Community Board 1 voted 27 to 8 last night to recommend that the Landmarks Preservation Commission approve a plan to erect a 7-story building with 8 condominium apartments at 11-15 Leonard Street in TriBeCa, a site now occupied by two, one-story carriage-house-type garages built in the 1920s.
The board's landmarks committee was unable to make a majority recommendation to the board and two of its more active members, Roger Byrom and Bruce Ehrmann, argued in front of the full board that the project's design was, respectively, "fake" and "made no attempt to be part of the 21st Century."
Both Mr. Byrom and Mr. Ehrmann conceded that the design by Alexandr Neratoff was "very handsome if you like replicas" and "contextual but that's all it is." Their argument appeared to be that that being good-neighborly was not enough, but Mr. Byrom quickly stated that it was not the role of the committee and the board to "design" a project.
The resolution passed by the board noted that the landmarks committee's "deadlock" was "a very rare circumstance indicating the complexity of the issue."
"The insertion of a new building within an historic district is always a touchy and difficult proposition, often erring toward slavish, anachronistic reproduction on the one hand, or a contextual and disjunctive contemporary design on the other, and in this instance, the architectural style offered may be described as the former, with Romanesque arches on the fifth floor, and all manner of late 19th Century industrial semaphores referring to the Tribeca West Historic District's ur-buildings, but with the inevitably compromised flatter window penetrations and ground-floor glass infill swathes that give away the century that has passed," the resolution maintained.
Community boards generally have sought to insist that new structures within historic districts stick closely to historic style and scale and context, but over the last year or so a few modern intrusions have been approved by the Landmarks Preservation Commission.
Renderings shown at last night's meeting of Mr. Neratoff's design for the new building indicated it was extremely in keeping with the general style of its surroundings but Mr. Byrom noted that its height would fill in the streetwall on the block substantially.
The developer is Leonard Street Associates of which Christopher Clark is a managing member.
The board's landmarks committee was unable to make a majority recommendation to the board and two of its more active members, Roger Byrom and Bruce Ehrmann, argued in front of the full board that the project's design was, respectively, "fake" and "made no attempt to be part of the 21st Century."
Both Mr. Byrom and Mr. Ehrmann conceded that the design by Alexandr Neratoff was "very handsome if you like replicas" and "contextual but that's all it is." Their argument appeared to be that that being good-neighborly was not enough, but Mr. Byrom quickly stated that it was not the role of the committee and the board to "design" a project.
The resolution passed by the board noted that the landmarks committee's "deadlock" was "a very rare circumstance indicating the complexity of the issue."
"The insertion of a new building within an historic district is always a touchy and difficult proposition, often erring toward slavish, anachronistic reproduction on the one hand, or a contextual and disjunctive contemporary design on the other, and in this instance, the architectural style offered may be described as the former, with Romanesque arches on the fifth floor, and all manner of late 19th Century industrial semaphores referring to the Tribeca West Historic District's ur-buildings, but with the inevitably compromised flatter window penetrations and ground-floor glass infill swathes that give away the century that has passed," the resolution maintained.
Community boards generally have sought to insist that new structures within historic districts stick closely to historic style and scale and context, but over the last year or so a few modern intrusions have been approved by the Landmarks Preservation Commission.
Renderings shown at last night's meeting of Mr. Neratoff's design for the new building indicated it was extremely in keeping with the general style of its surroundings but Mr. Byrom noted that its height would fill in the streetwall on the block substantially.
The developer is Leonard Street Associates of which Christopher Clark is a managing member.
Architecture Critic
Carter Horsley
Since 1997, Carter B. Horsley has been the editorial director of CityRealty. He began his journalistic career at The New York Times in 1961 where he spent 26 years as a reporter specializing in real estate & architectural news. In 1987, he became the architecture critic and real estate editor of The New York Post.
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