A Bespoke readers sent in a photo of some action happening to one of the shells over in the Mount Morris Park Historic District and wondered what was happening to the landmark building. This block between 119th and 120th Street on the east side has a handful of majestic but neglected buildings. Could a restoration be at hand? Looking up the permits for 190 Lenox, it only appears that the sidewalk shed has been approved at this point and no other work has been filed. A neighboring building at 186 also had a shed placed out front this summer and it all probably has to do with possible debris falling from the old buildings.
The Landmarks Preservation Commission can sue negligent owners for not maintaining if they are in danger of Demolition by Neglect but nothing has happened so far on this block to improve the quality of these structures. Does anyone else have additional information?
Why not walk into Virgo and ask "s'up with the shed?'. I shall.
ReplyDeletePoor branding for a lumber yard/hardware store if the building is falling down on top of them.
ReplyDeleteWith the city of NY there are minor fines and violations for everything imaginable, except the most glaring of all bad behavior, allowing a beautiful old building to sit for decades as a decaying shell. The city agencies in their usual genius are making it worse, this sidewalk shed will predictably become a gathering spot for the usual characters whose only contribution to Harlem is public urination.
ReplyDeleteThanks Westsider but we usual characters know the place to take a p**s is the a banded brownstone on 119th. south side. Middle way up the block. Not the one with the boarded up windows, next one up. Owned by the same landlord.
ReplyDeleteThese are beautiful buildings on Lenox. I hope they are saved. They may well have no extant rear walls. Those who are really interested can look them up on Property Shark.
These buildings are basket cases. I bet they are worth 600,000 each in this condition. That's not chump change...
ReplyDeleteJust before the storm we were walking by this stretch of four shells and a guy was coming out of the one in question. We asked him what was going on and he told us he is the GC on the job that the shell had been bought by developers (who are also trying to buy the neighboring buildings) who are going to have apartments, one per floor in this building. The GC was there taking the generator as he lives in Staten Island and was expecting to loose power. I hope he survived it all and that he does a great job in improving these buildings.
ReplyDeleteWe commiserated with him as he said they have been trying to get ConEd to provide services, but in ConEd's usual way they have not gotten anything. He told us ConEd is not proactive in Harlem, but if such a project was 30ty blocks south they would get services much more quickly. Does anyone know anything about that claim? We have found ConEd to be despicable. We applied for service in February and still don't have it on our building site!