Preservationists are celebrating a major win after the city\u2019s Landmarks Preservation Commission chose not to advance plans to redevelop a row of historic homes into a 33-story building on Duffield Street.<\/p>\n
The proposal would have gutted the interiors of the 19th-century homes, leaving only their facades intact to serve as an entrance for a planned apartment tower. The plan sparked backlash from local advocates who say the buildings hold deep historical significance.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis feels a bit like Disneyland. That\u2019s not what we want. These are historic buildings,\u201d said Frampton Tolbert, of the Historic Districts Council. \u201cThe developer wanted to remove the porch to create lobby access, it didn’t respect the landmark and the space.\u201d<\/p>\n
Shawne Lee, director of Friends of Abolitionist Place, said the homes sit on ground tied to abolitionist and suffragist movements.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy initial reaction was a big gasp and a thought of \u2018Oh no, here we go again,\u2019\u201d she said, adding that the homes offer a rare look into what the area looked like prior to the Metrotech redevelopment of Downtown Brooklyn.<\/p>\n
The homes were relocated to the site in the 1990s to protect them from development and were designated as landmarks in 2001 by the LPC. The LPC did not take action on the plan this week, effectively blocking the plan unless developers return with major changes.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe frontal reading of this volume would totally overwhelm the historic buildings,\u201d said Commissioner Michael Goldblum during the hearing, pushing back against other cases of redeveloped landmarks put forward by the developers to sway the commission into green lighting the site.<\/p>\n
Opponents of the plan say the commission\u2019s decision is a victory for preservation and a chance to rethink development in the area.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was so relieved and hope they reconsider,\u201d Lee said. \u201cWe fight so hard to keep the integrity of the homes inside and out.\u201d<\/p>\n
Advocates say they support new housing in the neighborhood, but not at the cost of hollowing out its history and hope the buildings can be retrofitted into housing that keeps more than just the facade standing for future generations.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Preservationists are celebrating a major win after the city\u2019s Landmarks Preservation Commission chose not to advance plans to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":15820,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[98,100,99,3076,11466,9,24,63,2185],"class_list":["post-15819","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn-headlines","tag-brooklyn-news","tag-downtown-brooklyn","tag-landmark-preservation-commission","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-redevelopment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15819","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15819"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15819\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15820"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15819"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15819"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15819"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}