This year marked the 50th anniversary of the New York City landmarks law, which empowered the Landmarks Preservation Commission to designate landmarks and historic districts in the five boroughs. With 2015 coming to an end, we thought it would be a good time to review what the commission has protected this year. Six individual landmarks and four historic districts were designated, adding up to protection for over 2,000 more structures.
Construction is chugging along on the banks of Newtown Creek in north Brooklyn, where Greenpoint Landing will eventually span 10 acres with 5,000 apartments. YIMBY swung by the megaproject earlier this month and caught up on the progress at three affordable rental buildings: 33 Eagle Street, 21 Commercial Street, and 5 Blue Slip.
The forest of high-rise towers in Long Island City is about to get a modest addition. New building applications have been filed for a seven-story, mixed-use project at 37-27 31st Street, beneath the elevated N/Q trains and just north of Sunnyside Yards.
Red Hook was severely damaged by flooding during Hurricane Sandy in 2012, and few residential developers have been willing to touch the transit-starved Brooklyn neighborhood. But commercial projects are alive and well among the 19th century warehouses, from Est4te Four’s big office complex to a factory-to-office conversion on Van Brunt Street. Now new building applications have surfaced for a five-story hotel at 411 Van Brunt Street, only a block from the waterfront.
New office buildings are a rarity in SoHo, because a combination of landmarking and incredibly high property values normally push developers to build condos if they want a return on their investment. But one builder has bucked the trend and filed plans for a seven-story office building at 134 Wooster Street, between Houston and Prince Streets.
