and contribute further to the open quality of the parklike grounds of the General Theological Seminary opposite them.” Haight's precise alignment of the Seminary grounds to these gardens shows how deliberately he incorporated them, and the elegant row house fronts behind them, into his cloister-like master plan. Haight was hired by the Seminary's visionary Dean, from 1879-1902, E.A. Hoffman, to create a comprehensive new Seminary, what Hoffman called his "grand design." In keeping most construction along three sides of the block, Haight consolidated, defined and sheltered outdoor space. By this strategy, Hoffman observed, “the function of the grounds as a private park is interfered with as little as possible.” The appropriately focal chapel projects onto the center of the grounds, taking up the traditional north position of a cloister church and forming east and west quads. The west quad contains the original 1836 West Building, which Haight had restored in 1872. A monument to the earlier campus where Clement Clarke Moore had taught, it is given space to stand in its own time, style, symmetry and material. The West Building is balanced in the east quad by a faculty housing building of about the same size, the two informally framing the chapel and allowing an even distribution of open space across the campus. Opening his ring of buildings to the south, Haight flooded the grounds with sun and gave public exposure to the play of shadows across his skillfully composed building faces. Most importantly, he shrank but maintained Clement Clarke Moore's original town square, still containing two freestanding Seminary buildings, one of them its original West Building. His design allowed the distinctive street wall across 20th Street to retain its informing town square significance. The picturesque informality of Haight's design is deceptive. It's in fact rationally derived, carefully balanced, and brilliantly attuned to both its physical and historic contexts. According to a GTS press release describing BBB's presentation of its earlier design, the West Building addition's “North and West faces are positioned to reinforce the outdoor areas of the western quad of the Seminary.” It reports that BBB firm partners Frederick Bland, now a Landmarks Commissioner, and Elizabeth Leber “characterized the design of the new 5-story structure as furthering the evolution of the Close originally envisioned by architect Charles Coolidge Haight,” a statement tempting Haight's return from the grave to further the evolution of BBB. There are no empty spaces left in Haight's master plan. It was fully executed, through the renowned determination of Dean Hoffman. Montgomery Schuyler, the leading architecture critic of Haight's day, emphasized the Seminary's completion, calling it one of the two “most complete and homogenous” colleges he knew of and citing its “complete and prearranged scheme.” Schuyler wrote that the Seminary was “its author's masterpiece, and as exemplary as it is beautiful. It is a public benefaction as well as an artistic achievement thus to create an oasis of beauty and repose . . .” Schuyler, whom the architectural historian Christopher Gray has called notoriously picky, rated the Seminary a “brilliant success.” Intact except for the area covered by Chelsea Enclave, Haight's accomplishment stands as one of New York’s most impressive examples of private architecture engaging and enlarging the public realm of the street, and one of the city's very finest blocks. With Chelsea booming, market forces are squeezing shut the open hand of Haight's design. This comes just as it is better placed than ever to share what it holds out. Just across Tenth Avenue, the High Line, the Chelsea art gallery district, and new commercial and residential development are drawing ever more people down 20th Street. The face of noted architect C.P.H. Gilbert's 1898 Donac apartment house elegantly curves to make the transition from the standard street line near Ninth Avenue to 20th Street's mid-block setback opposite the Seminary grounds, even as the dropped bay window within its curve makes the building appear to step down from the height of the avenue's buildings to that of the street's. It is less an individual building than an elegant detail of a block that works as a unit. Its pinching of the street's open space as it approaches Ninth Avenue shelters the block from avenue traffic and enhances its sense of inner spatial expansion. This setback transition is sympathetically bookended at the west end of the block by architect Richard Cook's 2001 Chelsea Grande apartment building at Tenth Avenue. The entire south side of the street has a concave, garden-embracing shape mirroring the deeper concavity of Haight's seminary plan. The block is one of New York's great ensemble pieces. Removing space from it would reduce the entire block. It's not much a stretch to say that building on the Seminary grounds would be like building in Gramercy Park. According to Witold Rybczynski's biography of Frederick Law Olmsted, A Clearing in the Distance, when Olmsted designed the Chicago suburb of Riverside, with almost a third of its area given to parks and common open space, the Suburb's developer proposed building his own house in the middle of one of the parks. Olmsted wrote to him, “I am shocked and pained to hear that such a suggestion could for a moment be entertained.” Even when his client relented, Olmsted refused to continue working for him. It wasn't just that Olmsted cherished the value of open space to a residential development. His client had come down on the wrong side of the distinction between greater good and self-interest that's the essence of a park. That distinction is also the reason for a Landmarks Preservation Commission. The Seminary grounds may be privately owned, but in creating the Chelsea Historic District, the city said their worth had outgrown their paper value to the owner, that the public had a stake as well. With a creation story dating back to the mists of Clement Clarke Moore's apple orchard, few could argue that the space isn't a common legacy. The Landmarks Commission should share Olmsted's outrage. The Commission famously arose from the demolition of Penn Station, after air and highway travel had turned the McKim Mead & White masterpiece into an “uneconomic burden on the railroad,” in the words of its president. He saw dollar signs floating in the unprofitable empty space under its vaults, and Penn Station was demolished to make way for Madison Square Garden in 1963. The Pennsylvania Railroad was bankrupt by 1970. In retrospect, its plan for the future was a desperate act of destruction. Desperation is the subtext of the "Plan to Choose Life," the Seminary's agenda for financial solvency that includes monetizing Landmarks' approval for a West Building addition. The Landmarks Commission should be wary of desperate decisions. What's to be made of a Seminary that can't stay afloat without putting so much of its real estate on the market? Or marketing its Desmond Tutu Center as a hotel after promoting it as a conference venue, a move that lost the Seminary much credibility with the community? It's unknown whether the Seminary will fail without selling the West Building addition rights, or whether it will survive even if it does. What's certain is the permanent diminishment of a great and historic public amenity if the addition is built. Even if the Landmarks Commission must honor its earlier approval, it still holds cards, on the addition site and elsewhere on the block. Let's hope it plays them in the public interest. 6/21/11 Update: Several community members addressed today's public hearing, most expressing reservations about the addition's height or the appropriateness of its glass link to the West Building. ArchiTakes took advantage of the opportunity to verbally address the Commissioners:

