Preservationists Sue to Save St. Vincent's O'Toole Building

A coalition of community groups and preservationists have filed a lawsuit against the Landmarks Preservation Commission [LPC] and St. Vincent’s Hospital to try and block the demolition of the distinctive O’Toole building in Greenwich Village. You'll recall that after a bitter public battle, St. Vincent's hospital was granted a “hardship-status” exemption last October to raze the landmark building to make way for a 299-foot-tall medical tower. The lawsuit, spearheaded by a group called Protect the Village Historic District, argues that the LPC "did not make an adequate investigation of alternatives, including the potential reuse of St. Vincent's existing buildings." Officials at St. Vincent's have threatened that the hospital would have to close if it could not build an $830 million medical tower on the site of the O’Toole, which NY Times architecture critic Nicolai Ouroussoff hails as a representation of "a moment when some architects rebelled against Modernism’s glass-box aesthetic in favor of ornamental facades." Others simply call it the "overbite building."