Green-Wood Cemetery & the Pepsi sign in LIC, credit: The Real Deal
Of course, this is just confirmation that developers call the shots in New York these days. We’ve already lost The Domino Sugar factory to the whims (and wallets) of Two Trees. Green-Wood Cemetery and Long Island City’s iconic Pepsi sign could be next:
The Landmarks Preservation Commission plans to remove almost 100 sites and two historic districts from consideration for landmark status without formal public input, despite most being on the agenda for decades, officials say. Among them are the iconic Pepsi sign in Long Island City, Union Square Park, the Bergdorf Goodman building in Manhattan and the more-than century-old Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn…
“It’s going to be death by bulldozer. That’s what people who want to take these buildings off the calendar want to do,” said Susan Nial, a board member of Landmark West, a group dedicated to preserving buildings on the Upper West Side.
Critics of the plan say Mayor Bill de Blasio’s administration is being less than transparent because the move will be made at the LPC’s Dec. 9 meeting without a hearing to allow for public input…
The critique of what advocates say was a secretive process leaked out through word of mouth and comes days after a report from the Department of Investigation found that de Blasio’s office improperly banned reporters from a public meeting with union officials.
As mentioned before, de Blasio thinks affordable housing is the only zoning issue that matters in New York, which for someone who ran as a progressive is hugely disappointing. Sadly, this is another big win for developers. Here are some other landmarks whose status could be revoked without public hearings:
-Manhattan: Bergdorf Goodman building at 754 Fifth Ave., Union Square Park, the Harlem YMCA at 135th Street between Lenox and Seventh avenues, as well as Loews 175th Street theater in Washington Heights.
-Brooklyn: the 478 acres of Green-Wood Cemetery at Fifth Avenue and 25th Street. It had been on the calendar since 1981.
-Queens: the iconic Pepsi Cola sign, calendered since 1988 and the Douglaston Historic District Extension, calendered since 2008, will also be removed.
-The Bronx: the Immaculate Conception Church Complex and the Samuel D Babcock House on Independence Avenue.
-Staten Island tops the five boroughs with 25 properties and the Snug Harbor Historic District being removed.