Will LPC Chair Robert B. Tierney Help Marx Brothers Place Become Reality?

I have to say I was so pleased to receive a press release from Susan Hefti of the 93rd Street Beautification Association stating that Robert B. Tierney, chairman of the Landmarks Preservation Commission will take a walking tour of the area as a step toward considering Hefti's stretch of 93rd Street for inclusion in the Carnegie Hill Historic District. That's awesome -- I hope Hefti and all the elected officials in support of her efforts gently hold Tierney's feet to the fire.

Here's the release:

That sound you hear may be more than just the ice melting outside! NYC Council Member Dan Garodnick brings us the good news that the Chairman of the NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission, Robert Tierney, has committed to visiting historic Marx Brothers Place in contemplation of calendaring the 93rd Street Beautification Association's Request for Evaluation (RFE) in which we ask the city to extend the Carnegie Hill Historic District one block east so as to include this remarkable collection of 19th century houses & gardens within its protective
boundaries.

We're not planning a celebration just yet, as we know a "site visit" is a long way from actually getting the block designated, but it's a start, and we're awfully grateful to CM Garodnick and his Community Liasion, Segun Akande, for all the efforts they have made to get Chairman Tierney to commit to putting on his walking shoes and trekking on up to our cherished little stretch of Carnegie Hill!

Joining CM Garodnick and Segun Akande will be all the other elected officials who wrote to Chairman Tierney urging him to calendar the 93rd Street Beautification Association's RFE for a public hearing. The historic walking tour is being organized through CM Garodnick's office and is expected to take place the last week of March or in the early part of April.

So, if sometime over the next few weeks, you happen to see Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer; NY State Assemblyman Jonathan Bing; NY State Assemblyman Micah Kellner; NYC Council Member Dan Garodnick and NYC Council Member Jessica Lappin squiring LPC Chairman Robert Tierney down our steep and storied slope, be sure to smile at the Chairman (now I mean a really, really BIG smile!) and tell him just how much you are looking forward to having our block included in the Carnegie Hill Historic District, and how you're counting on him to get it done!!!

Let's keep our collective fingers and toes crossed, folks!

Three cheers for historic Marx Brothers Place! And many thanks to Council Member Dan Garodnick for leading the upcoming walking tour of our historic little block!

For more information about the 93rd Street Beautification Association or Marx Brothers Place, please contact us at 93rdst.beautification@gmail.com or 212.969.8138 or visit our blogs at: Save Marx Brothers Place or The Marx Brothers Place Report or view our Marx Brothers Place MySpace profile.

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Mayor Bloomberg Loves Freelancers, Hates the Marx Brothers?

This post mixes two concerns. First, yesterday I received an email from the Freelancers Union:

Dear Members,

Today in his State of the City address, Mayor Bloomberg echoed our call to exempt independent workers from the Unincorporated Business Tax (UBT)—an unfair double tax that requires 17,000 NYC freelancers to pay twice as much as traditional employees.

And while the announcement is an important first step towards a fairer tax system for freelancers, we’ve still got our work cut out for us.

Even though we’ve got the support of the Mayor, the City Council Speaker, and the NYC Comptroller, the fate of the freelancer tax cut will be determined by the state legislature.

That means that if we truly want relief where it counts—in our wallets—we need to
stick together and convince the politicians in Albany.

We believe: more people, more pull. Please take a minute to thank Mayor Bloomberg for taking a stand for freelancers, and ask him to be our advocate by taking the fight to Albany.

As a full-time (for now) freelancer (and I'll still freelance, I guess, once I have another position), I naturally support the Mayor's proposal and I certainly endorse the idea of everyone jumping on this bandwagon and lobbying the state legislature for its support. It's especially crucial at a moment in time when every bit of revenue, of course, is precious.

Second -- and in the meantime -- my friend Susan Hefti is continuing to rattle cages where Marx Brothers Place is concerned. As this blog's followers know, Susan leads the 93rd Street Beautification Association and has been pressuring the Mayor and his associates to lend their support simply to the idea of honoring the block where the Marx Brothers grew up. But so far, her efforts have been falling on deaf ears. So I ask you: Does the Mayor love freelancers but hate monumental comedy?

Anyway, Susan put out an email tonight containing a form letter than can be sent to the chairman of the Landmarks Preservation Commisison, Robert B. Tierney. (I've often said my piece about him -- click here.) The letter asks Tierney to consider the Beautification Association's request to extend the Carnegie Hill Historic District one block -- just one block -- so that it will encompass Marx Brothers Place. I think everyone should copy this letter and email it to the address as requested. Developers are salivating -- even in this nonsense economy -- for the opportunity to demolish the historic sites on this block, and on the LPC, and maybe Mayor Bloomberg's voice and conscience, can stop it. Or else our hands and fists will. Here's the letter. Please send it.

Please cut, paste and send to:
comments@lpc.nyc.gov
(with cc to 93rdst.beautification@gmail.com).