"Handing over Chelsea Square's historic public bequest into private hands flies in the face of the Commission's very purpose. If the Commission must stand by its earlier approval of a West Building addition, it should do no more than that. To approve changes that aid its commercial exploitation is to be a party to something unconscionable."

When the Commissioners gave their individual comments at the end of the presentation, the closest any came to trying to justify building the addition was one's statement that adaptive re-use is a friend to preservation. Agreed! Except for re-use of historically planned open space as luxury condos. The Commission concluded by sending the addition back to the drawing board. This is good, and it's to be hoped that the Commission will hold the addition to six stories. Anything that makes the addition less profitable to the Brodsky Organization makes it less likely to be built. If it is, one of New York's very best blocks will be made significantly more ordinary and some of the most picturesque public views in New York, celebrated as a "public benefaction" for over a century, will be replaced by the spectacle of a few rich individuals hogging it for themselves.

What New Zoning Could Mean for Chelsea Market

The Landmarks Preservation Commission has denied a recent community request to add the Chelsea Market block to the existing Gansevoort Market Historic District. In a May 19th response to the Request for Evaluation, the Commission’s Director of Research wrote that “the properties do not appear to meet the criteria for designation . . . in part due to the fact that this block does not have a strong connection to the existing Gansevoort Market Historic District, either geographically or historically.” This was a second attempt to have the block included in the City designated historic district. The Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation had earlier gotten the complex listed as part of the Gansevoort Market Historic District recognized by the National Register of Historic Places, but wasn't able to convince the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission to include it in its own smaller version of the district that the City designated in 2003. The distinction between City versus State and National designation is critical. Lacking City protection, Chelsea Market could be legally demolished by a private owner despite its State and National Register status, which only regulates publicly sponsored alterations. The website of the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation states: "There are no restrictions placed on private owners of registered properties. Private property owners may sell, alter or dispose of their property as they wish." Chelsea Market’s private owner, Jamestown Properties, is proposing a zoning change that would bring the block under the High Line related Special West Chelsea Zoning District, allowing an additional 330,000 square feet of construction to be built in return for a contribution to the High Line of about $17 million. The proposal has polarized Friends of the High Line, which strongly supports it, and a community that has no use for the hotel and office space Jamestown would build, or the traffic, impact on neighborhood quality and loss of sky exposure it would bring. As far afield as Britain’s Architectural Review, a recent article featuring the High Line is titled, “New York’s future is being shaped by a Faustian pact between private developers and not-for-profit charities.” The zoning change looms especially large in the absence of preservation oversight. While it wouldn't make much sense for Jamestown to alter or demolish Chelsea Market under its current maxed-out zoning, the proposed increase might well put historic construction at risk. Generally speaking, there's only so much new that can be added to existing construction before it starts making more financial sense to demolish everything and start from scratch. This is because much of the cost of mobilization for new construction could go toward replacement of old, and the new construction itself will typically cost less without the coordination complexities and unforeseen conditions of working with, or especially through, antiquated construction that must be preserved. An all-new final product may also be viewed as more marketable. Such reasoning might not make Jamestown eye the entire Chelsea Market block as a teardown, but a third of a million square feet is a lot of addition, and the block is made up of several historic parts which individually might be vulnerable to alteration or removal. The proposed zoning change would open the door to this possibility. Jamestown would add a hotel tower over the east end of the Chelsea Market Block, and an office component over the west end, above the High Line pass-through, as seen in the poster above. The renderings of the design have been roundly booed, but are well considered in one regard; they show the additions deposited atop intact existing construction, like huge prefabs delivered by helicopter. What they don’t show is the impact of the structural supports, stairs, elevators and services that would need to pass through underlying historic construction, all to be paid for at a premium if this stratum of history is to be preserved. What of construction access? Or the street presence and lobbies the new upstairs commercial space will call for? Can the people at Jamestown be counted on to respect the historic quality of their proposed construction site? Does the design they've presented reflect their idea of appropriateness? Is Jamestown committed to sticking with the project, or does it plan to flip the property once a zoning change has increased its value, as has already been rumored? If the block’s architecture is worth preserving, its current zoning may be no less so. After all, the block was deliberately excluded from the Special West Chelsea Zoning District by city planners who had in mind both the High Line and the public interest. An earlier reader comment nicely