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Rowhouse in the UWS will be replaced by a new 13-story condominium building

Evan Bindelglass reports for Curbed: Landmarked UWS Hotel Is Getting a 13-Story Condo Neighbor.

With a scaled down proposal, the team representing Anbau Enterprises won approval from the Landmarks Preservation Commission on Tuesday to build a condominium neighbor beside the landmark Lucerne Hotel on the Upper West Side. The new 13-story building will bear the address 207 West 79th Street and replace the existing five-story rowhouse located at 203-209 West 79th Street.

When the previous proposal went before the LPC on July 23, there was anoverflow crowd of objectors. This time, not so much. The presentation was given by Elise Quasebarth of the presentation firm Higgins Quasebarth & Partners and architect Morris Adjmi. The new building is over 30 feet shorter than before and has no penthouse. It will be 18 feet shorter than the Lucerne. The terraces on the western corner (one of the bigger points of contention last time) were removed from the design and the building went from asymmetrical tosymmetrical, with the entrance moved to the center. There are now more windows on the western face (the eastern face will block the Lucerne’s existing windows), which will be less visible from the surrounding area. The building itself will feature a mix of brick, limestone, and terra cotta.

LPC chair Meenakshi Srinivasan said she was “pleased” with the reduction in height and the removal of the terraces and the building-topping penthouse. Commissioner Michael Goldblum said demolition of the existing building was appropriate and called the new design “typical.” Srinivasan noted the written objections of both City Councilwoman Helen Rosenthal, who said the new building would “irreparably harm the character of the district,” and of State Assemblywoman Linda Rosenthal, but the building was approved unanimously. Now for a little lesson in how the LPC works. When you first propose a new building or changes to a building in a historic district (or to change or replace an existing individual landmark), you have to go before a public hearing at the LPC.

At that hearing, any member of the community may address the commissioners with his or her feelings about the proposal and the commissioners are supposed to take that into account. If they decide not to approve the proposal, the applicant is told what was wrong with it and may try again. However, when the applicant comes back, it is usually for a public meeting, where no comment is accepted. The idea is that the commissioners already heard from the public and should be taking their sentiments into consideration in their decision. Well, at this meeting, a man named Samuel Leff, a past president of the West 79th Street Block Association, decided to, after the approval and closing of the hearing (and end of the day’s LPC session), get up and scold the commissioners for what they had done. This is highly unusual and several attendees seemed quite surprised. He nearly had to be escorted from the room. Outside, he said he will investigate suing the commission for their decision.

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