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The Waterfront Preservation Alliance announced yesterday that it had submitted over 1,500 signatures to the Landmarks Preservation Commission urging it to hold hearings to designate the Domino Sugar refinery building and Adant house. Smartly, in our opinion, the WPA is not pushing to landmark the entire complex, focusing instead on the historic 19th-century structures. The WPA is not alone in its advocacy: The Preservation League of New York State placed the refinery on its “7 to Save” list in 2006. The irony of this debate is that the refinery would make incredible loft apartments that would surely command higher prices than the nearby Schaefer Landing and would leave plenty of other space on the site for new buildings.
Domino Petition Update [Waterfront Preservation Alliance]
Open Windows Not a Great Sign at Domino [Brownstoner]
Photo by Ken Yee


What's Your Take? Leave a Comment

  1. hey guys. i agree with iceberg here. if you want to preserve something, put your money where your mouth is. buy it from the owner at market prices and then do whatever you want with it. get a fund together of like minded people and form a LLC. if 100 people throw in a hundgred grand each, you’d have ten million bucks — enough for a mortgage to buy it and renovate. then sell of the condos the way you like them and you’ll probably end up making a bunch of money.

    now i love historic buildings as much as the next guy, and i especially hate to see such things destroyed. but i even more hate to see the erosion of property rights. my land, my building, no way anyone’s gonna tell me what to do with it — UNLESS they buy those rights from me with fair compensation. such a purchase is called an easement and it is a widely used and recognized legal instrument that becomes part of the deed of the property. (the easement holder receives a deed too, in a splitting off of some of the real property rights)

    if you’re just interested in preserving certain parts of the property, perhaps purchase an easement that would prevent the developer from substantially modifying the outer walls of the building and that permits you to enter the property for the purpose of maintaining such walls.

    this is the only fair way to approach property rights and preservation in a capitalist society. of course the owner may not want to sell such an easement, but for the right price everything is for sale.

  2. iceberg
    You seem like a nutjob. This has nothing to do with throwing anyone out of anything. You continually just throw out provocative remarks with no relationship to what’s actually being discussed. It is such a cheap strategy. Enough already.