DISTRICT LINES1h0ani22bqjx9rwiu3w2now1-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp... · 2017-12-31 · The...

The National Architectural Trust, anonprofit 501(c)(3) organization, openedfor business in 2001 in Washington, D.C.,moved into New York City in 2002 and isnow actively soliciting facade easementsin urban areas in six states primarily in theNortheast. Its name lends itself readily toconfusion with the long-establishedNational Trust for Historic Preservation.Some people think that is deliberate.

Two factors have made NAT’s effortssuccessful: a tax law that enables donorsof easements to take a tax deduction andNAT’s aggressive marketing campaign,which entices many homeowners withthe prospect of a one-time tax bonanza.At the same time, the issues are complex,the explanations fuzzy and the promisespossibly too good to be true.

In general, an easement is a release ofa portion of one’s property rights to makethings easier. Commonly, an easement isgranted over a strip of land on A’s prop-erty that B can use to reach parts of B’sproperty. The easement grantor, A, sur-renders his rights to that portion of hisproperty. Facade easements are moreethereal—the surrender of a propertyowner’s rights to his facade. In practice,that means he can’t change it without theeasement holder’s permission.

The Federal Historic PreservationTax Incentive Program, passed and signedinto law in 1976, permits “the owner ofqualified real property [to] receiveincome tax deductions equivalent to thevalue of the rights given away to a quali-fied charitable or governmental organiza-tion,” as noted in a 2003 publication ofthe National Park Service, which oversees

the program. The law applies to commer-cial property, land trusts, open spaces andresidential property. This article will dealonly with houses in New York City.

As its name suggests, the FederalHistoric Preservation Tax Incentive Pro-gram was intended to encourage preser-vation of historic properties, ones listedon the National Register of HistoricPlaces. After that, according to the Inter-nal Revenue Code Section 170, the mainqualifications (there are pages of them inthe IRS Code) are that the easementmust be in perpetuity—that it attaches tothe property even when it is bought bynew owners—and that it must be donatedto a qualified organization “exclusively forconservation purposes.”

Any restriction on property is con-sidered to devalue it, and the amount by

which it is devalued is the amount of thetax deduction. The deduction is appliedto personal income and is limited to a per-centage of adjusted gross income in anyone year, but it can be carried forward forup to five years.

The Internal Revenue Service at onepoint stated that it expected the amountby which property is devalued to bebetween ten and 15 percent; and quali-fied appraisers, who must be called in onthis, have often followed that lead. Asource at the IRS said, however, that theagency has since removed that sugges-tion, uncovered abuses and cautionedthat stiff penalties attach to overvaluingeasements.

Here is how it is supposed to work: Aproperty owner agrees to grant an ease-ment to National Architectural Trust oranother nonprofit easement-holdingorganization. He gets the propertyappraised, and let’s say its value is $1 mil-lion. The loss in market value of thehouse resulting from the easement isthen determined by an appraiser andcomes in at, say, ten percent, and that isthe amount which is tax deductiblebecause the donation of his easement hasbeen to a charitable organization. That isa $100,000 deduction against income fortax purposes.

Other expenses are connected withthe easement grant as well. First, theowner makes a cash donation to the non-profit to look after the property and makesure the terms of the easement are notbeing violated. Although the amount isnegotiable, it is often set at five to tenpercent of the amount of the easement,or up to $10,000 in this case. Thatamount is said to be tax deductible

D I S T RI C T L I N E Snews and views of the historic districts council

Preservation Facade Easements—Tax Benefit or Headache?

autumn 2004 volume XVIII number 2

p.1 ~ Preservation Facade Easements—Tax Benefit or Headache? p.2 ~ President’s Column p.3 ~ Libby Ryan Named LPC Commissioner p.4 ~ ACritical Look at New Construction in Historic Districts

p.7 ~Architecture Firm Beyer Blinder Belle Rings in as Landmarks Lion p.8 ~ District Profiles: MacDougal-Sullivan Gardens, Manhattan p.9 ~ John Street/Maiden Lane—A Brief History p.10 ~ Recent Gifts and Grants

Historic Districts Council

A regional director of theIRS once hired Jewish

scholars because he thought ifthey could understand the

Talmud, they couldunderstand the Internal

Revenue Code.

What historic district is this in?(see page 4)


District Lines ~ Autumn 2004 ~ page 2

ment donation are located in districtsthat are already regulated by the Land-marks Preservation Commission—manyNew York City historic districts are listedon the National Register—and if the argu-ment is made that trusts’ monitoring ismore vigilant than LPC’s, the reply wouldbe that their job is also easier: violationson voluntarily donated property arebound to be minimal, while those onreluctant owners in historic districts aremore problematic. Moreover, LPC can-not monitor the more than 20,000 build-

I am just beginning my second year aspresident of the Historic Districts Coun-cil and feel excited about all that we haveaccomplished and look forward to evenmore progress. We have dramaticallyincreased the number of educational pro-grams we present throughout the city; andwe have increased our staff, which hasenabled us to accomplish many of ourgoals, for example, the designation of St.Paul’s Avenue- Stapleton Heights onStaten Island.