sums up the futility of abandoning this zoning’s priorities for a one-time cash fix: “Allowing intrusive development to degrade the High Line in return for money to maintain it is like burning your furniture in the fireplace to keep your house warm: more of a last resort than a plan for the future." The development of 15 West 63rd Street sheds light on what might be expected for a rezoned Chelsea Market. Existing air rights were filled by the mid-block condominium tower when it was built in the 1990s. It’s red brick shaft is seen here rising directly behind the façade of notable architect Dwight James Baum’s 1931 McBurney School, which serves as the tower's entrance. The developer at first proposed replacing the historic McBurney School facade with new construction that would match the tower and flatter potential buyers with a grander, centered entrance. Taking down the McBurney School façade would also have greatly simplified construction of the tower, allowing direct access from street to construction site. What stopped the developer from demolishing Baum’s legacy? The Landmarks Preservation Commission, by creating the Central Park West Historic District in 1990. The proposed zoning change for Chelsea Market could bring similar market forces to bear upon its current street wall, but without the preservation oversight that made the difference on West 63rd Street. What was saved: a column capital on Baum’s façade shows a class in filmmaking, advertising the McBurney trade school’s offer to West Side youth of a story line beyond Shark or Jet. Even buildings that don’t qualify as “frozen music” can freeze the time of their making, embodying the local history that gives a place its unique identity. In an increasingly anonymous world, such qualities make New York someplace people want to live. The Bromley Manhattan Street Atlas shows the Chelsea Market block around 1920, before construction of the High Line, when New York Central rail lines still plied Tenth Avenue so perilously it was called “Death Avenue”. The block was formerly part of the Nabisco Bakery complex. The original 1892 Nabisco Bakery building, at left, had a siding of the rail line routed through its courtyard in 1904, establishing direct access to regional and national markets. Today the courtyard is Chelsea Market’s shopping arcade. When the High Line was built in the early 1930s, the west end of the bakery was rebuilt in machine-age Art Deco style, its upper floors pierced by the elevated freight line. By then the Nabisco complex was the largest bakery in the world. An illustration from Le Corbusier’s seminal 1923 manifesto, Towards a New Architecture, bears a striking resemblance to the Nabisco complex’s progressively efficient assembly of piers, rail sidings, aerial bridges and generously daylit factories. Le Corbusier called early twentieth century American factories “the first fruits of the New Age.” Their impact on European modern architecture is well documented. To name just one instance, Walter Gropius’ influential Bauhaus was clearly inspired by the new world of science and technology they represented. The presence of such a sophisticated industrial park in the heart of the City testifies to New York's history as both manufacturing center and place of vision. The red brick buildings above predate Nabisco’s acquisition of the entire block. At left, the 1906 stable with richly textured brickwork could already have benefited from landmark protection. To its right is the oldest building on the block, a warehouse and ale vault dating from 1883, now appropriately home to Chelsea Wine Storage. Jamestown Properties’ proposed hotel would rise directly above the stable building and the black wall of Buddakan Restaurant to its left. Will the stable be visually reduced to a sofa leg propping up a corner of Jamestown's addition above? The block's original 1892 red brick bakery component was designed by Charles William Romeyn. The architect studied with Calvert Vaux and Frederick Law Olmsted but here seems more influenced by H.H. Richardson. The bakery included several peaked pavilions of which only the one at left remains, facing Sixteenth Street and here viewed from the High Line. Romeyn’s use of towers would be picked up by later Nabisco architects as a corporate trademark, on the rest of the block and throughout the country. Romeyn's Neo-Romanesque pavilion has rich terra cotta details. As viewed from the High Line, a 1930 sky bridge connects the former Nabisco Bakery at left to a building across 15th Street that served as company offices. The bridge brings historic resonance, spatial drama and poetry to the street. With Tribeca's much photographed Staple Street footbridge, it's one of only a few contemporary examples in New York. An incidental but significant part of the High Line’s appeal, the bridge is unprotected by City landmark status. A Nabisco bridge built a few years later is a High Line placemaker. A service door of the 1892 bakery seems archaic and mysterious. One from the 1930s expresses its own machine age. Nabisco's entrances were typically marked by ornate door surrounds and the company's trademark towers. A block south of Chelsea Market on Ninth Avenue, an Apple Store emphasizes glass with its steel mullioned windows and typical all glass stair. Apple’s self-branding with a signature material was pioneered by Nabisco’s nationwide use of brown brick and buff terra cotta to create a corporate identity, in evidence by the time of the 1907 bakery extension in the background above, at the southeast corner of Chelsea Market. To support saving Chelsea Market, come to the Community Board #4 meeting on June 1st, 6:30pm, at the Hudson Guild Auditorium, Fulton Houses, 119 9th Avenue at 17th Street. More on Chelsea Market: The Chelsea Market Deal, brought to you by ULURP - November 4, 2012 Is the City Building Google a High Line Skybox? - July 5, 2012 High Noon at Chelsea Market - March 20, 2012 Jamestown's Shady Plan for Chelsea Market - November 22, 2011 Saving Chelsea Market - March 22, 2011 Other Chelsea News

