The efforts to get the Morningside Heights neighborhood landmarked reaches a critical point as three brownstones by the Columbia campus wait to be demolished. The buildings at 408, 410, and 412 115th Street, between Amsterdam and Morningside Drive are properties owned by Columbia that will be taken down to make room for taller structures. The Landmarks Preservation Commission had reviewed proposals to landmark the entire neighborhood over a decade ago but still have held out on making any commitments. State assemblyman Daniel O'Donnell has spearheaded this movement but to no avail. Now that Columbia has had the green light from the DOB to tear down the three buildings, politicians including Charles Rangel, Inez Dickens and O'donnell have been meeting with local preservation groups to try to halt the demise of the historic townhouses. The three building were deemed historic in 2008 by the New York State Historic Preservation Office but this does not hold any weight in protecting the buildings. Preservationist are now looking at the Landmarks Preservation Commission to save the day and have started a letter writing campaign. The closest subways to this location is the 1 train at 116th Street. Photos by UlyssesRead our one of our first post about saving Morningside Heights: LINK
Columbia shows the same respect for its neighbours as NYU does for its. That is to say. . . zero. Zip. Nil.
ReplyDeleteNYU is destroying the Village with tearing down lowrises and replacing them with really ghastly, thumb-in-the-eye lumbering buildings. Columbia seems equally unapologetic about Harlem.
If these brownstones had orginally been taken care of then maybe Columbia wouldn't have to tear them down.
ReplyDeleteColumbia's expansion in Harlem is important because it creates jobs. On the contrary, they have done more for the community than any other institution.
I think the community would be better to focus on structures that it can still have a say about -
Renaissance Ballroom (Abysinnian should sell to private developer to save)
Striver's Row (Near West end of the historic building it is abandoned and in peril. Whoever the owner is should be forced to sell to a developer to create mixed use retail and condos)
Victoria Theatre - Make the present owners sell to private developer to create a revated theatre for a performing arts space
Astor Row pretty dire, too. And those are such cute buildings.
ReplyDeleteYou can't FORCE an owner to sell unless you go eminent domain and that's one hell of a slippery slope.
Many properties up here have very messy titles if in fact they have paperwork at all. That’s a big, big hinderance to prospective buyers.
I actually lived in one of those buildings from age 2 to 19. They were not crumbling and falling apart when my family and other residents lived there. It was no secret that Columbia wanted direct ownership of these buildings to make use of the property in their own way, the last few years we were there. They were owned by St. Lukes Hospital (which was also linked or owned by Columbia). Columbia heavily pressured St. Lukes to get rid of all the tenants by any means necessary. A couple of year before we actually got an eviction notice, they hired new management that would not do any real maintenance or repairs. For instance, a part of our ceiling collapsed (due to previous water damage from our upstairs neighbors), barely missing me, and they did nothing to repair it. Instead the staff constantly reminded us that we were all going to be evicted and made threatening remarks and used scare tactics on all the tenants. It worked to a great extent because little by little, tenants started moving out. My family and a few others refused to be bullied by their ugly methods. We stuck it out until Columbia could finally use eminent domain to evict the remaining tenants. Many of the remaining tenants were older people who had lived in the buildings for decades. It was a very difficult and stressful period for my family. Once, we were all evicted, the building sat empty for years. I guess it turned out Columbia didn't have the funds to carry out its own plans, after years of harassing all of us. Eventually, they were demolished. It is sad and ugly. There were truly beautiful and amazing historic apartments. They would have been any real estate investors dream.
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