In May, HDC held its fifth annualGrassroots Preservation Awards party tohonor local preservation advocates, whoare the foundation of the movement. Theaward winners were:

Brooklyn Heights Association forits continuous work safeguarding its neigh-

D I S T R I C TL I N E S

news and views of thehistorichistoric districtsdistricts councilcouncil

editor ~ Penelope Bareau

layout and production ~ Ross Horowitz

editorial consultant ~ Jack Taylor

contributors ~ Simeon Bankoff, Penelope Bareau,

Eve Kahn, Annemieke Beemster Leverenz, Alice

Rich, Carolyn Siegel

staff ~ Simeon Bankoff, Executive Director; Jay

Platt, Deputy Director; Alice Rich, Preservation

Associate; Annemieke Beemster Leverenz,

Carolyn Siegel, Luke Stettner, Interns

the historic districts council is the

citywide nonprofit advocate for new

york’s designated historic districts,

and for neighborhoods meriting

preservation. the council is dedicated

to preserving the integrity of new

york city’s landmarks law and to

furthering the preservation ethic

P R E S I D E N TP R E S I D E N T ’ S C O L U M NS C O L U M N

because it is made to a charitable organi-zation, the easement-holding organiza-tion. Appraiser’s and lawyer’s fees may betaken as miscellaneous deductions.

Actually, the IRS source said that the$10,000 might not be deductible. “If youhave to pay to have your donationaccepted, it would be an involuntary pay-ment, and as such it would not bedeductible.”

Other charitable organizations alsoaccept easements and have done so formany years: seven of them are nationwideand about 100, including the PreservationLeague of New York State, are statewide.To give an example of their scope andreach: nationally, the National Trust forHistoric Preservation in Washingtonholds about 100 easements; in New YorkState, the Preservation League holds twoupstate; and in New York City, the NewYork Landmarks Conservancy holds 24.These three are organizations with manypreservation programs besides ease-ments—the National Trust for HistoricPreservation, for example, lobbies Con-gress, advises state and local partners suchas HDC, gives grants to help preserve his-toric structures, sponsors conferencesand publishes preservation literature,among other activities. In contrast, NATdoes only easements, of which it holds

630. It holds 348 in New York City alonewith another 205 pending, according toSteven McClain, co-founder of the organ-ization at its base in Washington. Preser-vation Easement Tr ust is anotherorganization working in New York Citydoing only easements. Based in Princeton,New Jersey, it started in March 2004,focuses on commercial properties and hasonly two projects under conveyance now,according to its president, Robert Plotka.

The watchdog function of easement-holding organizations is pivotal to theircredibility. NAT and some others monitortheir easement properties once a year.NAT does it primarily by taking photo-graphs and comparing them with earlierones. Historic Charleston [South Car-olina] Foundation, a statewide organiza-tion, sends a questionnaire to the ownerinquiring about repairs, problems, plansand changes in the neighborhood; andthen someone from the foundation stopsby, looks at the property and fills out aform. Then, if unauthorized changes havetaken place, the easement holder gets intouch with the property owner to try tostraighten things out.

Violations are uncommon—PaulEdmondson, vice president and legalcounsel to the National Trust for HistoricPreservation, said that only a few minorviolations have been discovered on trusteasements, and most are settled with aphone call. The Historic LandmarksFoundation of Indiana, however (whichholds 50 to 60 easements), is in court nowwith two violations, both of themderelict and vacant properties of subse-quent owners, not the ones who donatedthe easements.

If owning a property with an ease-ment sounds a lot like owning a propertyin a designated historic district, it should.In both cases you need approval to changeyour property. In an historic district, youapply to the Landmarks PreservationCommission. If you are an easementdonor, you apply to the easement holder.If you are an easement donor living in anhistoric district, you apply to both. Not toworr y, local representatives of NATassure homeowners: anything LPCapproves, the trust will too.

Why, then, facade easements? Whatdo they add? Are they a good thing forpreservation? For owners?

The effect on preservation may wellbe neutral. Most houses eligible for ease-

continued on page 9

State Senator Liz Krueger, HDC’s 2004Friend in High Places, at the GrassrootsPreservation Awards ceremony in May withDavid Goldfarb, HDC’s president.

photo: P. Decker



educate people about preservation—shesays she often explains to clients howlandmarking works and what its regula-tions entail.

Ms. Ryan brings a strong sense ofcommunity involvement to the position.In addition to her LPC work, she is treas-urer of the board of directors of theGreenpoint Manufacturing and DesignCenter, a nonprofit organization thatbuys and renovates factory buildings inthat part of Brooklyn for reuse by smallmanufacturers and artisans. It is a chal-lenge at this point in time, she said, whenso much pressure exists in that East Riverneighborhood for residential develop-ment. She has been involved with theorganization for ten years and concen-trates on funding for it. Before that, shewas very active in the Junior League ofBrooklyn, working especially on programsfor youth.

A native of Binghamton, New York,she was graduated from Muhlenberg Col-lege in Pennsylvania and earned a Masters

Degree in Business Admninistration fromCornell University, Ithaca, New York.Before her children were born she workedin finance and banking. She joined WilliamB. May, a predecessor real-estate broker-age firm to Brown Harris Stevens, in 1994.

borhood since 1910. Recently BHA hasfocused on gaining protection for historicresources on Fulton Street threatened bythe rezoning of Downtown Brooklyn.

