Civic Council Wants to Supersize Park Slope Historic District
On Thursday night, the Park Slope Civic Council set forth an ambitious plan to expand the Park Slope Historic District in three phases over the next several years; if completed, the effort would result in the largest landmarked area in the city, reported the Brooklyn Paper. Phase 1 would address the area bounded by Flatbush,…
On Thursday night, the Park Slope Civic Council set forth an ambitious plan to expand the Park Slope Historic District in three phases over the next several years; if completed, the effort would result in the largest landmarked area in the city, reported the Brooklyn Paper. Phase 1 would address the area bounded by Flatbush, Prospect Park West, 15th Street and 7th Avenue; Phase 2 would include the blocks between 5th and 7th Avenues between Union and 15th Streets; Phase 3 would encompass the strip between 4th and 5th Avenues all the way from Flatbush to 15th Street. In all, more than 5,000 new buildings would gain protection through the plan. “There is so much of Park Slope that is at risk and in danger of development,” said Peter Bray, chair of the Council’s Expansion Committee. We want to preserve everything that needs to be preserved. The Landmarks Preservation Commission will begin studying the request but in all likelihood will have its own opinions about whether the entire area gets designated. For a historic district, we look for a distinct sense of place, and a coherent streetscape, said LPC Spokesperson Lisi de Bourbon. (Click map to enlarge.)
Slope’s District Would Be Truly Historic Under Plan [Brooklyn Paper]
benson i agree that the area west of 5th avenue. and most of the area west of 6th avenue, is not landmark quality. developers have been knocking themselves out on fourth avenue, what do you think? optimistic? I think it is pretty blah.
But c’mon, the truly great blocks of park slope between 8th and 7th have to be protected. I do not believe this effort should take a back seat to crown heights for the simple reason that the development pressure is much greater in the slope than it is in crown heights. the park slope designation should be a red alert priority for the city.
amzi, the prospect heights landmark district is being voted on june 23. but i agree with you and montrose that other districts ought to be reviewed before such a resource-draining sweeping area is considered. it’s not that there aren’t places worthy of landmarking, but separating the wheat from the chaff will be an exhausting exercise (assuming they do it right).
while i support landmarking when done right, i admit that i do look at some houses in my neighborhood and wonder which way landmarking will cut for them. many are non-owner occupied rentals, still relatively low cost, and the owners already have little incentive to make improvements. am i glad they can’t sell out to a “horror show” developer? yes. is there also the risk that the owners will just let houses in poor repair rot rather than get messed up in landmarks approval? oh yeah. you’d like to think that all of the anti-development crowd will come out to donate their time and energy to encourage absentee landlords and old-timers to take proper care of their landmarked homes, but i’m skeptical that will ever happen.
Sam;
I specifically referenced FSRQ’s point, which I’ll reprint here:
“Any push to designate between 4th Ave – 5th Ave or 6th to 4th above 9th st is clearly more about anti-development than about historic preservation”.
Since you asked: I am yearning for a mindset that has some optimism that further development will be good for the city, rather than a mindset that takes 10 years to produce a plan to “save” frame, vinyl-sided buildings from “greedy developers”.
benson, what’s your point? are you yearning for the good ol’ days of the Great Depression? Careful what you wish for….
Most of the blocks between 8th and 7th avenues do not have landmark protection, all it takes is one homeowner to cash in and sell to someone who will build something like the “atrocity” in Carroll Gardens. If you live on that block, tough luck.
Amen Montrose,
There are many blocks in Park Slope that need to be protected and should have been in the original 1973 proposal. But Crown Heights North, Bushwick, Bay Ridge,the proposed Bedford historic district Stuyvesant Heights extension and Prospect Heights also need to be looked at by LPC. Montrose is right the LPC dose not have that many people on staff to do all the hard work of researching these buildings. Hopefully they will hire some intern this summer to help them out. The city really should protect themselves by increasing this department
Not much time to post today, so I’ll just say that FSRQ and Snark are spot on.
I also want to give a heary “here-here” to Billyboomer’s comment. Ten years in the making….bogles the mind.
I wonder what happened to the optimism and can-do spirit that used to be hallmark of NYC. It was this spirit that was able to construct the Empire State building in a matter of 13 months.
I wonder what would happen if someone tried to build such a structure today. First, the old, magnificent Waldorf-Astoria building had to be knocked down. Imagine the howls of protest from the busybodies (aka as the preservasionist community). Imagine the hand-wringing about the height, and the environmental impact from yet another group of busybodies.
> “start dismantling the nice places to put up more trash”
Yeah, because that’s what was happening. Beautiful historic buildings were being torn down in droves to make way for horror show Friday buildings.
Please.
Many of the new buildings in the Slope may be ugly, but it’s not as if – in the vast majority of cases – the buildings that were “lost” were prizewinners.
Please landmark 5th ave between Park and Sterling, that way we can get RA Hardware to clean up that ugly blue paint,
“The plan, a decade in the making” This pretty much sums up everything that is wrong in the world.