West Village Houses, 137 Barrow Street: Review and Ratings

Review of 137 Barrow Street by Carter Horsley

This unattractive, brown-brick, five-story, walk-up building at 105 Morton Street is one of 42 similar buildings in the famous, six-block-long West Village Houses complex created by supporters of Jane Jacobs, an urban planner, who once lived nearby but subsequently moved to Canada, opposed to plans by William Zeckendorf to erect a high-rise residential complex in the area. 

The controversial complex opened in 1974 and contains 420 rental apartments, most of which subsequently were converted to co-operatives. 

This building is on the northwest corner of Washington Street. 

In November, 2017, Madison Equities, which is headed by Robert Gladstone, offered to purchase the complex, which is bounded by Bank, Morton, Washington and West streets, for high-rise residential buildings. 

An March 14, 2018 article in The Villager by Lincoln Anderson reported that "the threat of a crop of high-rise towers - possibly gleaming and garish - being constructed on the site of the current West Village Houses seems to have passed - at least for the near future." 

The article noted that the complex is "transitioning from an affordable residential co-op to a market-rate one," adding that it "officially lost its tax-exempt status last Friday, while a cap on the resale values of its apartments was also lifted."  "But a restriction on income levels of incoming co-op buyers and incoming renters," it said, "does still remain in effect.  Income is restricted to 165 percent of area media[n] income (A.M.I.) for the New York City metropolitan area."

Bottom Line

Perhaps the ugliest of all housing projects in the city it was created during a time when its location very close to the Hudson River in the Far West Village was not considered desirable and now almost half a century later the area has some of the most expensive real estate in the city.

Description

With four-step stoops and inconsistent fenestration, the very bland buildings of West Village Houses are surrounded by the very charming streetscapes of the Far West Village including many 19th Century buildings and some contemporary modern buildings. 

The buildings have small entrance canopies and fire-escapes.

Amenities

The buildings have no sidewalk landscaping, no roof decks, no fitness centers, no children's playrooms, no concierges, no doormen and no elevators, but bicycle rooms, discrete air-conditioners and some gardens.

Apartments

The complex has some multi-level units.

History

In a May 15, 2005 article in The New York Times, Josh Barbanel wrote that the "West Village Houses was once the ugly duckling of Greenwich Village, a huge postwar project of 42 brick walk-ups that look squat and plain among the imposing 19th-century warehouses and brownstones." 

":West Village Houses wasn't always such a sure thing. It was the troubled offspring of a protest movement against urban renewal in the West Village led by Jane Jacobs, the writer and critic on urban life. 

"In the early 1960's, a plan to demolish a 14-square-block swath of the West Village and replace small stores and warehouses with high-rise buildings was stopped by community protests. And over the next decade, a community group, the West Village Committee, set out to design and build subsidized apartments imbued with Ms. Jacobs's ideas of urban life, on the site of a portion of the High Line elevated rail structure. 

"The buildings were to be co-ops, 420 apartments built in five- or six-story walk-ups, where neighbors could get to know one another while walking up the stairs. Many of the buildings, on six separate sites between Morton Street and Bank Street near the river, had communal gardens in the rear. 

"But the project was delayed, and by time it got started, costs had risen and there were cutbacks. A plan for floor-to-ceiling windows, and an exposed concrete frame, was replaced by plain flat brick fronts with small windows. 

"When the project was completed in 1974 and put on the market, the economy was sluggish. Four-bedroom apartments were $10,000, and they didn't sell. The city foreclosed and turned the project over to a private sponsor as a rental development. 

"The building was run under the state's Mitchell-Lama Housing Program, in which sponsors agreed to limit rents and their profit in exchange for low-cost financing and tax abatements for at least 20 years. Tenants had to meet strict income guidelines but were allowed to stay on after their incomes rose, if they paid a surcharge of up to 50 percent on their rents.... So in 2002, when the project's owner, a group headed by Andrew Farkas, a scion of the Alexander's department store family, who is the former chairman and chief operating officer of the Insignia Financial Group, sent the tenants a letter announcing a plan to take the housing out of Mitchell-Lama, the tenants were ready. 

Eventually the city and the tenants agreed that the tenants would pay "$126 million for the project, which had two mortgages totaling $93 million on record, and the city agreed to forgive $19 million in interest that the owner eventually would have had to repay. To make it more affordable, the city agreed to provide a tax abatement worth about $1.5 million a year for 12 years and eliminate all interest on a $12 million city mortgage for up to 30 years." 

"Those who didn't buy would see their rents rise immediately by 48 percent, while buyers would have to pay high maintenance costs, $2,400 a month for a three-bedroom. Some of the maintenance fees would go to a special fund to cover the rent increases due for low-income tenants." 

"The architecture is so unremarkable that the project was recently redlined out of a proposed West Village historic district," the article continued. 

The article said that Matthew Horovitz, a television producer, might be "able to buy his two-bedroom apartment on West Street facing the Hudson River for about $170,000, just down the street from Morton Square, a new riverfront development where the asking price on a two-bedroom apartment with a view is about $2.7 million." 

"The deal, which is still pending before the state attorney general's office, is complex. But essentially it would allow tenants to buy their apartments far below market prices - as little as $165,000 for a typical two-bedroom apartment, and $330,000 for three-bedroom duplex apartments with private gardens or cathedral ceilings. If sold at market prices, the apartments would be $800 to $1,200 a square foot, or about $1.5 million for a three-bedroom, brokers said.  Owners would be able to resell at gradually higher prices. After 12 years, they could sell to anyone, at full-market prices. A large flip tax, between 15 and 25 percent of the gain, would help pay off a city mortgage. Tenants unable or unwilling to buy would be protected by below-market rent-stabilized rents for 12 years. They could buy later, but at higher prices." 

In an August 30, 2007 article in The New York Sun, Julia Vitullo-Martin that "Conceived in idealism, their construction fell prey to a decade of delays and escalating construction costs that ate away at the architectural standards Jacobs had first proposed," 

"By time they opened in 1974, the houses were reviled by Jacobs as well as most architectural critics, despite having been designed by the distinguished architectural firm of Perkins and Will.  Indeed, The New York Times once called the houses 'an unloved failure.'"