Gothamist: Landmarks Commission Sends St. Vincent's Back to the Drawing Board

kissel

Tue, 06 May 2008 20:35:35 -0500

the same a-holes who want to down zone everything in the same breath complain about the lack of affordable housing. Supply and demand seem to be too complex a for their simple brains. Screw em, they'll all be priced out of the city anyway soon enough and partly from their own actions.

eyekantspel

Tue, 06 May 2008 19:22:41 -0500

i agree-- if you want to be a preservationist, bring back the trout stream.

sonyactivision

Tue, 06 May 2008 18:07:56 -0500

I say knock the entire village down and restore that trout stream. Send those motherfucking nimby yuppies to Scarsdale where they belong. Let them worship their 200 year historical bracket there.

thefacts

Tue, 06 May 2008 17:10:32 -0500

"Why stop progress now?" What Rudin proposed wasn't progress. It was unbridled destruction of historic buildings and an assault on a low-rise neighborhood used to masquerade his greedy ambition. The Landmark Commission is composed of architects, lawyers, real estate people. You don't think they want development and progress? But, they knew this proposal was a greedy plan by a greedy developer.

smokedgouda

Tue, 06 May 2008 16:38:40 -0500

Time to take a deep breath and look at the building they are protecting. It's a turd.

eyekantspel

Tue, 06 May 2008 16:35:27 -0500

I always love the historic site designation. If they knocked those buildings down, 100 years from now whatever they put in that spot would be a historic site. This is a living city. There are only a few places that deserve protection, and those are immediately identifiable. A bunch of crappy little buildings in Greenwich Village won't be missed. Heck, the Greenwich Village Historic Preservation Society tells how the area has evolved over time. http://www.gvshp.org/history.htm In the 16th century it was a marshland inhabited by Native Americans who camped and fished in its meandering trout stream. By the 1630s Dutch settlers had cleared pastures and planted crops in this area. In 1664, the settlement evolved into a country hamlet, first designated Grin’wich in 1713. Greenwich Village survived the American Revolution as a pastoral suburb. Commercial activity after the war was centered near the edge of the Hudson River, where there were fresh produce markets. In the 1780s the city purchased a parcel of eight acres for use as a potter’s field and public gallows, at what is now Washington Square Park. During an especially virulent epidemic in 1822 many who had intended to remain in the area only temporarily chose instead to settle there permanently, increasing the population fourfold between 1825 and 1840 and spurring the development of markets and businesses. Shrewd speculators subdivided farms, leveled hills, rerouted Minetta Brook, and undertook landfill projects. Blocks of neat rowhouses built in the prevailing Federal style soon accommodated middle-class merchants and tradesmen. During the early 19th century new institutions served the spiritual, educational, and cultural needs of the growing community. Etc. Why stop progress now?