Saving Chelsea Market

David Burns of STUDIOS Architecture presented his firm's vision of an expanded Chelsea Market, above, to a meeting of Community Board 4 last night, attended by residents wearing "Save Chelsea Market" buttons. He promptly heard one viewer's verdict of “ugly building” endorsed by a peal of applause. The view above looks northeast from the West Side Highway. The design tries to break down its oppressive mass by collage effects which could conceivably be said to take inspiration from the accretive vocabulary of the Chelsea Market complex, although Burns didn't seem to have the heart to even bother trying this pitch. As for fitting in, it wouldn't be much of an issue. Chelsea Market is part of the Gansevoort Market Historic District that's listed on the National Register of Historic Places, but this insures State Historic Preservation Office oversight only for public development. Somehow, the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission, which would oversee private alterations such as those now proposed, neglected to include the Market in its version of the District. In a view looking north from the Hudson River Park bike path, and lined up behind other High Line straddlers, 450 West 14th Street and the Standard Hotel, the proposed Chelsea Market tower begins to summon the urban planning object lesson of Midtown's soulless slabs marching up Sixth Avenue. Midtownization seemed to be on the minds of several audience members; it was repeatedly asked just what the project offered a contentedly residential neighborhood aside from 250,000 square feet of un-asked-for Class A office space, above the High Line on Tenth Avenue, and an extraneous 90,000 square foot hotel on Ninth, across the Avenue from both the Maritime and Dream Hotels, and a few blocks north of the Gansevoort and Standard Hotels. Community Board members called the project, which would require a zoning change to bring the Market into a special High Line district, profit-driven rather than community-minded. (Ironically, the zoning district is meant to encourage "the preservation of light, air and views" along the High Line, according to the City Planning Commission's website.) Behind the proposal is Jamestown Properties, fresh from the $1.9 billion sale of 111 Eighth Avenue to Google, and buying out its ownership partners in Chelsea Market. The zoning change would bring the Market into a special district that allows extra floor area in return for $50 per square foot paid into a City-managed High Line improvement fund to meet the Park's long-term capital needs. Studios Architecture briefly presented the hotel that would rise above the Buddakan restaurant at the Ninth Avenue and Sixteenth Street corner of the Chelsea Market block. Proof that there's no satisfaction to be had in smacking around One Police Plaza, the hotel's design manages to make the housing project in the foreground a welcome relief. In the background, the proud corner tower of the National Biscuit Company, which once owned the block, would be reduced to a bobbed tail. Jamestown presented the hotel not as another contribution to the Meatpacking nightclub scene, but as sober support for businesses based in the upper floors of the Market. The additional office space was pitched as a deterrent to flight from the complex by its growing businesses. Nabisco's plants across the country had a national architectural identity of brick, terra cotta, copper, and place-making towers. Even deprived of their role in corporate branding, these elements and the great (once the world's largest) bakery's repetitive piers bring a distinctive grandeur and monumentality to the streetscape. They underline a uniqueness of place at odds with the anonymity of speculative office space and hotel rooms. The High Line, which runs through the full width of the west end of Chelsea Market, was a major presence in last night's discussions. Its phenomenal success raises the threat, voiced in the meeting, of a neighborhood "catering to tourists rather than neighbors," and the burden of high maintenance. If Jamestown is granted the zoning variance it seeks, its proposed development would generate about $17 million for long-term capital improvements to the park. Joshua David, co-founder of Friends of the High Line and one of the park's two original visionaries, addressed last night's meeting on behalf of the much needed benefit this revenue would yield. Jamestown's proposal would also build, behind the wall at left in the photo above, public toilet rooms, a freight elevator, and program space for events and education. Mr. David emphasized the real need for these services given the 2.2 million visitors the Park had seen in the last year, and its further potential, particularly for education, with the critical support of these services. Even before he had made his clearly sincere appeal, a Community Board member had twice stated that he "resented" having the community asked to pay a ransom for the High Line's deliverance. The dreamy appeal of the High Line is that it's at once a place apart and yet so much a part of its incidental environment, seen from a strange new perspective. We walk down a street between buildings, that's also a park, made for us, not cars, and closer to the clouds, a little like our dreams of flight. Being closer to the sky is a critical piece of this. Selling off bits of it into private hands may be self-defeating in the same long run that proponents like Joshua David so clearly care about. More on Chelsea Market: The Chelsea Market Deal, brought to you by ULURP - November 4, 2012 Is the City Building Google a High Line Skybox? - July 5, 2012 High Noon at Chelsea Market - March 20, 2012 Jamestown's Shady Plan for Chelsea Market - November 22, 2011 What New Zoning Could Mean for Chelsea Market - May 31, 2011 Other Chelsea News

Where is Michael Bolla's Lawsuit?

