In their frenzy to derail the decades-overdue rezoning of the Grand Central district, three esteemed preservationist groups are making utter fools of themselves.
Altogether, The Municipal Art Society, the New York Landmarks Conservancy and the Historic Districts Council are asking the city’s Landmarks Preservation Commission to prohibit four dozen East Midtown buildings from ever being demolished or altered.
Worse, the groups can’t agree on which properties are worth immortalizing. In fact, their most recent wish-lists are laughably at odds.
“Save the masterpieces from the bulldozers!” is the rallying cry. We’re told that allowing larger new office buildings in the 78-block area will mean wholesale demolition of supposedly architecturally distinguished structures — or even, God forbid, cast shadows over them.
But the incoherence of the wish-lists exposes the truth: This campaign is really about thwarting zoning changes needed to reverse the Grand Central district’s slide into obsolescence. (Buildings there average 60-plus years old and are increasingly unsuited to modern office use).
The preservationist hysteria is a just handy tool to spook the City Council into voting down the rezoning later this year. That’s clear when you examine the three groups’ recommendations.
Together, they call for 48 total buildings to be landmarked. But of the “inviolable” 48, the organizations agree on just six — that’s how many show up on all three lists.
Sure, we all have our favorites, but wouldn’t you expect somewhat more of a consensus? Landmarking even a single site has profound, permanent consequences and shouldn’t be taken lightly — which is why the Landmarks Commission sometimes takes years to act.
In fact, the all-over-the-map choices illustrate how treacherously subjective landmark-worthiness can be.
Six buildings that The Municipal Art Society wants landmarked appear in neither of the other two lists. Of the Historic District Council’s 33 “must save” properties, 21 appear on neither of the other groups’ recommendations to the commission.
Among the HDC’s more bizarre picks: the Hotel Benjamin at 135 E. 50th St., a 1920s brick box resembling hundreds of other antiquated structures. And the gloomy brick hulk of 347 Madison Ave. found a champion (only) in the New York Landmarks Conservancy.
Alone among the organizations, the NYCL also proposes landmarking the Colgate-Palmolive Building — even though the 1955 structure was completely redesigned in 2000 and looks nothing like the original.
(Maybe NYCL doesn’t believe in its own recommendation? Although Colgate-Palmolive is at 300 Park Ave., it’s incorrectly listed on NYCL’s Web site as 300 Madison Ave., a near-new office tower that won’t even be eligible for landmarking for 20 years.)
With judgments like these, why not landmark the city’s most hated skyscraper, the MetLife Building? It might not be so far-fetched: A recent New York Times story termed it a “landmark” over which shadows thrown by taller new buildings might fall.
There’s more: For months, the groups have been adding and dropping properties willy-nilly from their wish lists. No fewer than 83 different ones have appeared on revolving-door rosters they’ve discussed publicly since last fall.
The HDC originally identified 73 sites deserving attention, whittled them down to 46 and finally settled on 33 — including three it hadn’t previously mentioned.
Among the added “stars”: O’Casey’s, a four-story affair at 22 E. 41st St. anchored by an Irish bar. It’s a nice little building, but a landmark?
In December, the MAS included 346 Madison Ave., home to the Brooks Brothers flagship store, on a lengthy list of properties it asked the Department of City Planning to spare from future redevelopment. But MAS doesn’t include it among its current choices.
Meanwhile, all 17 properties that NYCL wants designated happen to be at locations that City Planning identified last month as possible future development sites.
These three groups have contributed enormously to the cause of safeguarding genuine treasures for future generations. It’s shocking to see them dishonorably abusing the preservation process to boost those who’d prevent East Midtown from flourishing anew.
Unless, that is, a landmarked O’Casey’s is preferable to a new, real landmark rising in the future.