Douglaston/Little Neck HistoricalSociety, which for more than 15 years hasbeen collecting historic documents onthis Queens area, researching it and bring-ing its findings to the community. In 1997the Douglas Manor garden suburb wasdesignated an historic district because ofthe society’s efforts, and in August 2004the neighboring community of Douglas-ton Hill was considered for designation bythe LPC at a public hearing.

Nicholas Evans- Cato, SusanTunick and Andrew Dolkart for theirsuccessful advocacy on behalf of theThomson Meter Building on the Brooklynwaterfront. A rare example of early indus-trial concrete construction, the building isdecorated with remarkable terra-cottaaccents. Mr. Evans-Cato is a prominentcityscape painter living in Brooklyn. Ms.Tunick is the founder of Friends of TerraCotta and a recognized expert on architec-tual terra-cotta. She is also on the HDCboard of directors. Mr. Dolkart is a wellknown architectural historian and theJames Marston Fitch Professor of HistoricPreservation at Columbia University.

Leo J. Blackman Architects for thenew Village Community School annex onWest 10th Street in Manhattan. Engagingthe community in the design process, thefirm produced a result that is a fine exam-ple of low-rise urban architecture and,even though just outside the GreenwichVillage Historic District, respectful of itshistoric context.

Mud Lane Society for the Renais-sance of Stapleton, whose efforts onbehalf of that Staten Island neighborhoodresulted in the designation of St. Paul’sAvenue-Stapleton Heights Historic Dis-trict in March 2004. That district willincrease the number of landmarked prop-erties on Staten Island by 30 percent.

Special awards to public officials andto media were given to:

Friend in High Places: State SenatorLiz Krueger, representing the East Sideand Midtown Manhattan, was instrumentalin extending the Murray Hill Historic Dis-trict and is currently working to ensure thatthe Con Edison Waterside development issensitive to its surroundings.

Friend from the Media: The StatenIsland Advance, a leading daily newspa-

per, has given thorough and careful cover-age to development and preservationissues in that borough.

The Mickey Murphy Award for life-time achievement, which honors thememory of Mary Ellen (Mickey) Murphy,a passionate and dedicated preservation-ist who died in 2002, was given to:

Stanley Cogan, president of theQueens Historical Society and theQueens Borough Historian, whose workto survey, rescue and protect the forgot-ten historic cemeteries of Queens hasbeen heroic.

Our proposed City Council legisla-tion to delay demolition of any buildingolder than 50 years until it can be consid-ered by the Landmarks PreservationCommission, now has 26 sponsors—amajority of Councilmembers.

Thanks to our outreach, we haveobtained funding this year from the CityCouncil to help carry out our mission.Those funds combined with foundationand corporate support and the generousbacking of our many individual Friendswill help us to have another successfulyear. —David Goldfarb

Libby Ryan Named

LPC Commissioner

Libby Ryan, an associate real estate bro-ker at Brown Harris Stevens in Brooklyn,has been appointed to the LandmarksPreservation Commission, filling out theterm of Commissioner Richard Olcott,which was due to expire in 2005. Mr.Olcott left to take the Rome Prize, whichis sponsored by the American Academy inRome.

As a resident of the Park Slope His-toric District for the last 22 years and anowner, with her husband James, of a sum-mer house in Bellport, New York, Com-missioner Ryan says she is well aware ofhow much historic preservation con-tributes to neighborhoods. But her workas a real estate broker specializing inbrownstones and town houses places herin an industry traditionally antipatheticto landmarking. “I’m a believer in preser-vation and also a free-market person, sosometimes it takes a little getting ittogether in my mind,” she confesses. It is,however, a good position from which to

Libby Ryan, new LPC commissioner, repre-sents the borough of Brooklyn.

119 Columbia Heights



As community activists well know,

preservation does not end with the desig-nation of a historic district. More oftenthan not, the first thing to consider iswhat should and will be allowed to bebuilt. Even among preser vationists,orthodox Modernists tend to encouragemodern buildings, which speak the cur-rent architectural idiom, while tradition-alists advocate for adherence to historicalstyles and materials. Since the 1965 adop-tion of the New York City LandmarksLaw, scores of new buildings have beenconstructed with the oversight of theLandmarks Preservation Commission.Let’s take a look at some.

Almost immediately the community andLPC began talks with the Witnesses overtheir plans for 119 Columbia Heights.Former LPC Chair (1968-73) HarmonGoldstone detailed the negotiations in his1974 book, “History Preserved,” and con-cluded, “Final ly…architect [UlrichFranzen] designed a building totally con-temporary with its period of 1969 but–andthis is the crucial point–aesthetically com-patible with its surroundings.”

Built in 1994 by architect JosephStella, this ersatz carriage house at 21Grace Court Alley commands a viewdown the alley, a mews created to servenearby Remsen and Joralemon Streetmansions. Ten years later, the merits of itsPost-Modern treatments are still debated:is it a crass bowdlerization of historicdetailing or an inventive and wry take onhistoric architectural forms?

A Critical Look at New Construction in Historic Districts

21 Grace Court Alley

124 Columbia Heights

Brooklyn Heights

The Jehovah’s Witnesses establishedtheir world headquarters in BrooklynHeights in 1909 and over the years pur-chased a great deal of real estate there. In1950 they erected 124 Columbia Heightson the site of Henry Ward Beecher’s town-house. It was one reason neighbors soughtprotection for the area, granted in 1965when Brooklyn Heights became New YorkCity’s first designated historic district.