The Seamy Side of 436 West 20th Street

436 West 20th Street has recently added a prominent steel I-beam above its roof ridge and a large skylight on its north slope as shown in this photo taken on September 15th. A visit that day to the Landmarks Preservation Commission and the Department of Buildings found no evidence of applications or approvals for these additions to the 1835 rowhouse, which falls within the Chelsea Historic District. The Landmarks Commission's Rowhouse Manual specifically states that a permit is required for construction of a skylight within a historic district (although it doesn't address big red I-beams). One end of the new beam is supported by the building's west gable wall, at right in the photo above. The top of this wall was historically lower and almost flush with the roof plane. It now extends above the roof, creating a parapet. The wall's profile has further been changed by the introduction of a level section at the bottom of its front slope. The house's brick chimneys were rebuilt to their current, and likely original, height as approved by the Landmarks Commission, but then extended by several feet with prominent sheet-metal turbine ventilators. Even the rearmost of these is visible from the street. ArchiTakes first posted photographic evidence of unapproved construction at 436 West 20th Street in March. Within weeks, the Landmarks Commission issued violations and the Department of Buildings audited and failed the building's job filing. The building's owner and developer, realtor-to-the-stars Michael Bolla, responded with threats of legal action aimed at silencing ArchiTakes.

Henry Papprill's1849 view of "New York from the Steeple of St. Paul's Church," shows the city roofscape of 436 West 20th Street's era, still dominated by pitched gable roofs. Papprill's engraving shows how far the roof of Bolla's building has been changed from the character of its time. It also anticipates the views of rooftops the public would have when highrises succeeded churches as the City's tallest buildings. The photo at the top of this post was taken from within the Chelsea Historic District and shows conditions visible from hundreds of windows and many terraces, including those of the huge London Terrace apartment complex and new towers rising along the High Line. Matthew Dripps' "Map of the City of New York Extending Northward to Fiftieth Street" depicts the city of 1850 and is the earliest map to distinguish 19th-century New York's individual buildings. This detail shows the full-block site of the General Theological Seminary in green and the block to its south, across 20th Street. These blocks were originally the southwest corner of the estate of Clement Clarke Moore, who donated the land for the Seminary, where he would later teach Greek and Hebrew. Moore resisted the northward extension of the street grid through his open land, but afterward sold his estate off in building lots, participating in their development. Dripps' map shows the two original matching Seminary buildings, at left the 1835-36 West Building, and at right the 1825-27 East Building, which was later razed. The West building survives as the Seminary's oldest structure. As in 1836, it still looks straight across 20th Street at #436, seen on the map below the "Th" in "Theological." The street was new and sparsely occupied when #436 was built in 1835. It preceded by five years the fine row of Greek Revival houses built down the block to the east by Moore's friend, the developer Don Alonzo Cushman. These houses are the Chelsea Historic District's showpiece and they highlight the special attention this block of 20th Street received as a forecourt to Moore's prized Seminary. According to a New York Times "Streetscapes" piece by Christopher Gray, Cushman "worked with Moore to build up the neighborhood" and the two "agreed in 1834 to a 10-foot setback" along the south side of 20th Street. This setback, visible on Dripps' map, was to contain gardens that would beautify the street, add real estate value, and enhance the public zone addressed by the seminary. The gardens contribute to the block's sense of being a place apart from the usual urban street grid that Moore deplored. The special quality of this block is still immediately felt. Moore's involvement in the neighborhood's emerging character extended further; the Guide to New York City Landmarks states that "Moore had the area divided into building lots with restrictions placed on the design and quality of new housong." The Landmarks Preservation Commission recognized Moore's results when it designated the first Chelsea Historic District in 1970 and effectively became his executor, requiring building owners to obtain its approval for exterior alterations. Bolla's anachronistic rooftop is visible from the grounds of the General Theological Seminary and from the front steps of its centerpiece chapel. The Seminary's grounds are open to the public from 10AM to 3PM, Monday through Saturday. As seen in this photo, 436 West 20th Street's new parapet wall appears little justified by waterproofing. Roof flashing rises only a small way up its height, which is clearly set by the new steel beam it supports, just rear of the parapet peak. The historic roofline of 436 West 20th Street is shown above as it looked a few years ago, before Michael Bolla bought the house from longtime owner, Frances Gaar. Even tarred over, its simple form had the gravitas of authentic history. According to an October 2009 New York Times article, "Just before she died last year at 89, Ms. Gaar sold the house to developers who promised her they would preserve it." The Times piece states that "Plans to add a rooftop extension, topped by a new garden, are pending before the Landmarks Preservation Commission." This is followed by a November 2009 report on the building in the Real Estate Weekly that stated that "a sixth floor is being added that will house a 500 square foot office and have a rooftop garden with spectacular views of the Hudson River." Bolla was already hyping an expanded penthouse he'd eventually advertise at a rent of $37,500 per month. The Landmarks Commission limited his rooftop extension to a rear shed dormer in a permit that otherwise took pains to emphasize preservation of the building's main gable roof. Its approval of alterations was qualified by the understanding "that the alterations at the roof will occur at the rear of the building, and will not be visible; that the alteration to the rear of the roof will not encompass the entire width of the roof; that the visible portion of the gable roof, and the historic roof pitch will be maintained at all sides, thereby maintaining the historic profile of the roofline, that the visible portion of the gable roof, which is a character-defining feature of the building, will retain its historic profile when viewed from the street." Contradicting the Landmarks Commission's decision that his roofline should be maintained, Bolla went on to raise it by several feet and change it from a gable to a gambrel shape, as shown under construction in February, above. By all appearances he knowingly defied the Commission. Under normal circumstances, it's likely no one would have noticed his violations. After all, what were the odds his work would be right outside the window of a member of the Historic Districts Council? A February photo, at top, shows the historic roofline of the brick gable wall still intact at left, and in the process of being extended upward by about 15 brick courses - 40 inches or so - at right. After ArchiTakes reported on this in March, Bolla lowered this extension by removing about 9 of the 15 newly installed brick courses, as shown in the lower photo. The gable wall remains about 16 inches higher than its historic profile of 175 years, still legible in darker-looking brick, and measurable relative to the steel plate that appears at the bottom of each photo. This added section of wall supports the steel beam, visible at right in the lower photo, and conceals it from the street. Unfortunately, it doesn't conceal the beam from anywhere else. The beam's purpose is unknown. If it's for structural stabilization, there's no apparent reason it shouldn't be under the roof. Unless, perhaps, it would detract from the interior space Bolla hopes to rent at such a premium. Indoors, nothing's too good for Bolla's "celebrity dorm" renters. The rest of us are welcome to look at the seamy side.

