Preservation Vigilantes

This morning, Gossips got word that a concerned resident had called the code enforcement office to report that the multi-paned door and windows, which made the facade of Vico, at 136 Warren Street, reminiscent of a London telephone box, were being removed and replaced.

This vigilance and concern for the integrity of Hudson's precious architecture is to be applauded, but the truth is there was nothing historic about that door and those windows and the Historic Preservation Commission granted a certificate of appropriateness for the work being done on this building, including the new look for the Vico facade, several months ago.

The one regrettable decision that the HPC made just recently about this building was to approve the replacement of the columns on the two porticos.

The columns on the portico at 134 Warren Street (at left in the picture) date from 1820, while the columns on the portico at 136 Warren Street (at right in the picture) date from 1860. Because the 1820 columns are rotted and for the sake of consistency, all four columns are to be replaced with new columns of compounded wood and marble resin that replicate the 1860 columns. This proposal was unanimously approved by the HPC on April 8, with only somewhat anemic and shortlived protest from Miranda Barry, and with that decision, another quirky bit of Hudson's authentic and palimpsest like architecture will be lost.
COPYRIGHT 2016 CAROLE OSTERINK