Illegal Paint Job on Landmarked Block of Clinton Hill
We just got a tip that someone just started painting one of the brownstones on Grand Avenue between Gates and Putnam white this morning. (Yes, a certain blogger does live on this block.) Something tells us the Landmarks Preservation Commission didn’t sign off on this. If any readers are nearby, we’d appreciate a photo asap….
We just got a tip that someone just started painting one of the brownstones on Grand Avenue between Gates and Putnam white this morning. (Yes, a certain blogger does live on this block.) Something tells us the Landmarks Preservation Commission didn’t sign off on this. If any readers are nearby, we’d appreciate a photo asap. If anyone from LPC is reading, please get on the stick! Update 7/27: Here’s the photo from about 11:20 this morning. The address is 373 Grand Avenue. LPC confirms that there are no permits out on this.
Update 7/29: As the Daily News article reports, it turns out that—luckily—the owner was only repainting the area around the door. While we understand that some people feel it was an overreaction on our part to post about this before all the facts were known, here’s why we think it was warranted: First of all, had the painters been intending to paint the entire facade, every second counted when we got the tip (we were in fact in Dumbo, and not just across the street, when the tip came in, so popping over for a friendly chat was not an option); secondly, we were on the phone with LPC within five minutes of getting the tip, and LPC told us that (1) the owner had no permit for the painting and (2) that he had racked up, and failed to cure, several other landmark violations over the years. All these factors led us to conclude that, on balance, it was not worth taking the risk that something really destructive might happen. You know, better safe than sorry. With 20/20 hindsight, this was clearly the wrong call. Apologies to the owner—our obsession with historic brownstones may have gotten the better of us on this one.
Bottom photo by Rosier for the Daily News
Oh my god people: GET A FUCKING CAUSE!! Who gives a shit!! Of all the *important* things going on in the world this is what you choose to fixate upon?
Riddiculous.
Who. Gives. A. Shit.
Wow. I’m all for history, design integrity, and good taste, but being that fanatic about ‘rules’ is reminding me of a certain Nazi policies.
“Can we sic the LPC on W?”
You’re brilliant! His house is white too.
Landmarks was insisting I pait the wood work on my house on the same block and I had to take several trips with pictures of other houses on the block to prove to them why the wood should not be painted. Painting a brownstone or brick also causes the stone to decay prematurely.
I live in an historic district upstate where enforcement is lax, inconsistent and capricious … As in the absentee slumlord with the worst building on the block can do whatever he wants to his already crappy facade, but the historic resources commission finds some small infraction to slam the 80-year-old lady who has lived in the same well-maintained house since she was 8.
I’d love to have more activist neighbors like Mr. B, rather than a bunch of do-nothing deadbeats who look the other way when the guy next door is installing vinyl windows, painting with a non-approved color, replacing original brownstone entry stairs with pre-fab concrete or committing some other sin against our historic architecture.
OK, I promise this is my last post.
“There is a big difference between original Triassic sandstone and modern day pigmented cement stucco.”
there is nothing particularly modern about pigmented stucco.
stucco was being used on buildings for a thousand years before the first brownstone was built. In Italy there are original stucco facades that survive from the 15th and 16th centuries. In the Mediterranian region as well as in central Europe, stucco facades are everywhere. In Buenos Aires, were building stone was scarce, most of the Beaux-Arts buildings that look like stone are actually stucco, so don’t dengrate stucco. A well done, hand crafted, stucco front is a thing of beauty that will last a long long time.
as obnoxious as this thread may have been (myself included) i think this is what living in brownstone brooklyn is all about.
while some of you might not think it a worthy topic, in which case i’m not sure why you aren’t busy blogging away on cnn.com instead of brownstoner, but the issue at hand is one of the reasons why many of us live out here in these beautiful old houses. it’s obvious that there’s a tremendous amount of affection for these jems, for there to be such a heated conversation.
gosh, i think i’m comin down. need to spark it up again…
I work for the city and contacted a colleague at LPC about 90 posts ago. Typically polarized non-discussion above. How many of the dyed-in-wool preservationists called 311 when they read this post?
stucco is masonry, as is brick, and natural stone.
architectural stucco in NYC is usually pigmented and should not be painted,
It is possible that the doorway in question had been painted white before landmark designation, if so repainting it the same color, even though it looks fresher and brighter, is OK.
But if it was unpained stone or stucco prior to this, then the house will get a city violation that will stay with the property (and be a cloud on the title) until the paint is stripped off.