Residents Plead to Be Rid of Cobblestones

By Barry Owens
JULY 3, 2006

The well-heeled residents of 44 Laight Street are not asking for pity from their neighbors, but they are asking for a little understanding. Those cobblestones outside their front door are murder.

The stones cause pedestrians to trip and are especially slippery in the winter, tenants of the loft condominium building say, and at any time of year they are difficult to traverse with a baby stroller. And, since there is no curb in front of 44 Laight Street, drivers often consider the wide section of roadway a perfect place to park. The other buildings on the block, between Varick and Hudson Streets, have proper sidewalks, made of smooth concrete or bluestone. So it is only at 44 Laight Street, near the middle of the block, where a 75-feet-long path of cobblestones remains.

“We like the look of the neighborhood, we are only trying to be practical,” Lilli Momtaz, a building resident and president of the condo board, said in an interview. One week earlier she had gone to the Landmarks Committee of Community Board 1 with what she thought was an innocent request—to pull up the ragged cobblestones and replace them with a more even surface.

“Okay, this is going to be a tough one,” committee member Bruce Ehrmann said at the meeting, chuckling as he read the item on the agenda. “But, go ahead.”
The request did not go over well.

“They laughed us out of the room,” said Paul Brensilber, a managing agent for 44 Laight Street who presented the residents’ case. “I’m absolutely surprised about how closed-minded they were.”

Here’s the problem for the condo owners of 44 Laight Street: Their block, which faces the Holland Tunnel Rotary, is part of the Tribeca North Historic District, a city designation that requires that any proposed changes to building facades or fixtures in the old industrial neighborhood be approved by the Landmarks Preservation Commission.

The commission often take its cues from community boards, and below Canal Street that means passing muster with CB1’s Landmarks Committee, whose members include many longtime residents who consider the north section of the neighborhood to be the last unspoiled territory in Tribeca. Here, the cobblestones are protected and enjoy near-sacred status.

Committee member Rick Landman, who also chairs the community board’s Tribeca Committee, marveled.

“I’ve been here for 25 years, and this is the first time anyone has asked to remove cobblestones from outside their building,” he said.

“You should respect what the neighborhood is,” fumed committee member Paul Sipos. “You say it is unsightly. I take big exception to that. And as for the trouble with pushing baby strollers, well that’s life in the historic district.”

The request was swiftly voted down.

“It is rejected, thank you,” said Roger Byrom, the committee’s chairman, cutting off Brensilber as he continued to plead his case.

As Brensilber was leaving, he was offered a bit of consolation, as it was pointed out that he may well have suffered far worse abuse had all of the committee members been in attendance.

“Carol De Saram would have sprayed mace in your face,” Ehrmann said.

But a spokeswoman at the Landmarks Preservation Commission, Elizabeth De Bourbon, said that the commission had heard from, and was working with, the residents to find an acceptable replacement for the sidewalk.

“They need to seek our guidance as to what it is going to look like,” she said.
And what might an acceptable solution look like?

“Cobblestones,” she said, “made of concrete.”