Friday, August 29, 2014

Fire on Our Lady of Vilnius Roof Last Night

In the spirit of OLV

Today the New York Times ran a piece about piano tuner Charlie Birnbaum who is trying to save his parents' house from being taken by eminent domain.  The piece by Joseph Berger, With His Parents' Home at Risk, Atlantic City Piano Man Prepares for a Fight, is illustrated with the photo, below.


Charlie's house is in the center of the frame, in front of the lighthouse.  If Charlie loses his fight, the house will be razed to make way for a resort/casino.  The dynamics of his fight and potential loss are the same as those at work in the case of Our Lady of Vilnius.  Aside from the principle of the thing, what replacement would be more interesting than that house?  Charlie, my heart is with you.  Salient quote:

That is why he intends to fight until the courts rule against him.Said Mr. Birnbaum:

 “I’ll be able to say, ‘You were a mensch, you fought like a mensch, just like Poppa and Momma in difficult times.’ ”


Amen.

Monday, August 11, 2014

Permits filed for the demise of Our Lady of Vilnius Church

According to  New York YIMBY, permits have been filed for the destruction of our church to make way for 18 story condo building.  Read it and weep.  And still pray for a miracle.  Maybe something really interesting will be found under the floorboards.

"Earlier this year, an entity called SoHo Broome Condos LLC, with an address in the Agime Group’s offices, bought up two adjacent mid-block sites at 568-572 Broome Street – one the site of the old Our Lady of Vilnius Church, from Extell (price tag: $18.4 million), and another a small walk-up from a longtime owner ($12.3 million). In total, the new owner paid $600 a foot for the land, which sits just a few dozen feet east of the entrance of the Holland Tunnel.
And now, the developer – listed on the building permit as Selim Akyüz, with KSK Construction Group – looks ready to go forward with an 18-story, 30-unit condo building on the site. This morning, his architect of record (Tahir Demircioğlu’s Builtd) filed plans for the 60,800-square foot project.
The 30 condos will be divided among 50,705 square feet of residential floor space (for an average apartment size of nearly 1,700 square feet), plus a small 919-square foot retail bay. The project will apparently not have an affordable component, with the one-third density bonus (which would raise the floor-area ratio from nine to 12) not being enough to compel the developer to participate in the inclusionary housing program.
The Hudson Square area – above Canal and west of Sixth Avenue, generally – was rezoned in 2013 to allow more residential use, which is what enabled this project to go forward. The rezoning did, however, impose fairly strict height limits on the area given the density allowed, and as a result this project will max out at 185 feet. In addition to relatively low ceilings (barely 10 feet from floor to floor), the height limit means builders will not be able to sell as many units with views of the skyline, cutting somewhat into the prices they’ll be able to get for condos."