Lower East Side Preservation Initiative

SAMPLE LETTER OF SUPPORT FOR EXPEDITED LANDMARKING FOR THE PROPOSED EAST VILLAGE / LOWER EAST SIDE HISTORIC DISTRICT
TO: NYC LANDMARKS PRESERVATION COMMISSION

Date

Robert Tierney
Chair
NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission
1 Centre Street, 9th Floor North
New York, NY 10007

Email: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Dear Chair Tierney:

I am writing to request that the NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission expedite its schedule to hold a public hearing for and landmark the Proposed East Village / Lower East Side Historic District. The East Village is an integral part of the Lower East Side, an area of great local, city-wide and national importance for its central role in immigration, political, music, art and theater history. Its historic streets include a rich variety of 19th and early 20th century architecture. By landmarking this district the city is ensuring that we and future generations can appreciate the physical evidence of its fascinating and influential history and architecture.

With developmental pressures in the neighborhood strong and getting stronger all the time, if we don’t act now to save the historic areas of the East Village they’ll be lost forever. Time is of the essence in the preservation of our community's heritage.

Although the recent landmarking of the East 10th Street Historic District was a good first step, the district is only a single blockfront, and the landmarking of the significantly larger Proposed East Village / Lower East Side Historic District will go much further toward providing the East Village and Lower East Side’s intact historic streetscapes the landmark protection they deserve.

Sincerely,

NAME
ADDRESS

Cc: Hon. Rosie Mendez, Council Member, NYC Council This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Robert Tierney, Chair
New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission
1 Centre Street, 9th Floor
New York, NY 10007

Re: Designation of the Proposed East 10th Street Historic District

Dear Chair Tierney:

Lower East Side Preservation Initiative – LESPI – strongly and unequivocally supports landmark designation for the Proposed East 10th Street Historic District. We loudly applaud the Landmarks Preservation Commission’s move to quickly designate this district in order to prevent it from being potentially compromised by the construction of a rooftop addition, and thank the Commission’s staff for their hard work on this proposed designation.

The blockfront on East 10th Street between Avenues A and B is perhaps the most significant in the East Village. This striking collection of historic structures has survived in remarkably good condition over the years and retains its uniform scale. The buildings run a gamut of mid 19th to early 20th century types and styles, including rowhouses, tenements, and an institutional building, in styles as diverse as Greek Revival, neo-Gothic, Italianate, neo-Grec and neoclassical. Situated at the north end of Tompkins Square Park in the “heart” of the East Village, this historic streetscape provides a wonderful iconic view from within the park and serves as a landmark to passersby in the truest sense of the word.

LESPI’s mission is to advocate for the preservation of the architectural, historical and cultural heritage of Manhattan’s East Village / Lower East Side. Our focus is on historic streetscapes, which we believe truly reflect the history and architecture of this community. Historically the street is where much of the neighborhood’s life was lived (and continues to be lived), so it is not surprising that the East Village / Lower East Side’s historic buildings – the rowhouses and tenements peppered with small institutional and commercial buildings - can only be truly understood and appreciated in context with their neighboring structures. The Proposed East 10th Street Historic District fits this model. With the EV / LES’s historic resources falling prey to demolition and defacement on an almost daily basis, we believe that the LPC must act now to save these locally and nationally important neighborhoods’ intact historic resources for current and future generations

We urge the LPC to move as quickly as possible to landmark the Proposed East 10th Street Historic District. We also ask that LPC move without delay to hold a public hearing for and landmark the Proposed East Village / Lower East Side Historic District, whose historic buildings remain in danger of demolition, defacement and damage as well. Thank you.

Sincerely,

Richard D. Moses
President

cc:
Hon. Scott Stringer, Manhattan Borough President
Hon. Rosie Mendez, New York City Council
Kate Daly, NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

Honorable Robert Tierney, Chairman
New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission
1 Centre Street, 9th Floor
New York, NY 10007

Re: Landmark Designation for the Bialystoker Home, 228 East Broadway, Manhattan

Dear Chairman Tierney:

The Lower East Side Preservation Initiative - LESPI - is writing to support designation of the Bialystoker Home at 228 East Broadway as a New York City Individual Landmark. This Art Deco style building dating from 1931 maintains a prominent visual presence on the streetscape and clearly meets the criteria for landmarking on architectural and cultural grounds.