Work on Bolla's rooftop extravaganza is shown in this May 6th photo. The full extent of added brick at the top of the peaked gable wall is legible in its lighter mortar. This wall has become peppered with what appear to be anchor plates for interior tie-rods. The windows in this wall are also new, approved by the Landmarks Commission as "new wd windows to match existing 3rd floor front facade." In typical fashion, the Commission was clearly concerned primarily that the new windows should be appropriately similar to the building's historic ones. Alterations permitted by the Commission aren't legal by definition, but must be subsequently approved by the Department of Buildings, which oversees code compliance. Located on a property line between two building lots, the Landmarks-approved wood windows might have been headed for a roadblock at the Department of Buildings, in the code's requirement that lot-line windows must be "protected openings," or windows with fire-resistance ratings. The wood-frame windows prescribed by the Landmarks Commission wouldn't provide such ratings. Irregularities in their application documents would strongly suggest that Bolla and his architect, Gary Silver, tried to slip these windows past the Department of Buildings by burying plans for them in an amendment to an interior renovation filing, and with no indication that they were part of the project's new construction. Under the Building Department's Professional Certification program, Silver certified the legality of his filed documents in place of their review by a Department plan examiner. The fire safety aspect of this raises the matter well above that of a procedural technicality. The windows will certainly help Bolla get higher rent for his penthouse, though.

The Landmarks Commission issued Bolla this violation and one other on March 22nd, four days after ArchiTakes posted photos of his alterations to the roof of 436 West 20th Street and pointed out that the raised gable wall and the size of the rear dormer were out of compliance with his permit from the Commission. In a June 8th Public Meeting of the Landmarks Commission, Bolla testified that the larger size of the dormer was necessary to structurally stabilize the house (just incidentally resulting in more rentable square footage). The raising of the gable isn't cited in the meeting, a recording of which ArchiTakes obtained from the Commission. It's unclear whether the commissioners are even aware that it's still taller than its historic height. Bolla walked away with an amendment "to legalize the construction of a rooftop addition in non-conformance with the Certificate of Appropriateness." He didn't say in the meeting why he hadn't approached Landmarks for an amendment related to the structural issue before overbuilding the dormer, or what he had in mind when he first raised the gable wall by over three feet, none of which seems to have hurt his credibility with the commissioners. The lesson is clear: build whatever you want, and even if you get caught, you'll still end up with more than you would have by obeying the law. In the June meeting, Bolla personally explained to the commissioners, and didn't deny, that he had overbuilt the roof - the same putative violation pointed out by ArchiTakes in its original post on his project. The next week, he had his attorney Jason Gabbard file a statement in support of his pre-litigation petition in New York Supreme Court affirming to the Court "under penalty of perjury" that all the statements in the post, including those revealing this violation, were "false and defamatory." The Department of Buildings initiated an audit of Bolla's job filing three weeks after ArchiTakes first reported on his project. On April 7th, the Department issued Bolla this 13-item objection list citing his job filing's failure of its audit. The Department's objection #12, "sprinklers for lot line windows," suggests that Bolla may be allowed to keep his new gable wall windows if he installs adjacent sprinklers. In our view, this would be a huge reward to him for creating these windows without properly applying for them, and would make a fool of any applicant who follows the rules. In a similar case to Bolla's, an illegal extra story was added a few years ago to 12 West 68th Street - the red brick building at left in the photo above - which stands within the Upper West Side Historic District. Built without approval of the Landmarks Preservation Commission, it was brought to light by a concerned neighbor. Community groups prevailed in fighting the owner's efforts to have the Landmarks Commission legalize the addition, and insisted on its removal. As reported in the Wall Street Journal, Arlene Simon, president of the preservation group Landmark West! argued that "anything less would have set a precedent that an owner could build in defiance of landmark rules." The case illustrates both the importance of community involvement and a strategy of asking forgiveness rather than permission, with the weight of completed construction behind the request. Bolla and Gabbard have succeeded in repeatedly shutting down ArchiTakes with dire threats of legal action against successive web hosts. It's a tactic that has worked beautifully with commercial web hosts who will take down any content deemed controversial, apparently without even reading it. ArchiTakes is now hosted by Project DoD, a highly recommended free hosting service (with a suggested contribution) that promises not to be intimidated by free-speech-hating bullies and totalitarian fat cats. Project DoD is a nightmare for Jason Gabbard types who'd like to see the internet reduced to a refrigerator door for pet pictures. As reported in an August post, Bolla and Gabbard obtained a court-ordered release of identifying information from ArchiTakes' first web host, claiming it was needed to file a defamation suit and collect damages. The information was handed over without contest by the web host, a Utah-based company that apparently decided sending lawyers to New York wasn't worth their annual $4.95 privacy option fee. Rather than using this information to sue for damages, as represented to the officiating judge, Bolla and Gabbard used it to intimidate ArchiTakes' next web host into another shutdown and to proclaim this minor action as a triumphant vindication in court. Under the headline "Ruling Sets Groundbreaking Legal Precedent in New York Real Estate Developer Michael Bolla's Blogger Anonymity Case" (and on other websites, "Building owner wins case against blogger") a recent online article makes this case. It appears above the byline of Robin Dolch, a vice president at Rubenstein Public Relations:

