Actor, director, producer, critically reviled restaurateur, and hotelier Robert De Niro made a cameo appearance before the Landmarks Preservation Commission yesterday to defend the penthouse built atop his new Greenwich Hotel in Tribeca. Some Tribeca residents are urging the commission to force De Niro to tear down the penthouse because its design differs from what was approved four years ago. According to the Times, De Niro pleaded with the commission to retroactively approve the penthouse:......

Rendering of proposed garage garden courtesy Joralemon Realty. After stalling their landlord’s attempt to build a parking garage in their courtyard next to the BQE two years ago, tenants and other community activists are still fighting the proposal. Built in 1890, the Riverside Apartments at Columbia Place and Joralemon Street in Brooklyn Heights were regarded as a great advancement in tenement living. Located near the Columbia Place docks, the nine buildings were unique for their......

The NY Sun is reporting that the Parks Department received a lackluster response from community members and government representatives last night after agency officials released yet another design for a renovated Washington Square Park. The presentation was an effort by City Council Speaker Christine Quinn to move forward the public approval process. In 2005, a lawsuit was filed, alleging that the initial design to trim the fountain plaza area, among other plans, were not......

Yesterday morning, a 200-foot long chunk of a rooftop parapet on a Brooklyn building collapsed onto the street. While this would be news no matter what or where it happened, the building is the Ward Bread Bakery, which happens to be one of many buildings that are being demolished for the massive Atlantic Yards project in downtown Brooklyn. The Department of Buildings is inspecting neighboring buildings and 350 people, including those living in a......

The Citizens Emergency Committee to Preserve Preservation hauled Mayor Bloomberg to New York State Supreme Court today for failing to reappoint or replace eight of eleven commissioners to the Landmarks Preservation Commission. The commissioners’ terms have expired, which, the Committee alleges, violates the Administrative Code and the City Charter. The Writ of Mandamus seeks to force Mayor Bloomberg to reappoint or replace commissioners whose terms have lapsed. “Mayor Bloomberg has failed to honor is own......

The battle for Washington Square Park rages on! Metro reports that a documentary seen on YouTube and myspace shows redesign architect George Vellonakis saying that the decrease to the park's central plaza will be just "5 percent" while in actuality, plans were showing decreases of much more. To summarize, the residents are upset with the city's renovation plans and the fact that the city didn't disclose the extent of plans, which some residents feel......

Well, this wasn't a surprise: An Upper East Side community board committee moved to reject plans for a 30 floor apartment tower at 980 Madison Avenue. The design by Lord Norman Foster, ballyhooed for his addition to the Hearst Building and a design for the World Trade Center, is shorter than the Carlyle Hotel nearby, but the Carlyle's height is less obtrusive due to set backs. Just last week, the NY Times' architecture critic Nicolai......

It's the spirit of old "We're pioneering artists" SoHo versus new "I'm flipping this condo" SoHo: The owners of a building on the southwest corner of Houston and Broadway are fighting to take down a sculpture on the outside wall of the building. Known as "The Wall," and also a landmark, according to the city's Landmarks Commission, Forrest Myers' 1973 sculpture consists of aluminum beams sticking out of the wall; it hasn't been there the......

The National Historical Trust announced the eleven most endangered historic places in America and one of them was in New York: 2 Columbus Circle, that weird looking building south of Columbus Circle. The Historic Trust admits that the design is "controversial," calling it a "nationally recognized icon of the Modern Movement," with "a marble skin, porthole windows and a street-level arcade that critics have likened to a row of lollipops, the unorthodox building is radically......

Robert DeNiro's future TriBeCa hotel will open in 2005. The six-story luxury hotel, at Greenwich and North Moore, is partially funded by the state's Liberty Bonds, which also funded Barry Diller's West Chelsea headquarters. The design was approved by the Landmarks Commission, but as if there was any doubt - it looks like everything else in that neighborhood. Ten, fifteen years ago, this would have been more exciting, but now it seems to be average......