Demolition Of 9 Landmarked West Village Buildings Sparks Outrage

MEATPACKING DISTRICT, NY — A battle is playing out on West 14th Street between a Greenwich Village preservation group and the Department of Buildings over the recently ordered demolition of sections of nine landmarked buildings constructed in the 1840s.

The nine buildings are located at 44-54 Ninth Avenue and 351-55 West 14th Street. The row of homes is all also part of the Gansevoort Market Historic District.

On Friday, the Greenwich Village Society For Historic Preservation, sent out an email saying that the "City has ordered the near-complete demolition of nine city, state, and federal landmarks on the northeast corner of 14th Street and 9th Avenue in the Gansevoort Market Historic District."

The part-demolition comes after a developer in 2020 received permission to construct a tower behind and attached to these landmarked buildings.

At the time, the Landmarks Preservation Commission required that a larger than initially outlined portion of the landmarked buildings got preserved. The commission also reduced the size of the expected office tower building behind the 44-54 Ninth Avenue and 351-55 West 14th Street homes.

However, those plans changed once construction began, according to both Village Preservation and the Department of Buildings.

The DOB told Patch it received a report from an engineer that showed "dangerous conditions at multiple buildings on Ninth Avenue and West 14th Street." Specifically, the report indicated that the front facade brick wall of the buildings had partially separated.

Follow-up inspections found that the building "had fallen into severe disrepair," and confirmed that the exterior building facade had pulled away from other sections of the buildings and "were in danger of potential collapse," according to the Department of Buildings.

The DOB then issued an emergency order to the owners and contractors to install shoring at the buildings, and demolish the brick facade walls facing the streets.

The emergency demolition orders are only for the facade, and the rest of the building will remain. The DOB also told Patch that the building contractors will work to "preserve facade elements during this demolition process."

Additionally, once the unsafe condition at the buildings is resolved, the owners will be required to reconstruct the facades using material salvaged from the demolition, according to the Department of Buildings.

Village Preservation is still not happy about these decisions from the DOB, though, stating that the facades are one of the most important historical elements of the buildings.

"Apparently, once work began on the project, the developer and the City decided that the nine landmarked buildings were in dangerous, unsafe condition, and needed to be dismantled — a stunning loss of landmarked, historic properties," Village Preservation wrote in an email.

The Lower Manhattan preservation group penned a letter to the mayor, Landmarks Preservation Commission, and the Department of Buildings about the "extremely disturbing news" that sections of the landmarked houses will be demolished.

"These buildings, described in the designation report for the NYC Gansevoort Market Historic District as 'a picturesque ensemble at the wide, angled intersection of West 14th and Hudson Streets and Ninth Avenue' and 'rare surviving examples of 1840s pitched-roofed rowhouses in Manhattan,' have long stood as a symbol and anchor of the Gansevoort Market Historic District," wrote Andrew Berman in the letter, the Executive Director of Village Preservation.

"Village Preservation is demanding that these buildings be allowed to remain standing if at all safely possible, and that if they are so severely compromised, as much of their historic fabric as possible to be preserved and used for reconstruction of the buildings," the preservation group added.

The letter is also addressed to City Council Speaker Corey Johnson, Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer, State Senator Brad Hoylman, and Assembly Member Deborah Glick.