Dear Chairman Tierney,

We respectfully request that the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) calendar the 93rd Street Beautification Association's Request for Evaluation (RFE), asking the city to extend the Carnegie Hill Historic District one block east so as to include historic Marx Brothers Place, for a public hearing.

The beloved childhood block of the Marx Brothers not only includes their extant childhood home, but also includes brownstones that are older than any of the brownstones already in the Carnegie Hill Historic District (a row of townhouses vital to any credible understanding of the development history of Carnegie Hill). The unique stepped-down roofscape that runs on both the north and south sides of the block evokes the city's Native American history, giving meaning to its original name, Manatus, which translated from the Lenape means “island of hills.” It's a fact that is still evident on East 93rd Street, one of the steepest hills left in all of Manhattan, with two houses built and owned by the famous Loew brothers and, inter alia, a house owned by the well-known New Yorker, William Orth.

It is imperative that the city act with all due speed to protect this incomparable collection of historic homes and gardens so rich in our nation's cultural and architectural history.

Thank you for your kind attention to this request.

Respectfully submitted,

(please add your name and address)

So, Mr. Mayor? Bloomie? Mr. B-Bear? You already subverted democracy by ramming through that term-limits overturning. How about you compensate not only by supporting freelancers (thank you), but by honoring the Marx Brothers? Not that I'd harp on that, of course.

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Robin Pogrebin of the Times, in Third Article of a Series, Piles On LPC Chair Robert Tierney

I am growing increasingly astonished at the breadth of reporting and sheer writing craft exhibited by New York Times reporter Robin Pogrebin in her series of pieces on the state of landmarking in New York City, specifically the work (or lack of, if you will) of the Landmarks Preservation Commission.

In Pogrebin's first story, "An Opaque and Lengthy Road to Landmark Status," the writer essentially dissects the Landmarks Preservation Commission's work -- or lack of work or efficiency, it would seem -- and lays a fair amount of the blame at the shuffling feet of LPC chair Robert B. Tierney, who has been keeping his chair lukewarm, Pogrebin writes, for five years. The article further tries to get to the root of what seem like extreme lassitude and laissez-faire-ness on Tierney's part, and how the cause of the preservation is being undermined in a widespread and thoroughly alarming way. In this first story (which I didn't realize was going to be part of a series at the time), I was particularly gobsmacked by this:

He’s a guy who’s had no demonstrable interest in historic preservation, who has the most important preservation job in New York City,” said Anthony C. Wood, author of “Preserving New York: Winning the Right to Protect a City’s Landmarks" (Routledge, 2008), and a party to the suit.

In Pogrebin's second story, "Preservationists See Bulldozers Charging Through a Loophole," the story goes on -- it's all about how the sluggishness and ineffectualism of the LPC and Tierney act as permission slips for developers, who generally have the moral fiber of Gregory Rasputin, to demolish and cut corners and do all sorts of terrible things to our urban environment. Here is another particularly moving quote:

“In the middle of the night I’m out there at 2 in the morning, and they’re taking the cornices off,” said Gale Brewer, a city councilwoman who represents that part of the Upper West Side. “We’re calling the Buildings Department, we’re calling Landmarks. You get so beaten down by all of this. The developers know they can get away with that.”

Now comes Pogrebin's latest piece: "Preserving the City: Church and State," which deals with the LPC's effect on the demolition (or preservation) of religious structures. (Interestingly, this is an area I'm not sure quite what I think yet: Does the cause of preservation supercede the right to religious freedom? I think it may not.) Here's a great quote:

Among the religious buildings designated on his watch, Mr. Tierney noted, were the first Catholic churches to become landmarks in 28 years: St. Aloysius on West 132nd Street, known for its ornamental polychrome bands of brick and terra cotta, and the Church of All Saints on East 129th Street, an imposing Gothic Revival masterpiece with wheel clerestory windows. Both won landmark status last year.

But while preservationists applauded those designations, they said the commission bypassed even more important treasures like St. Thomas the Apostle Church in Harlem, completed in 1907 on West 118th Street near St. Nicholas Avenue. Known for its flamboyantly ornate neo-Gothic facade, fan-vaulted ceiling, spiky pinnacles and stained-glass windows, it was cited as one of the seven most important sites worth saving by the Preservation League of New York State.

"My community loves this church," Representative Charles B. Rangel wrote in a 2004 letter to Cardinal Edward M. Egan.

During years of pressure from Harlem advocates, the commission has declined to hold a hearing on St. Thomas, saying the building had already been significantly altered and its congregation was largely inactive.

Some preservationists and architectural historians accuse the commission and the New York archdiocese of grudgingly going along with the designations of All Saints and St. Aloysius in exchange for the omission of St. Thomas.

“This was their bargain,” said Michael Henry Adams, the author of “Harlem: Lost and Found” (Monacelli Press, 2001), a history of the neighborhood’s architecture. “To me it’s like the decision of Solomon.”

Read all three articles and answer this question: Should Tierney resign?

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