The Other Kearney Building

There's been a lot of attention paid, deservedly, to the buildings proposed by Kearney Realty & Development for Mill Street. Meanwhile, the building they are proposing for Fourth and State streets has been off most people's radar. 

The building requires six different area variances, having to do with setbacks, density, and lot coverage. None of these has yet been granted by the Zoning Board of Appeals, but it seems the project may have moved on to the Planning Board. Recently, these elevation drawings for the building were submitted to the Planning Board.

Sadly, the elevations evoke this 1855 image of Sing Sing Prison.

The materials submitted to the Planning Board also include this floor plan. 

As has been pointed out before, when you enter most of these apartments, you are in the kitchen. It's an apartment layout that seems to be standard for Kearney, at least for the buildings they are proposing for Hudson. Mill Street Lofts has similar apartment layouts. Entering into the kitchen was also a standard layout for tenement apartments on the Lower East Side.

Photo: Tenement Museum, New York City

Fortunately, the apartments at State Street Lofts are going to be, by Gossips calculation based on the floor plan, about 728 square feet. Tenement apartments were typically only 300 to 400 square feet.

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