The fourth article in the NY Times series on the Landmarks Preservation Commission’s trials and triumphs appears today, this one investigating how they’ve “repeatedly played dance partner to a potent mix of preservationists, developers and city politicians. It must strike a balance between protecting architecture and accepting economic realities, between a responsibility to history and a knowledge that the city must evolve.” Some folks feel the developers are “leading the dance” as they write, letting city landmarks fall prey to the call for bigger and newer buildings. Not all developers feel they’ve got the upper hand. Take Jed Walentas, aka Mr. Dumbo. Landmarking is one of the best tools that anti-development people have in this city — it’s a very long, political process, he told the Times. Among the buildings elsewhere in Brooklyn that evaded landmarking: 184 Kent, the Cass Gilbert-designed warehouse in Williamsburg currently being remade into a residential building with some modifications to the exterior. The designation was vetoed by the City Council. Then there’s Ward’s Bakery, one of the buildings razed to make way for the Atlantic Yards towers. Despite having won a listing in 2003 on the National Register of Historic Places, LPC nixed it for designation in 2006 and Forest City Ratner started tearing it down last year.
Preservation and Development, Engaged in a Delicate Dance [NY Times]
Photo of Ward’s Bakery Demolition by Tracy Collins.