Does This New Condo Fit in Old Seaport?

By Barry Owens

This month the Landmarks Preservation Commission will have its first formal look at a proposal for an eight-story condominium at the corner of Dover and Front Streets.

		On a corner as old as this one in the South Street Seaport, it is remarkable that what stands there today—a one-story building that formerly housed a beer joint—is of little historical significance. Still, the building proposed to rise in its place is likely to raise questions among the commissioners about how closely an architect must hew to traditional building materials in an historic district.
Is it reasonable in a neighborhood of brick buildings and cobblestone streets, for example, to consider nearby ship masts and the cable spans on the Brooklyn Bridge as precedents for the use of steel? Can reddish wood tiles on the facade really represent brick? Can aluminum panels stand in for columns? And on another topic, are those balconies really necessary?

Community Board 1 answered no to each of those questions last month and rejected the plan. The board also objected to the building’s size and shape. One board member called it too “blocky,” and a Seaport resident, Fabio Da Silva, compared it to a “giant cornflake box.”

Morris Adjmi, the architect behind the plan, remains optimistic that the Landmarks Commission will see the building in a different light. “I think this is a building that honors history, but doesn’t pretend to be historic,” he said in an interview last month. Adjmi is known for creating

modern buildings that look inspired by the past. A nearby example is the Scholastic Building at 557 Broadway in Soho, with prominent raw steel beams on the facade that evoke cast-iron facades in the neighborhood. Adjmi worked with Italian architect Aldo Rossi on that project.

For the Front Street project, Adjmi studied not only the building facades in the Seaport neighborhood, but also photographs of interiors from buildings demolished in the late 1960s to make way for the World Trade Center. It was in those images, he says, that he saw the wooden beams and tin ceilings that inspired his design for the Front Street building’s wood and aluminum facade.

The aluminum panels are corrugated to give the illusion of stacked brick, and the hint of red in the wood tiles gives them the coloring of brick, but the only actual bricks in the building will be on the rear facade, unseen from the street.

“Our goal is to make something that is relevant to our time, but it is compatible and sympathetic to the neighborhood’s history,” Adjmi said.

While members of the community board’s Landmarks Committee praised the architect, they were skeptical that such a bold design would fit in the district.

“I don’t know that this design is going to do justice to that corner,” said Roger Byrom, chairman of the committee. He noted that the proposed building would be visible not only from within the neighborhood, but also from the Brooklyn Bridge.

“I’m totally against it,” said board member Paul Sipos, a Tribeca resident. “You could never do it on my block.”

“It could be a wonderful building,” said board member Eric Anderson. “My concern is what it will actually look like when it is built.”

“You’re asking us to take too much of a risk here,” said Jean Grillo, a public member of the board.

Neighbors from Water Street who attended the meeting complained that the building’s size would block light, air and views of the Brooklyn Bridge.

“You are, in effect, creating a monolith on the corner,” said Noah Chasen, a Water Street resident.

Adjmi disagreed.

“We looked at it higher, we looked at it lower,” he said later in the month. “Given the scale of the bridge, and the buildings around it, it feels right to me.”

He did offer that, if necessary, he was willing to let go of the balconies on the back facade that are planned for every residential floor.

“Is it critical to the design? No,” he said. “I don’t feel strongly about it.”

The project’s developer, Akrongold Brothers, plans to build at least 20 units in the building, with retail on the ground floor. If the city approves the plan, construction could begin next year.

Da Silva moved into his Water Street condo with his wife, Kara, last July.

“It feels like I’m living in New York, but it has the peace of a small town,” he said of the neighborhood.

He fears that the new building will bring more affluent tenants to the corner and spell the end of that peace. Gone, too, would be Da Silva’s view of the bridge.

“Most people in New York actually have views of their neighbors,” he said. “I guess I’m just going to be more of a New Yorker now.”