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Subject: Landmarks Hearing Report
Date: Fri, 22 Oct 2004 09:42:49 -0400
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Our thanks to everyone who came to the oversight hearing at 250
Broadway on Wednesday. Our apologies to those who had to wait in
the cafeteria or the downstairs lobby and to everyone who was
prepared to give testimony. It was an extraordinary turn-out and
certainly showed the Council members what a large constituency
there is for landmark issues, and how many of us feel that there
are serious problems with procedures being followed at the LPC.
We consider this hearing the first step in a longer process, and
will keep you informed as we move on. Please keep copies of your
undelivered testimony for future use!
For those who could not attend, or were not in a position to
hear, this is a brief report. We include former LPC Commissioner
Tony Tung's excellent testimony.
Laura Ludwig and Annette Rosen, Co-Chairs,
Women's City Club Arts and Landmarks Committee
OVERSIGHT HEARING ON THE ADMINISTRATIVE PROCEDURES OF THE NEW YORK
CITY LANDMARKS PRESERVATION
Testimony before the Committee on Landmarks
of the New York City Council
20 October 2004
Honorable Members of the Council,
My name is Anthony M. Tung and I live at 36 Cooper Square in
Manhattan. I am a former member of the New York City Landmarks
Preservation Commission (serving as a Commissioner from 1978 to
1988), and author of Preserving the World's Great Cities-a study of
conservation practice in 18 cities across the globe.
The report before you today sponsored by the Women's City Club: "The
Landmarks Preservation Commission: Issues of Concern" is a
thoughtful and measured document-an indicator of serious failures in
the performance of that agency.
I have four brief comments relative to this matter:
1. Of all the groups in the city, the authors of this report, the
grass-roots citizen preservationists, are the people who monitor the
commission's work most thoroughly: attending every public meeting
and checking the built results in the field in regard to thousands
of applications every year. No other constituency knows the work of
the commission as well.
2. None of the "Issues of Concern" listed in their document are
new-these are long-standing problems, some growing worse in recent
years, and to which neither the commission nor the mayor's office
has responded.
3. Some of this behavior-including backdoor negotiations with
developers and property owners; failure to schedule revised
Certificate of Appropriateness applications for public review;
capricious exercise of standards in regard to designations; an
inadequate hearing room sound system so that the public cannot
listen to the commission's discussions-demonstrates an
institutionalized lack of transparency and fairness in the public
process and an attitude of contempt in the agency's interaction with
citizen groups.
4. Given the deaf ear of the commission and the mayor's office, the
only people capable of correcting such misconduct are you, this
committee. Which I thank for holding this hearing. And which I hope
will now schedule further hearings to insure that the Landmarks
Commission remedies these abuses.
Saving the landmarks and historic districts of our city requires the
support of involved residents to monitor the 23,000 properties which
constitute the heritage of New York. Without these people, we can't
know whether historic preservation is achieved on the ground, in
reality, out in the cityscape. We are blind without their
well-informed eyes.
Today, these citizen-stewards are being barred in numerous improper
ways from a process which the Council in its wisdom designed to be
open and participatory. Please help them regain the fair legal
access you intended.
REPORT ON THE OVERSIGHT HEARING (by Christabel Gough)
Lore Crogham reported in the Daily News (October 21,2004) :"Author
Tom Wolfe wants New Yorkers to know the city Landmarks Preservation
Commission is a bunch of spineless bureacrats--and he held a press
conference yesterday to say so. Then he went in to tell the City
Council....The hearing--held by the council's landmarks
subcommittee--drew an overflow crowd of angry preservationists.
About 50 were allowed to stay in the hearing room at 250 Broadway.
The rest were sent to a nearby cafeteria to wait. When Councilwoman
Margarita Lopez (D-Manhattan) arrived, 100 people were already in
the building lobby, waiting to be allowed upstairs. 'Obviously, the
number of people who are here indicates there is a problem with
landmarking,' she said." Former Landmarks Preservation Commission
Chairperson Beverly Moss Spatt spoke eloquently of the LPC she had
known, "the openness, collegiality and space for public dialogue,
both consensus and dissent, which is positive in a democracy."
She discussed the now defunct Survey Department that she had created
to identify potential landmarks throughout the city.
Former Commissioner Anthony M. Tung, author of "Preserving the
World's Great Cities," testified that he saw "an attitude of contempt" in
the LPC's refusal to calendar hearings on designations that had huge
public support. Mr. Tung supported the position paper produced by
the Women's City Club and urged the Councilmembers to give it their
attention. Michael Henry Adams, author of "Harlem, Lost and Found"
contrasted the unwillingness of the LPC to consider endangered
buildings in Harlem with the policies in other jurisdictions, and
introduced speakers from other landmarks commissions, William Young
of Boston, Jonathan Farnham of Philadelphia, and Steve McQuillan of
Cleveland who had travelled to attend the hearing.
The Historic Districts Council made a plea for more funding for the LPC
as well as suggesting administrative reforms. Numerous people who had
signed in were not called to speak. The Hearing ended with the
committee promising a second hearing so that everyone would have a
chance to speak. As well as the Chairman, Councilmember Simcha
Felder, Councilmembers Perkins, Koppell, Sears, Baron, Lopez, Quinn,
Oddo, Comrie, Palma, Avella and Brewer attended.
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