The outcome in real estate developer Michael Bolla's case against a hosting company earlier this month has set a monumental legal precedent with the court's recent ruling in Bolla's favor. In March of 2010, an article was written on a blog, ArchiTakes, that falsely accused Bolla of infringing landmark laws and decimating historical framework in order to turn a profit at his 10,000-square-foot Federalist townhouse, located at 436 West 20th Street between 9th and 10th Avenues. "The claims the ArchiTakes blogger makes on his site are one hundred percent inaccurate," Bolla said. . . . Bolla's work was performed entirely with the cooperation of the Landmarks Preservation Commission and has since passed all inquiries by the DOB. . . . “Bolla is prepared to vigorously preserve and protect his stellar reputation” by filing suit against the blogger, notes Bolla’s attorney, Jason Gabbard of New York-based Gabbard & Kamal LLP.

It's not even a Federalist townhouse, but who's counting? If ArchiTakes' reporting is false, why doesn't Bolla just sue? He's known where to serve papers for nearly two months now. Then again, if he and Gabbard are afraid to take their case to court, they have good reason. In court, the truth - to which they're such absolute strangers - is an absolute defense. More on 436 West 20th Street: Buying Michael Bolla's Chelsea Mansion for Dummies - October 19, 2012 Where is Michael Bolla's Lawsuit? - March 1, 2011 Chelsea Mansion: The Art of Fiction - August 12, 2010 436 West 20th Street Rises Above the Law - March 18, 2010