Continuing our tour of BrooklynHeights, the block between Poplar,Henry and Hicks Streets and the Brook-lyn-Queens Expressway contains a com-plex of new construction and renovatedhistoric structures, all under one devel-oper’s sponsorship. 55 Poplar Street(Wids de la Cour & David Hirsh, 1987)wraps around the former Brooklyn Chil-dren’s Aid Society Orphanage at 57 Pop-ular Street (1883, renovated 1987 byWids de la Cour & David Hirsch). Thebui ldings at 6 5 - 7 5 Po p l a r S t re e t(Charles A. Platt Partners, 1987) con-tinue the development.

At 99 Atlantic Avenue is an exampleof unremarkable late 1990’s infi l l ,approved by LPC only a few years after itapproved an unalloyed modern designpractically next door at 105 AtlanticAvenue (not pictured).

At 60 State Street (Herbert War-man, 2003) is another example of recentinfill in the Brooklyn Heights HistoricDistrict. After the Historic DistrictsCouncil’s Public Review Committeeassessed the preliminary plans for thisbuilding in early 2002, it drafted testi-mony commenting that the design waswell-intentioned but heavy-handed inexecution, lacking a refinement andattention to detail that is characteristic ofBrooklyn Heights. The building picturedis the approved design incorporatingLPC’s suggestions of appropriateness.



65–75 Poplar Street

60 State Street

55 Poplar Street99 Atlantic Avenue

all photos this article by Carolyn Siegel unless otherwise noted



Tribeca West

3 3 3 G re e n w i c h S t re e t ( JohnPetrarca, 2004) was built as a one- ortwo-family house, one of the first builtin Manhattan’s Tribeca West since themid-19th century. The architect, a com-munity activist and preservationist whodied in 2003, also developed a nearbyrow of town houses on Reade Street.While the scale of this building is con-textual, the fenestration is not.

Douglaston

This mansion at 9 WestmorelandPlace (2000) was the first entirely newbuilding built in the Douglaston HistoricDistrict in Queens, designated in 1997.When looking at the proposal, HDC’sPublic Review Committee had great con-cerns about the design, stating that “ingeneral, any new building in an historicdistrict with the strong sense of land-

scape and place found in Douglastonshould be designed as a backgroundbuilding, and should not attempt toattract undue attention, as this proposalseems to. Also uncharacteristic for Dou-glaston is the elaborate detailing. In thedistrict’s best houses, the strength ofdesign comes from the texture and qual-ity of the materials.”

9 Westmoreland Place

333 Greenwich Street

47 East 91st Street (left)

95 Charles Street (right)

Carnegie Hill

The preservation battle over thebuilding at 47 East 91st Street (PlattByard Dovell White, 2004), completewith its law suits, was epic, and space con-siderations do not allow a proper discus-sion of it. Suffice it to say that althoughno one specifically bemoaned the loss ofthe one-story 1951 bank building on thiscorner, community groups foughtvaliantly to reduce the height of the origi-nally proposed 17-story building, basingtheir concern on the low-rise nature ofthe existing town houses on both East91st Street and Madison Avenue.

After several public hearings, includ-ing one that featured a short film byWoody Allen celebrating the CarnegieHill neighborhood (he lived around thecorner from the site), the project was low-ered to ten stories plus mechanicals andredesigned to look more like a tall townhouse than a short apartment building.Lauded as an inventive interpretation ofthe architectural palette of Carnegie Hilland loathed as a blockbuster, the contro-

versy has not died despite the developer’sstated intention “not to make a screamerof a building…[but] to make a calm, sim-ple, elegant building that will last throughthe next several hundred years.”

Greenwich Village

This five-story-plus-penthouse build-ing at 95 Charles Street (Hustvedt CutlerArchitects, 2004) replaced a 1918 garage.The choice of one-over-one windows,although wood, is regrettable.

photo: Julia Schoeck



They’ve been called “the preservationband that sets the tone.” For 36 yearsthey’ve been restoring New York icons—Ellis Island, Grand Central Terminal,South Street Seaport—while darningother cities’ frayed urban fabric fromChicago to Beijing. And this November,Beyer Blinder Belle Architects & Plannerswill be named a Landmarks Lion, the firstarchitecture firm to receive the HistoricDistricts Council annual award.

“This is something of a departure forus—in the past we’ve usually honoredactivists,” says HDC’s Franny Eberhart.“But there’s no firm that deserves thismore. When they started setting thestandard, people had barely heard theword ‘preservation.’ ”

Beyer Blinder Belle is not only theoldest and most respected restoration-friendly practice in town, but also themost prolific and diversified. Its 140staffers have handled projects with budg-ets from hundreds of thousands to hun-dreds of millions of dollars, at scalesranging from Central Park’s Swedish Cot-tage to Indiana University’s eight cam-puses. Furthermore, with the breakupthis summer of Hardy Holzman PfeifferAssociates, there may be no other three-name architecture firms left in town thatare still staffed by the founding partners.

They met somewhat inauspiciously inthe mid-1960’s; Jack Beyer, Dick Blinderand John Belle were all employees at theNew York office of shopping-mall archi-

tect Victor Gruen. Blinder, who is a nativeNew Yorker, and Beyer, who is from Tea-neck, New Jersey, had just graduated fromHarvard’s Graduate School of Design, andBelle was a recent émigré from Cardiff,Wales. All three felt uncomfortable withGruen’s clear-cutting approaches todowntown redevelopment.

