New York City has some curious-looking streets, where elegant old brownstones sit cheek by jowl with shiny glass towers. And with a number of unusual developments under way in Manhattan, the city might come to resemble an even more exotic jigsaw puzzle. Some striking newer buildings are ones that — for one reason or another — wrap around older buildings. Sometimes this is done because renters in the existing building refuse to accept a developer’s offer to buy out their leases, or else the owner thinks that he has a better plan for it.
In other cases, a building has landmark status and cannot be torn down. This clearly presents the biggest challenge for developers and architects, at least in terms of the permitting process. Take, for example, the Samuel Tredwell Skidmore House at 37 East Fourth Street in the East Village. This Greek Revival row house, which has three floors and a big attic, is named for the businessman who built it in 1845. It was granted landmark status by the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission in 1970.
In 2006, the commission approved a plan to build a 15-story luxury rental apartment building next door, where the lower stories would wrap around the back of this landmark. Elisabeth de Bourbon, a spokeswoman for the Landmarks Preservation Commission, wrote in an e-mail message that the commission had received very few requests over the years from developers who wanted to wrap a new building around a landmark. “The challenge is to determine whether the new structure is compatible with the landmarked building,” Ms. De Bourbon wrote. She said such a decision was based on an evaluation of the new structure’s size, materials and architectural details. “It also would have to relate well to the historic building and in some way speak to it,” she added.
Peter Fine, a principal with the Atlantic Development Group — the New York developer that plans to build the apartment building on a parking lot that it owns next door to Skidmore House — said he wanted to build something that would preserve the flavor of the old row houses that have defined this neighborhood since the 19th century.
For example, although his building, which is to use bricks, will be 15 stories tall, the sixth floor will ultimately be flush with the Skidmore House’s top floor, and the stories above that level are to be set back. “The street wall will be aligned with the pre-Civil War buildings, and that’s what the eye would catch from the street,” he said.
Mr. Fine has signed a long-term lease for Skidmore House, and he has already spent $600,000 in stabilizing the building, which is vacant, and renovating the exterior. His intention is to restore it to its former splendor as a single-family home and rent it out. He does not know how much he will ultimately spend. “Too much,” he said.
Uptown, a lone brick building at 340 Amsterdam Avenue, on the northwest corner of 76th Street, is surrounded by a giant hole in the ground. The building itself does not have landmark status, and it is just outside the Upper West Side’s historic preservation district, which ends across the street, on the east side of Amsterdam Avenue.
David Wine, the vice chairman of the Related Companies, the New York developer, is building two luxury condominium apartment buildings that will connect behind 340 Amsterdam. He said it was difficult to piece together a large site on the Upper West Side, “because so much of it is protected by the historic district boundaries.”
He said 340 Amsterdam Avenue had some tenants with rent-stabilized leases that he had been unable to buy out. But he said the architect, Robert A. M. Stern, had taken the challenge of constructing two modern buildings and wrapping them around a much older building, “and embraced it.” For example, with bay windows looking out over the lower building, the apartments will have generous light, he said.
Mr. Wine sa
Source: New York Times