The building’s monumental massing and characteristic Art Deco ornament, including the building’s name over the entry spelled out in letters in a Hebrew style, marks the institution’s importance to the surrounding Jewish community at the time of its construction: as the New York Times reported in 1931: “twenty-five years to the day after many of their number had fled from a pogrom in Bialystok, Russia, more than 5,000 Jews crowded East Broadway between Clinton and Montgomery Streets…and witnessed the opening and dedication….”

The Bialystoker Home is an important example of the historic institutional buildings peppered around the Lower East Side. During the decades around the turn of the 20th century, these facilities provided lifeblood for poor and struggling immigrant families. The relationship between the Lower East Side’s tenement residential buildings and more architecturally prominent institutional buildings is essential to our understanding of the immigrant experience at that time. The Bialystoker Home must be preserved as a critical component of the Lower East Side’s architectural and cultural history.

LESPI is an organization dedicated to preserving the architectural, historical and cultural heritage of Manhattan’s East Village / Lower East Side. With historic buildings falling prey to demolition and defacement on an almost daily basis, we believe that the LPC must act now to save the intact historic resources of these locally and nationally important neighborhoods for current and future generations.

We urge the LPC to vote to designate the Bialystoker Home as an Individual Landmark as soon as possible. Thank you.

Sincerely,

Carolyn Ratcliffe
Vice President

cc: Hon. Margaret S. Chin, New York City Council This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Councilmember Margaret Chin
165 Park Row, Suite #11
New York, NY 10038

Via email: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Re: 135 Bowery Landmark Designation

Dear Councilmember Chin:

The Lower East Side Preservation Initiative - LESPI - is writing to strongly support the NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission’s recent designation of 135 Bowery as a New York City Individual Landmark.

135 Bowery is a striking and basically intact example of the Federal style architecture that dominated the city during its post Revolutionary War period, when New York was on the verge of the intensive growth that would bring it to prominent status on the world stage. The rare surviving examples of this architecture – including 135 Bowery - serve to remind and educate today’s and future New Yorkers of the small scale and simple yet elegant architecture that once dominated Manhattan. These buildings deserve protection from demolition and insensitive alteration.

We also believe that the landmarking of 135 Bowery should be part of a concerted effort by the city to save the Bowery’s unique and very threatened historic architectural resources.

LESPI is an organization dedicated to preserving the architectural, historical and cultural heritage of Manhattan’s East Village / Lower East Side. With historic resources falling prey to demolition and defacement on an almost daily basis, we believe that the LPC must act now to save the historically intact areas of these locally and nationally important neighborhoods for current and future generations.

We respectfully request that you vote for and help lead the City Council toward final approval of landmark status for 135 Bowery. Landmark designation is the only viable means to preserve this important historic building.

Sincerely,

Richard Moses
Steering Committee Member

Cc: Kate Daly, NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

LESPI Steering Committee:
Britton Baine
Katy McNabb
Richard Moses
Carolyn Ratcliffe
Philip Van Aver

Honorable Robert Tierney, Chairman
New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission
1 Centre Street, 9th Floor
New York, NY 10007

Dear Chairman Tierney:

The Lower East Side Preservation Initiative - LESPI - is writing to support designation of 150 Canal Street, the former Citizens Savings Bank, as a New York City Individual Landmark. This Beaux Arts style building maintains a strong visual presence at Bowery and Canal Street and has an aesthetically symbiotic relationship with the Manhattan Bridge nearby.

In New York, Beaux Arts architecture is perhaps stylistically unsurpassed in its outward expression of civic pride, virtue and aspiration. This bank building, constructed in 1924 in the heart of the Lower East Side’s immigrant community, tells an important story about the aspirations and expectations of the communities it served: its monumental form, rich materials and details, and prominent location served as a beacon in a neighborhood dominated by multiple family residences of simpler and less monumental design. The building is a landmark in the true sense of the word: its architecture proudly and emphatically proclaims its presence on the streetscape, and provides a wonderful marker for navigating the surrounding area.

LESPI is an organization dedicated to preserving the architectural, historical and cultural heritage of Manhattan’s East Village / Lower East Side. With historic buildings falling prey to demolition and defacement on an almost daily basis, we believe that the LPC must act now to save the intact historic resources of these locally and nationally important neighborhoods for current and future generations.

We urge the LPC to vote to designate 150 Canal Street as an Individual Landmark as soon as possible. Thank you.

Sincerely,

Richard Moses
Steering Committee Member

LESPI Steering Committee:
Britton Baine
Katy McNabb
Richard Moses
Carolyn Ratcliffe
Philip Van Aver