“It was as if people were universallyashamed, back then, of every aspect of thepast, with no pride whatsoever in ethnic-ity, immigration, or traditions,” Belle

recalls. “The future was all that seemed tomatter. Even the three of us thought thatMies and Corbu were the greatest archi-tects of all time.” After setting up shopnear Union Square in 1968, Beyer BlinderBelle at first concentrated on public andlow-income housing. “There were onlythe inklings then of concepts like adaptivereuse and rehabbing,” says Belle. “Oureyes were gradually opened by our clients,and by activists like Jane Jacobs and thepreservationists in Greenwich Village andPark Slope. If we’re to be credited withanything, it’s for knowing how to listen.”

One of their early developer-clients,Robert Bonham, became president of theSouth Street Seaport Museum, which ledto the firm’s first major institutional com-mission. The team was widely acclaimedfor restoring the seaport’s existing land-marks while enlivening them, carving outairy galleries and building new colon-naded wings. As ever larger commissions

poured in, the trio took on new partnersand—in a highly unusual move for archi-tects—granted them part-ownership.Beyer Blinder Belle now has 19 partners,nine of them at associate level, as well asbranch offices in Washington, D.C., and,as of summer 2004, in Beijing. The firmalso became the first in the country toestablish an historic-preservation divi-sion, headed by pioneering scholar JamesMarston Fitch, who’d just retired fromColumbia University. (The late Dr. Fitchwas HDC’s Landmarks Lion in 1998.)

“That was a huge coup for us, and a bigstep forward for the practice of architec-ture,” says Fred Bland, a partner since 1978and now serving as managing partner. (Fitch

was succeeded by eminent architects suchas John Stubbs and Page Ayres Cowley, andthe division is currently headed by RichardSouthwick, a 20-year veteran of the office.)The city’s historic streetscapes have bene-fited from the division’s informed and deftapproach—from the Guastavino tiled ceil-ings at Ellis Island and the starry one atGrand Central, to the terra-cotta fauna ofthe Ford Center, to the 17,000 glass panes atthe Enid Haupt Conservatory in the NewYork Botanical Garden.

The office fills two stories of a circa-1900 former leather-goods factory nearUnion Square. Desks are presently piledwith colonnaded models for proposedWashington, D.C., guardhouses andneon-colored sketches for street layoutsin brownfield blocks of Kansas City, Mis-souri. The smells of popcorn and freshcoffee usually waft through the woodencubicles, which are topped in ogee crownmoldings. Olivia, John Belle’s golden

SAVE THE DATE

16th Annual Landmarks LionAward Ceremony & Dinner

Celebrating the architectural andplanning firm

Beyer Blinder Belle

Monday, November 8, 2004,at New York City’s newest museum,

the Rubin Museum of Art

150 West 17th StreetManhattan

Visit our Web site for details

www.hdc.org

Architecture Firm Beyer Blinder Belle

Rings in as Landmarks Lion

John H. Beyer Richard Blinder John Belle

Fan pediment tops paired windows thatwere once doorways on MacDougal Street.The property was remodeled in the 1920’sand its stoops were removed.

photo: Penelope Bareau



MacDougal-

Sullivan Gardens,

Manhattan

In the heart of touristy Greenwich Vil-lage, around the corner from the venera-ble Figaro Cafe and the frenzy of BleeckerStreet, stands an oasis of civility, the wellgroomed mid-19th century town housesof the MacDougal-Sullivan Gardens His-toric District. Joining the two streets butinvisible from outside is the communalgarden that gives the district its name.

Nicholas Low bought the land in1796, but it wasn’t developed until afterhis death. Low (1739-1826) was a leadingmerchant and banker in New York follow-ing the Revolutionary War and was amember of the New York State Conven-tion that ratified the United States Con-

stitution. When he died he left his prop-erty to his sons, and in 1844 the estatebuilt the three-stor y-and-basementGreek Revival houses on MacDougalStreet and in 1850 similar ones on SullivanStreet. They kept them as income prop-erty; and when the last of Low’s heirs diedin 1896, the estate did not demolish thehouses to build tenements, as many in theneighboring blocks were doing, butallowed them to stand and deterioratebecause even in that condition they pro-vided income—it was a time of massimmigration to New York and massiveneed for housing. Because of that deci-sion, the Landmarks Preservation Com-mission hypothesized when it designatedthe district in 1967, the buildings stillexist.

In 1920 Nicholas Low’s estate soldthese properties to a corporation calledHearth and Home, headed by WilliamSloane Coffin. Coffin was a grandson ofWilliam Sloane, the founder of W. & J.Sloane, the prominent home-furnishingsretailers in New York for more than 130years (1853-1985). He was a director andvice president of the firm and in 1924 was

elected a trustee of the MetropolitanMuseum of Art, of which he became pres-ident in 1931.

In addition, Coffin was a man ofsocial conscience who was concernedabout middle-class housing; when hecame into ownership of the MacDougaland Sullivan Street houses, he had alreadyhad experience developing property inwhat became in 1966 the Charlton-King-Vandam Historic District (District Lines,Autumn 2003). His philosophy was torenovate sound buildings, updatingplumbing, electrical and kitchen facilitiesbut otherwise changing them as little aspossible.

Coffin’s architects, Francis Y. Joannesand Maxwell Hyde, removed the stoops

and remodeled basement entrances andformer dorways in the neo-Federal style.On MacDougal Street, you can still seewhere the original paired doorways wereconverted to windows, two of which aretopped by a large fan-shaped woodenpanel framed by a brick arch with a key-stone block. On the inside, the houseswere altered to consist of a five-room

D I S T R I C T P RO F I L E SD I S T R I C T P RO F I L E S

retriever, wanders around seeking affir-mation. Each Tuesday the staff gathers todebrief in a central “crit pit,” its walls pit-ted by thumbtacks from generations ofdrawings posted.

Once in a while the staff gets to updateone of its own past renovations. South-wick’s first major project, in the mid-1980’s, was the transformation of Sherry’srestaurant, a frothy 1928 design by McKim,Mead & White on Madison Avenue at 62ndStreet, into a Limited flagship—whichBeyer Blinder Belle later turned into anHermès store, adding an equestrianFrenchman statue on the roof. In Manhat-tan’s Chelsea area, the 1890’s tenementsthat the firm combined into a Barneys in1986 are now becoming the Rubin Museumof Art, the venue for HDC’s LandmarksLion party on Monday, November 8. Itscentral spiral stair will be preserved, butthe interior’s cool retail feel will be warmedby new mahogany and cherry trim.

If not for these redos of redos, Bellesays, the partners wouldn’t have muchtime to admire their own completedhandiwork. “Though I have been teasedfor being late for a meeting because I’dstopped to polish a bit of marble floor atGrand Central,” he says, laughing.

Communal garden joins properties on Mac-Dougal and Sullivan Streets, created bycombining the rear yards. It is an importantpart of the landmark designation.

Incentra map adapted by Carolyn Siegel



lower duplex, a four-room apartment onthe second floor and two non-housekeep-ing apartments on the third floor. Theyare now mostly one-family houses,according to the owner of one of them.

Behind each house is a small privategarden; but it was the communal garden,created by combining the rear yards of allthe houses, that set this developmentapart. The common garden is available toresidents but not outsiders, and it is sojealously guarded that not even photo-graphs of it are permitted. It was a proto-type for many other developments in thecity—among them Turtle Bay Gardens,Manhattan, and Jackson Heights,Queens—and in other cities as well.

John Street/

Maiden Lane—

A Brief History

TO P U R S U E L I S T I N G of the JohnStreet/Maiden Lane district of Down-town Manhattan on the State andNational Registers of Historic Places,the Historic Districts Council held afund-raiser in June to hire an architec-tural historian to complete an applica-tion to the State Historic PreservationOffice. The district is on the 2004 listof the Preservation League of NewYork State’s “Seven to Save.” Forthose who attended the fund-raisingparty at architect Joseph Pell Lom-bardi’s remarkable penthouse on Lib-erty Street, a brief history and walkingtour of the area were prepared, andthey were interesting enough to war-rant reprinting in these pages for awider audience.

The John Street/Maiden Lane districtis an area of early skyscraper and office-building development constructed duringthe late 19th and early 20th centuries. Thesebuildings were built on speculation to housethe many collateral enterprises attracted bythe concentration of wealth and business inthe nearby financial district.

Area of proposed John Street/Maiden LaneHistoric District in Manhattan extendsfrom Fulton Street on the north to LibertyStreet on the south. Numbers are keyed tophotos on page 10.

ings under its supervision with a budget of$3.16 million, only perhaps ten percent ofwhich is allocated to enforcement.

Mr. McClain of NAT said that mostpeople plow their tax deduction back intotheir property, and if so, the program doeshave a preservation result. Mainly, how-ever, preservation is not really the issue.Easements are attractive because of thetax benefit. Owners in historic districtsgive up the same rights as easementgrantors give up, but they get no taxdeduction for it. Ever the salesman, Mr.McClain said that in historic districts“you’ve already given up most of therights. You might as well get a benefit.”

Considering that tax deductions areallowed for easements because the restric-tions decrease the value of a property, weshould expect lower property valueswithin historic districts, where restric-tions apply, than outside them. But wedon’t. Just the opposite. Studies all overthe country, including one published in2003 by the New York City IndependentBudget Office, have shown that propertyvalues in historic districts increase at ahigher rate than similar properties out-side them.

That would seem to throw into ques-tion the premise of the tax law as appliedto properties within historic districts.Indeed, a notice recently went out in theInternal Revenue Bulletin saying, “If thedonation of a conservation easement has

Preservation Facade

Easements

continued from page 2

no material effect on the value of realproper ty, or enhances rather thanreduces the value of real property, nodeduction is allowable;” and a sourcebacked that up in an interview by sayingthe IRS “would have a problem” withdeductions taken for easements on prop-erties within historic districts. It is acaveat that could undercut many ofNAT’s prospects.

Undaunted, Mr. McClain feels that“Now is the ideal time to do easements,because the style of thinking is pro-preservation.” It is, however, also a timewhen the tax law supporting deductionsfor easements is in flux. The rules and reg-ulations governing conservation ease-ments are “voluminous,” the IRS sourcestated, “very complex,” and the regula-tions themselves have “many subjectivefactors.” In a published notice, IRS Com-missioner Mark W. Everson warned,“We’ve uncovered numerous instanceswhere the tax benefits of preserving openspaces and historic buildings have beentwisted for inappropriate individual bene-fit. Taxpayers who want to game the sys-tem and the charities that assist them willbe called to account.”

NAT and other easement-holdingorganizations argue that easements are amore powerful tool for preservationthan is designation by governmentagency because easements cannot beoverturned by political will. Preserva-tion laws have been rolled back, theyargue, and Mr. Edmondson of theNational Trust for Historic Preservationconfirms that they have been—notoften, perhaps, but it has happened andwas recently threatened in Philadelphia.Easements, however, last forever. Mr.Edmondson mentioned only two waysthey can fail, or “be extinguished”—bytotal destruction of the property (fire,earthquake, bombing) or by a govern-mental “taking” through the right ofeminent domain, to build a dam, forinstance. The source at IRS said theycan also be amended by mutual consentof grantor and grantee, in which caseconceivably the factors that qualifiedthe easement for tax deduction in thefirst place could be nullified.

Some may say the IRS is only saber-rattling. Steven McClain, for instance,says, “There have been five court casesand the IRS lost every one.”

Times may be changing.



The area is of particular interestarchitecturally, as the buildings show theearly evolution of the office skyscraper inwhat might be termed its ancestral homeof Lower Manhattan. As evidenced by thewealth of building decoration, the archi-tects were experimenting with materialsand motifs in the new skyscraper form.

Although all of the buildings have ele-vators, several have traditional masonryload-bearing walls and possess facadetreatments that are not typical of latersteel-frame construction. Many of thesebuildings rise dramatically from theground with the sheer vertical wallsallowed before setbacks were imposed bythe Zoning Resolution of 1916.

Originally, Maiden Lane from theEast River to approximately NassauStreet was a pebbly brook where early res-idents would wash their clothing andhousehold linens. During the city’s tenureas the nation’s capital, the brook was filledin and the area became an elite residentialneighborhood, housing residents such asThomas Jefferson.

The neighborhood was home to manyfine specialty stores because of its proxim-ity to the docks on the East River. Forexample, the New York Arcade was built in1827, stretching between John Street andMaiden Lane along Broadway and contain-

Recent Gifts

And Grants

All the contributions of people whogive to the Historic Districts Council,either individually or as part of an organi-zation, are deeply appreciated. Manythanks to the following:

Foundations: Acorn Foundation,Ford Foundation, J.M. Kaplan Fund,Mertz Gilmore Foundation, NationalPhilanthropic Trust, New York Commu-nity Trust/Windie Knowe Fund, Rich-mond County Savings Foundation,Summer Fund, Robert W. Wilson Fund.

Local groups: Bay Ridge Conser-vancy, Bicycle Transportation Action, Bri-arcliff Manor/Scarborough HistoricalSociety, Broadway-Flushing Homeowners’Association, Bronx Landmarks Taskforce,Bronx Museum of the Arts, BrooklynHeights Association, Brooklyn Heritage,Brooklyn Historical Society, BrooklynTheatres, Carnegie Hill Neighbors, Clin-ton Hill Society, Colonial WilliamsburgFoundation, Dancing in the Streets, Doo

1. Armeny Building at 124 Fulton Street is ayellow-brick structure at the corner of NassauStreet. Metal window framing and ornamen-tation are noteworthy features.

all art this article: Annemieke Beemster Leverenz

2. The Diamond Exchange at 14 MaidenLane, by G.A. Schellenger, is now a residentialbuilding. Constructed in 1894, it featuresthree slender brick colonettes flanking angu-lar bay windows of metal enframement.

3. Bennett Building at 139 Fulton Street, anindividual landmark, is an icon of cast-ironarchitecture and probably the tallest suchanywhere. Built in 1872–3 by publisher JamesGordon Bennett Jr., it was designed byArthur D. Gilman and is the only extantexample of his work in the city.

ing more than 40 stores under a skylight-covered corridor. This profitable commer-cial area was one of the first to be gas-lit bythe New York Gas-Light Company in thelate 1820’s. As the separation betweenwork and home grew more distinct in NewYork, the area became solely commercial,serving the needs of businessmen whospent the workweek downtown. By thelate 19th century, many office buildingsbegan to replace the smaller commercialproperties that had existed in the area, andthat pattern of development continuedinto the 1920’s.

The character of the district is aproduct of its central location duringyears of continuous innovation, and thecombination of a winding street grid,itself a remnant of colonial New York,with the towering building masses lendsthe area a unique and distinctive turn-of-the-20th-century sense of place.

As plans for the revitalization ofDowntown Manhatttan evolve and newplaces and neighborhoods are created tomeet the needs of New York City, we havean opportunity to breathe life into thisfascinating commercial district. This col-lection of century-old buildings couldbecome a destination neighborhood forthe 21st century.



