Earlier this summer, we posted about a Request for Evaluation submitted to the NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) for a proposed historic district for Inwood. About a week later, VIP received a letter rejecting the request.
Today, we sent a response to the the LPC's letter objecting to the rejection and requesting more information.
The text of the response letter to the NYC LPC from VIP/IP:
"Thank you for your recent letter
concerning the Broadway Corridor Historic District for Inwood, Manhattan.
We were both surprised and disappointed to find that the Landmarks
Preservation Commission (LPC) stated:
“…the recommended historic district lacks the
necessary cohesiveness and sense of place necessary to define a potential
historic district. This is based on the
different typologies (apartment buildings, smaller houses, commercial and
manufacturing buildings, substations, various parks, playfields, a large
bridge, among others), as well as the wide range of building ages, styles and
scales found in the area.”
The LPC has designated large
districts with “different typologies” and “building ages, styles and scales” in
other NYC neighborhoods both recently* and in the past. The LPC has redrawn boundaries or excluded
some elements as part of the designation process. We ask that the LPC treat the Broadway
Corridor Historic District proposed for Inwood in a similar manner, as Inwood
currently has no designated historic district.
Inwood was chosen as one of
the Historic District Council’s first “Six to Celebrate” communities in 2011.
At that time a Reconnaissance Survey database of the area was created. In early
2012, a meeting was held at which the LPC staff was asked for assistance with
designation. Finally, the Request for
Evaluation (RFE) for the Broadway Corridor district was submitted in October
2016, during the recent Economic Development Corporation (EDC) attempt to
rezone Inwood.
The proposed Broadway
Corridor district recalls the 1939 WPA Guide description of Inwood** which
includes the triangular portion in the valley below Dyckman Street beginning at
West 193rd Street, an area not included in the 2011 database study
or the EDC’s re-zoning plan. It is our
contention that built Inwood is still much as it was described in the 1939 WPA
Guide. The proposed district also includes civic, commercial, and residential
buildings east of Broadway. We are aware
that other RFEs have recently been submitted for Inwood. However, those RFE’s do not include the many historic
elements in the areas south of Dyckman
Street and east of Broadway. These portions of
Inwood should be part of any large historic district.
The LPC should be open to working
with Inwood and giving some feedback, especially in light of the rezoning and
especially because LPC Chair Srinivasan has publicly stated that the Commission
is interested in the rezoning areas. To
eliminate Inwood in its entirety from consideration is unacceptable, as it is
at odds with the agency's stated priorities.
We ask that the LPC provide
the community with actionable information about how current or future historic
district proposals for Inwood may move forward.
Volunteers for Isham Park
/ Inwood Preservation
cc: LPC Commissioner &
Chair Meenakshi Srinivasan, Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer, NYC
Council Member Ydanis Rodriguez, Director of the Historic Districts Council
Simeon Bankoff, Community Board 12 Manhattan Land Use Committee Chair Wayne
Benjamin
*Related recent designation
of a large historic district with “different typologies” and “diversity of
building ages, styles and scales” similar to those of the Broadway Corridor
Inwood, Manhattan Historic District:
From
the LPC’s Morningside Heights Historic District narrative designated February
21, 2017:
“The Commission furthers finds that among its special
qualities, the Morningside Heights Historic District contains a large
collection of architecturally significant examples of residential building
types including apartment houses, row houses and fraternity houses, and
ecclesiastical buildings dating from the 1890s to the 1920s; that the
development of the area took place over a very brief period of time; that the
period of greatest development coincided with the planned arrival and opening
of the IRT subway in 1904; that as a result of this late development the
dominant housing type is the apartment house; that these apartment houses range
in height from six to 15 stories; that they are executed in a variety of
historicist styles including Renaissance Revival, Colonial Revival, Tudor
Revival, Georgian Revival, and Secessionist…”
**1939 WPA GUIDE description:
