Volume One, Issue 28, March 30 - April 05, 2007
The Buzz
GANSEVOORT HISTORIC DISTRICT: Andrew Berman’s trip to Albany on March 16 was a triumph: The Gansevoort Market District was indeed approved for “historic” designation by the New York State Commission on Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation, which becomes official next week when Carol Ash, the new commissioner just appointed by Governor Elliot Spitzer, signs the designation. Berman, of the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation, explained in an email that Ash’s signature “will make it official. It will then be sent to the Department of Interior for approval, which is expected, and it will then be listed on the National Register of Historic Places as well.” The designation, while prestigious, doesn’t have nearly as much teeth as a city district, as Skye McFarlane noted in Chelsea Now’s sister paper The Villager last month: “Unlike city landmarking, the federal designation does not prevent a building from being demolished or force an owner to consult the government before making changes to the building’s appearance.”
ISN’T THAT SPECIAL: When the March 23 issue of Chelsea Now hit the office of State Senator Thomas Duane last week, staff members chuckled at the lede paragraph of our Section 8 housing story, which highlighted the efforts of Colin Casey, senior legislative aide, to calm down a fractious Hudson Guild hearing. Our sources tell us they teased, “Colin thinks he’s sooooooo special now that he’s a front page lede.” Next, perhaps a Colin column in the New York Times, or a photo spread in Vanity Fair.
BEHIND THE GLASS CURTAIN: Speaking of the New York Times, local publicist Andrea Schwan sent us dozens of flirty emails about 100 Eleventh Avenue, the upcoming condo tower from French “starchitect” Jean Nouvel, promising images and exclusive interviews about the building’s undulating “curtain wall” and other architectural details designed to make the complex “the most important building of the late-aughts,” as Curbed called it. But when we called her back to suggest a photo in this week’s issue of our sister paper The Villager, she got cold feet and confessed that they didn’t want the Villager to scoop the New York Times, which was scheduled to run an artistic piece of architectural criticism this week. While she was okay with having something appear in today’s paper, we declined, not least because she’d dismissed the Knox Martin mural as “absolutely not an important work of art,” although many of the $1.5 million to $8 million apartments, in Schwan’s words, “have a private view” of the otherwise-hidden image.
A SUMMERY DAY, AND THE USUAL SUSPECTS: New Jersey Transit officials must have been relieved when the Tuesday, March 28 meeting at F.I.T. put to bed their months of public hearings on the Draft Environmental Impact Statement for the Trans-Hudson Tunnel, also known as the ARC (for “Access to the Region’s Core”), which would double the number of train tracks crossing the Hudson River. In additions to statements of support from local legislators Thomas Duane and Christine Quinn, the hearing featured many local transportation wonks, like Christine Berthet, of Community Board 5 and the Clinton-Hell’s Kitchen Pedestrian Safety Coalition (CHEKPEDS), who expressed dismay at the project’s 80-month construction period. George Haikalis, from the Institute for Rational Urban Mobility, also weighed in, decrying the state’s plan for a deep-cavern station under Macy’s. Haikalis called this week’s unveiling “a stark pronouncement of the collapse of regional planning in New York City.” Consensus in the room, though, seemed to be that this train has definitively left the station.
CORRECTION: In the March 9 Chelsea Now article on Flatiron Nightlife, it was erroneously reported that Peter Gatien, former owner of Limelight, the club on 20th St. and Eighth Ave., was convicted of allowing drugs to be sold in the club. In fact, Limelight was closed because of drug activity but Gatien was acquitted of permitting drug sale on the premises. He was later convicted of tax violations in connection with the club.
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