On Monday, Village Preservation was joined by hundreds, including State Senator Brad Hoylman, City Councilmember Erik Bottcher, Assemblymember Deborah Glick, Community Board 2, and the Historic Districts Council, for a press conference outside the 200-year-old landmarked house at 14 Gay Street. According to the city, illegal work removing a supporting wall has compromised the structural integrity of the building and neighboring 16 Gay Street, and to protect public safety, 14 Gay Street must be dismantled. Village Preservation condemned the city’s lack of oversight and the owner and his contractors’ illegal, damaging work, and called for reforms to prevent this from ever happening again. We also demanded the maximum penalties allowable under the law for those responsible, strict oversight of all six adjoining properties owned by the same entity as 14 Gay to ensure they are kept safe and restored, and that the owner be required to save every brick and piece of historic material possible from the building to rebuild it exactly as it was. Read more details in our letter with elected officials to the Mayor and agency heads and in our press release.

Watch video of the press conference here and see photos here; see coverage in The Village Sun, AMNY, 6sqft, and on ABC7News and PIX11News.

Village Preservation is committed to ensuring these buildings are stabilized and restored, that those responsible are penalized to the maximum extent possible and can’t profit from their misdeeds, and that the city changes its way of handling these situations to ensure demolitions of landmarked historic houses never happen again.

TO HELP: