New group vies for W. Chelsea Industrial District

Volume 2, Number 6 | The Weekly Newspaper of Chelsea | November 16 - 22, 2007

By Albert Amateau

A band of preservation advocates took a walk around a five-block area of West Chelsea between the High Line and the Hudson River last Sunday afternoon to look at a collection of industrial buildings, some of them 100 years old.

The tour encompassed an area between 25th and 29th Sts., which a new organization, Save Chelsea, is proposing as a new West Chelsea Industrial Historic District.

A prime example of adaptive re-use, Save Chelsea is an outgrowth of Save the Chelsea Historic District, which was organized two years ago in response to the General Theological Seminary’s plans for a high-rise building in the Historic District.

“One of the hopes for the proposed West Chelsea Historic District is that it would break up the massive modernity that’s taking over the neighborhood,” said Mary Swartz, president of Save Chelsea. Swartz is also president of the Chelsea West 400 Block Association.

“We have a pretty good shot at getting a West Chelsea Historic District designated,” said Robert Trentlyon, a longtime Chelsea resident and a founder of the original Save the Chelsea Historic District. The industrial historic district would be a logical adjunct to the conversion of the High Line, which runs the length of Chelsea, into an elevated park, Trentlyon suggested.

The Sunday tour conducted by Ed Kirkland, a Community Board 4 Chelsea Preservation Committee member, began at W. 25th St. and 10th Ave. Over the past 25 years, art galleries have become the prime tenants of the district’s loft buildings erected mainly between 1890 and 1930.

At 10th Ave., the 10-story Williams Warehouse designed by Cass Gilbert, who also designed the Woolworth Building among other landmarks, stretches between 25th and 26th Sts.

The High Line, built 75 years ago to lift New York Central freight cars from the surface of 10th Ave. to a viaduct above street level, served the Williams Warehouse among other loft warehouses along 10th Ave.

Two longtime residents of London Terrace, Ruth Rose and Madeleine Spier, recalled hearing rumble and screech of trains in the night. “It was horrible on the weekends at night. You couldn’t sleep,” said Spier. “The worst was the noise of the wheels grinding and screeching.”

In the 1970s, High Line train traffic had dwindled to weekends and night or early morning hours. The last train on High Line carried a load of frozen turkeys in 1980.

The Reynolds Metals building on 25th St., just west of the High Line, was A former aluminum foil factory, and farther west is the Cornell Iron Works, built in 1910. At 25th St. and 11th Ave., the tour stopped at a corner parking lot, surrounded by a fence and empty of cars.

“This was acquired by the M.T.A. for the No. 7 Line extension,” Kirkland explained. The city’s Hudson Yards Redevelopment project includes a $2 billion extension of the No. 7 subway from Times Sq. to 11th Ave. and down to 34th Sts. The terminal, however, would go down to 25th St.

From 25th St., the tour turned north to 26th St. at 11th Ave., where the Starrett Lehigh building covers the entire block between 11th and 12th Aves from 26th to 27th Sts.

Built over the Lehigh rail yards during 1930-31, the 19-story Art Deco building has nine miles of strip windows, rounded corners and elevators that can lift delivery trucks.

“The elevators were supposed to be able to lift freight cars, but I don’t think they ever did,” Kirkland said. The Landmarks Preservation Commission designated Starrett Lehigh a landmark several years ago.

The proposed West Chelsea Industrial District has a deep connection to railroads. In addition to the High Line and the Starrett Lehigh Building, the Baltimore & Ohio Terminal Warehouse is on the south side of 26th St. between 11th and 12th Aves. Across the West Side Highway at 26th St., the Hudson River Park Trust has restored the Baltimore & Ohio railroad float bridge where railroad barges brought trains from New Jersey to the tracks and terminals in Manhattan. The float bridge rose and fell with the tides and allowed trains to roll of the barges and onto the tracks on shore for 70 years from 1900 to 1970.

Across 27th St. from Starrett Lehigh is the Central Stores Terminal Warehouse, a collection of 25 connected brick warehouses built from 1891 to 1910 and covering the block between 27th and 28th Sts. from 12th to 11th Aves.

In the 1980s and 90s, The Tunnel, the city’s most notorious if not biggest club, occupied the lowest level of the vast Terminal Warehouse complex. The warehouse now is the home for craft studios and show rooms.

“Save Chelsea has a broad scope,” said Swartz. “We’re interested in the industrial historic district, and we want to have a voice in the Hudson Yards redevelopment just north of the district. We also want to know what’s happening at the Morgan Annex Post Office [between Ninth and Tenth Aves. from 28th to 30th Sts.] and what changes are in store,” she added.

Save Chelsea’s Website is www.savechelsea.net.