Chelsea Mansion: The Art of Fiction

In February, a Daily News article by Jason Sheftell described 436 West 20th Street as "one of the most perfectly restored homes in Manhattan." Cracked and displaced bricks and window lintels are now features of its façade, following restoration by its owner, the real estate broker Michael Bolla. ArchiTakes first reported on the building in a March post, "436 West 20th Street Rises Above the Law." Bolla is now marketing the 1835 rowhouse as "Chelsea Mansion." It stands within the Chelsea Historic District. A detail of the building's drooping right face. Jason Sheftell's Daily News piece - "Back to Life: Perfect restoration draws big-name renters at $15K per month"- dutifully quoted Michael Bolla as saying, "Everything I restore is a work of art to me." Bolla's presentation package to the Landmarks Preservation Commission included this rendering of a squared-up 436 West 20th Street with its front fire escape removed. The view is similar to the one used for several months on the building's marketing website and endlessly reproduced in its press. Removal of the fire escape was presumably a selling point in the December 7, 2009, package of proposed modifications Bolla submitted to the Landmarks Preservation Commission; the permit it issued Bolla a week later states that the fire escape's "removal will enhance the building's historic features and character," and that its "deteriorated condition is causing damage to the facade, therefore its removal will aid the preservation of the building's historic fabric . . ." As of the date of this writing, the building's fire escape remains in place. Removing it might be viewed by the Department of Buildings as a "change of egress" requiring Bolla to obtain a Certificate of Occupancy for the building. It currently has no Certificate of Occupancy. Photos of the building's restored interior on its website give no indication that sprinklers have been installed, despite a restoration described by Sheftells' Daily News piece as having cost over $500 per square foot. Sprinkler installation at an interior stair is a typical prerequisite for removal of a fire escape. Not only did Bolla fail to remove the building's front fire escape, but he raised its brick gable in violation of his Landmarks permit, which was explicitly predicated on "maintaining the historic profile of the roofline." After ArchiTakes brought this to light in March, Bolla received a "Landmark" violation from the Department of Buildings, which also initiated an audit of the job-filing for work on the building. Since April 8th, the Department's online Building Information System has indicated that the audit resulted in issuance of a "Notice to Revoke," signaling that his job filing had failed the audit and that the Department intended to pull the building's work permit. Bolla has since lowered the brick gable wall somewhat, although it remains higher than the historic profile, visible as darker brickwork in the photo above. It's unlikey Bolla could have misinterpreted his Landmarks permit, or been unaware of work done on his building in violation of it. In January, the New York Real Estate Journal wrote that Bolla "is considered one of the city's foremost experts in historic preservation, particularly of landmarked properties," while Sheftell's Daily News piece stated that "Bolla handled every detail of the restoration and marketing, practically living on site for two years." In April, Bolla told the website Curbed that he's "developed a brand and concept" with the "Chelsea Mansion," as he's marketing 436 West 20th Street. Curbed reported that "Bolla says he's working on acquiring other properties that will get the full-on Chelsea Mansion makeover" and "hinted that he's looking at other houses in the Chelsea neighborhood . . ." Community Board 4, the Historic Districts Council, the Landmarks Commission and the Department of Buildings should take note. With 436 West 20th Street, Bolla has built a reputation as a man to watch. A July 18th New York Post article by Annie Karni, "The End of Internet Anonymity," describes how Bolla "filed court papers that would force the web hosting company of Architakes.com to unmask the blogger's identity. . . . information that might lay the groundwork for a civil lawsuit to seek monetary damages." She quotes Bolla as saying ArchiTakes' "anonymous claims were dead wrong and misinformed." ArchiTakes stands by its statements and its right to anonymity, not as a screen to throw stones over, but as a bulkhead against reprisal by the well-connected and unscrupulous. A safe harbor for free speech, anonymity is as American as Thomas Paine's Common Sense, published anonymously in 1776. While ArchiTakes is primarily concerned with design ideas, it has also - from its very first post - put the light of day on powerful parties who think they can get away with preservation abuses unnoticed. Anonymity has been crucial to this public-interest role, particularly in encouraging disclosure of information from third party sources.

Bolla's lawyer, Jason Gabbard, tries to claim his own share of victory from the Post article. His firm's website notes: "Commentators and scholars alike have been calling for an end to Internet anonymity for years now. . . . hen loose and careless tongues have access to such a powerful means of publishing and disseminating information, it can serve as a recipe for disaster. Consider the case of our client, Michael Bolla. The NY Post featured Mr. Bolla’s case recently in their Sunday edition. . . ." Gabbard cites another case in which the petitioner, "like Mr. Bolla, was successful in persuading the court to pull the mask off the anonymous pen." (Would someone please send this man a copy of The Elements of Style?) Gabbard preaches: "Surfing anonymously is one thing. Maliciously destroying another person's reputation from your arm chair with zero accountability is another." Before getting entirely carried away with himself, Gabbard should remember that his recent court victory was against a web host that gave up our personal identifying information without a fight, and that we weren't even in the courtroom to defend ourselves. Hostmonster, ArchiTakes (now former) web host, shut us down without warning. Perhaps it was the threat wielded by Gabbard that our post about his client was "a clear recipe for disaster," a phrase he seems to like. It didn't matter that the content he objected to was a matter of public record. Anyone counting on the internet to be a forum for unintimidated free speech should know it's not a sure bet. UPDATE: The day after this piece was posted, Jason Gabbard, lawyer for Michael Bolla, tweeted on his firm website that the author of ArchiTakes "is at it again. our firm is in process of drafting defamation suit against him" One would certainly hope so. Gabbard, after all, represented to the court that the purpose of his petition seeking our identity was to bring an action for defamation. He and Bolla cited no authority giving them rights to our identity except to do so. The Court ordered our former web host to give up our personal identifying information "on the ground that such disclosure is necessary for Petitoner to be able to serve a summons and complaint . . ." So far, Gabbard and Bolla have used their court action to get press attention, claim victory, and attempt to intimidate ArchiTakes' new web host, to whom Gabbard recently wrote: "I doubt the $5-$10 <ArchiTakes> pays you each month is meaningful to your company. If not, I'd suggest you quash this site immediately and avoid potential liabilities that may flow from you hosting this site." To show he meant business, Gabbard attached a copy of the Court Order he obtained - at public expense, it should be noted. This Order was issued to enable his client to bring a court action for defamation against the author of ArchiTakes. As of yet, in his and his client's hands it has only been used as a club to bully our new web host into "quashing" free speech. More on 436 West 20th Street: Buying Michael Bolla's Chelsea Mansion for Dummies - October 19, 2012 Where is Michael Bolla's Lawsuit? - March 1, 2011 The Seamy Side of 436 West 20th Street - October 7, 2010 436 West 20th Street Rises Above the Law - March 18, 2010