The church on the corner of 96th street and Central Park West is being converted into condos and will have a meeting with the Landmarks Preservation Commission on Tuesday to determine whether the developers can proceed. The LPC rejected the architects’ first attempt, but applicants tend to have more luck on the second go-round, because they know what the LPC wants. And at the second public meeting, the audience has no chance to speak, which can help tilt the outcome in favor of the developer.
Preservationist group Landmarks West alerted people to the meeting, and criticized the process i the note below:
Dear Neighbors,
On Tuesday, February 10 at 9:30AM, there will be a Public Meeting, NOT a Public Hearing, at the Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) on the proposed residential conversion of the First Church of Christ, Scientist at Central Park West and 96 Street.
The applicants will present modifications to the plans critically received by the LPC and roundly opposed by the community on December 9, 2014. Again, this will be a Public Meeting, meaning that members of the public will not be allowed to speak, though applicants and their consultants will be. Outrageous!
The meeting will be at the LPC hearing room, at the following address:
Municipal Building
1 Centre Street
9th Floor North
To get there, take the Downtown 2 or 3 train to the Park Place Station, walk across City Hall Park until you reach the intersection of Centre & Chambers Streets. The Municipal Building is the wide stone building on the east side of the street. Use the north elevator bank. When you get to the 9th floor, follow the signs to the LPC hearing room.
Your presence will speak volumes.
Even if you cannot attend, contact Chair Meenakshi Srinivasan ASAP at comments@lpc.nyc.gov (please cc: all emails to landmarkwest@landmarkwest.org) to let her know that you remain deeply concerned about the impact of this plan on one of New York’s most compelling individual landmarks. Tell her that alterations of this magnitude – opposed by LANDMARK WEST!, the Historic Districts Council, Charles Warren (co-author of the book Carrère & Hastings, Architects), and architect Robert A.M. Stern (Dean of the Yale School of Architecture), among others – merit a second Public Hearing, not a Public Meeting at which only the applicant, lawyers, architects and other paid representatives are allowed to speak, not community stakeholders.
Best regards,
LW!
This whole thing is just silly IMO. If they’re not going to keep it as a church, they should just let them knock it down and build a condo tower. Why have a weird fake church that’s really condos just for the sake of historical preservation?
It’s not a “weird fake church”, it is a beautiful, historic building.
eh, Dirk apparently is a voice of sanity… how did you wander in here? 🙂
It will be sad if that beautiful church is torn down or gutted… for more rich people’s condos. too bad we can’t find our way to a community / public use of the space. our loss.
Creative adaptive re-use is the way to go.
Plenty of old churches in Brooklyn have been converted to residential. It is a shame to loose the interior , but better then complete destruction.
where is the outcry for the 3 townhouses next door that WILL be torn down for a tower?
Probably because townhouses in NY are a dime-a-dozen and old churches are not.
Not sure why it’s “outrageous” for a meeting to be held according to whatever rules and procedures exist.
I’ll withhold judgment until the revised plans are known. I’m pretty skeptical it’ll be great, and yet compared to a vacant building I’m not sure what other choice there is.
Property rights are severely diluted in NYC. So many abandoned churches, that people don’t want to attend, however the people not attending want the right to dictate what the owners do with them. The churches are retrenching, by moving to more affordable/sustainable venues would be better served if they could sell their personal property into a market where buyers didn’t think they could be held hostage by others dictating what they can do with their property. Ridiculous.
Totally agree.
The LPC is at it again. Secret meetings with applicants and then “public” meetings wherein the public cannot speak. Well the developers are happy and that is all that matters!