Monday, October 22, 2018

Update on 211 Warren Street

Over the weekend, elaborate new barricades appeared around 211 Warren Street, where, it has been confirmed, part of the foundation collapsed, compromising the east wall and the facade.
Today, Gossips learned from Hudson code enforce officer Craig Haigh that the future of the building hangs in the balance. The owners of the building, Passive Aggressive Housing, are determined to save the front wall and to pursue their plan to construct a new passive building behind the late 18th-century facade. The City is committed to public safety and not having the sidewalk and parking lane in front of the building closed off all winter. 

 There was a meeting this morning between the owners and code enforcement during which it was agreed that, either today or tomorrow, the owners and their engineers will submit a plan for shoring up the building and a timeline. That plan will be reviewed by the engineers the City has retained for the purpose--Chad Lindberg and Charles Vieni of Taconic Engineering--who will determine whether or not the plan is adequate to ensure public safety and meets the City's other requirements.  

Gossips fervently hopes the plan passes muster. An even larger gap in the original streetscape--this building is adjacent to what had been the site of the celebrated and long lamented General Worth Hotel--is too distressing to contemplate.
The building and its context in 1959
COPYRIGHT 2018 CAROLE OSTERINK
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3 comments:

  1. Peter MeyerOctober 22, 2018 at 6:48 PM

    Carole, you should remember The Chicken Shack, a historic building on Columbia Street, torn down before our very eyes (in 1995?) by a Mayor and his buildings commissioner even as we were securing funds to save the building. I thought those days might be over. But it appears that our Historic Preservation Committee has ceded its mission -- per the City Code -- to the building inspector. I don't fault Craig Haig; I fault the Preservation Committee. Plus, I fault the so-called owners of the building who, for whatever reason, call themselves Passive Aggressive Housing instead of revealing themselves as the Manhattan architectural firm that they are!

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    1. Carole OsterinkOctober 22, 2018 at 10:05 PM

      Rick Scalera, mayor at the time of the Chicken Shack debacle, submitted this response to Peter Meyer's comment:

      Often times Peter remembers things that simply are far removed from how events actually took place. Yes this was the Chicken Shack. A building that entirely collapsed in the rear and determined to be unsafe by former CEO Frank March which was also confirmed by the engineer hired to evaluate it to be unsalvageable. Simply put it needed to be razed. Seriously Peter?

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    2. unheimlichOctober 23, 2018 at 9:47 AM

      The fate of the Chicken Shack concerned "when," and not the ex-mayor's "how."

      Mr. Meyer's account goes to timing: simultaneous efforts at cross-purposes terminating in a surprise act of municipal vandalism.

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