New Landmarks Chair has Extensive Preservation Background; GVSHP Urges Her to Extend Landmark Protections in Endangered ‘Tech Hub’ Area; Rally Tomorrow at Noon to Save our Neighborhood
On Wednesday the City Council confirmed Sarah Carroll as the new Chair of the Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC). Ms. Carroll is the first LPC Chair in decades with a background primarily in historic preservation, having worked at the LPC for twenty-four years. Following the resignation of the prior Chair earlier this year, GVSHP waged a campaign calling upon the Mayor to appoint, and the City Council to only approve, a new chair who has a demonstrated track record as a preservationist.
GVSHP has written to the new Chair to congratulate her on her appointment and to raise ongoing issues of concern with her and request a meeting to discuss them (read the letter here). First among those concerns is the need for expanded landmark protections in the area south of Union Square between 3rd and 5th Avenues, which faces increasing development pressure resulting in demolitions and out-of-scale and out-of-character new development. That pressure is being increased by the recent approval by the City Council of the Mayor’s upzoning of a site on 14th Street for a large new ‘Tech Hub’— an approval that did not include the extensive zoning and/or landmark protections for the surrounding impacted neighborhood which GVSHP and local residents fought for.
GVSHP is holding a demonstration tomorrow, Saturday, at noon at 11th and Broadway in front of the historic former St. Denis Hotel (1853), which is being demolished to make way for a large glass office building. We are protesting the destruction of our history, and the lack of landmark protections for this area in spite of the threats it faces.