Wop Preservation League, Douglaston/Little Neck Historical Society, The Driveto Protect the Ladies’ Mile District, EastHarlem Historical Organization, Friendsof Alice Austen House, Friends of TerraCotta, Friends of the Upper East Side His-toric Districts, Gracie Mansion Conser-vancy, The Green-Wood Cemeter y,Greenwich Village Society for HistoricPreservation, Hamilton Heights-WestHarlem Community Preservation Organi-zation, Harlem Community DevelopmentCorporation, Historic House Trust of NewYork City, Historic Landmarks Preserva-tion Center, Landmark West!, ManhattanWalks, Metropolitan Chapter of the Victo-rian Society in America, Midwood ParkHomeowners’ Association, MorningsideHeights Historic District Committee,Mount Morris Park Community Improve-ment Association, Mud Lane Society forthe Renaissance of Stapleton, Neighbor-hood Preservation Center, New YorkLandmarks Conservancy, Parkway VillageCommittee on Landmarking, Parkway Vil-lage Historical Society, Pratt Institute,Preservation League of Staten Island, Pre-serve & Protect, Queens County FarmMuseum, Queens Historical Society,Queensborough Preservation League,Riverdale Historic District, Save Ganse-voort Market, Save! Sunnyside GardensPreservation Alliance, South Village Land-marking Association, 10th & StuyvesantStreets Block Association, Tribeca Com-

munity Association, Tribeca South Exten-sion Committee, Union Square Commu-nity Coalition.

Corporations: A. Ottavino Corpo-ration, Beyer Blinder Belle, Building Con-servation Associates, Cutlass, Inc., diDomenico & Partners, Doherty &Doherty Creative Services, Inc., Ed Tris-tram Associates, Inc., Françoise BollackArchitects, Historic Site Productions,The Kitchen Club, Landair ProjectResources, Inc., Leo J. Blackman Archi-tects, Li/Saltzman Architects, Mary B.Dierickx Architectural Preservation Con-sultants, Miriam Berman Graphic Design,Richmond County Savings Bank,RKT&B, Stage of the Arts, Tom Fenni-man Architects, Two Twelve Associates,Union Square Hospitality Group, Varga-studio, William B. May Company, WinterHill Associates.

Friends: Selim & Margarita TorresAlphandery, Karen Ansis, Marilyn Apple-berg, Thomas Arcidiacono, Charlotte P.Armstrong, Norma J. Arnold, BernadetteArtus, Nancy Banks, Penelope Bareau,Eric J. Barkley, Sharon Barnes, GeorgeBeane & Patricia Begley, Laurie Beckel-man, Dolores Bennett, Andrew Berman,Dennis Bertland, Sergio Bessa, BronsonBinger, Leo J. Blackman & Kenneth T.Monteiro, Dorothy Blumner, FrançoiseBollack & Tom Killian, Ed Botwin, NancyB. Bowe, Margaret Bracken, Brian Breyre,Peter Basta Brightbill, Hal Bromm &

Doneley Meris, Catherine L. Bruckner,Antonia Levine Bryson, Judith Burgess,Roger Byrom & Debra Miller, GeorgeCalderaro, Diana M. Carroll, Bryan &Diana Carulli-Dunlap, Merry L. Chang,Wanda Chin, Carol Clark & Kyle Johnson,Stanley Cogan, Vincent Colangelo,Robert Condon, Brigitte Cook, ElizabethRose Daly, Joan K. Davidson, Carole DeSaram & Ray Erickson, Georgia Delano,Robert M. Delgatto, Barbaralee Diamon-stein- Spielvogel, Gregor y Dietrich,Michael F. Diniscia, Andrew ScottDolkart, Daniel J. Donovan, Lisa & PeterEaston, Frances A. Eberhart, Joy Echer,Rebecca & Yehuda Even-Zohar, NicholasFalco, Horace Felix, Michael Felson Felix,Tom Fenniman, Jim Ferreri, Wendy Feuer,Mimi Findlay, Henr y Flax, DavidFreudenthal, Barbara Fuchs, Julia Fuchs,Alice & Thomas Fucigna, Robert Furman,H. Paul Gabriel, Ann Walker Gaffney,William Gambert, Joan H. Geismar,Jonathan Gellman, David Gibson, JillGill, David Goldfarb, Christabel Gough,Channell Graham & Tamara Coombs,Greta Greathouse, Gail Gremse, MitchellGrubler, Eva Grunspan, Polly Guerin,Judith Guttman, Estelle Haferling, Dalila& Barry Hall, Caroline Harris, Lucile &Bernard Helfat, Alvin Ho, Jacqui Hogans,Susan S. Hopper, Josephine E. Jones,Linda Jones, Susan Kalin, Ned Kaufman,Claudia Kavenagh, Robert Keller, KarenKennedy, Carolyn Kent, June P. Kil-

Become a Friend of the Historic Districts Council Today!

Douglaston, Queens; Charlton-King-Vandam, Manhattan; FortGreene, Brooklyn; Longwood, The Bronx are all designated historicdistricts, protected from inappropriate alterations and develop-ment. Unfortunately, many more neighborhoods throughout the cityare not, though they are seeking designation. That’s where the His-toric Districts Council can help.

As the citywide advocate for New York’s historic neighbor-hoods, HDC works to preserve and protect the city’s architecturaland cultural heritage.

It’s a big city, and our advocacy is never finished. Our agendawould not be possible without you and preservation partners likeyou. You are the backbone of HDC.

Yes, consider me a Friend of HDC!

Enclosed is my gift of

$50 ___ $100 ___ $250___ $500 ___ Other $ ________________

Please make check payable to Historic Districts Council andmail to: 232 East 11th Street, New York, NY 10003. For information,call 212-614-9107.

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the advocate for new york city’shistoric neighborhoods

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