“The Sense of Self in a Place”

Snoopy's equilibrium is upset when a place to which he is deeply bonded is destroyed. As Donald Appleyard has observed, icons become "in some sense a part of ourselves," and the law's purpose in such conflicts is to preserve "the sense of self in a place." We human Snoopies generally regain our equilibrium in the face of such losses, but only when the progression of moods—shock to fantasy to depression—has run its course.

© 1972 United Features Syndicate, Inc.

REMUDDLING

opinion...

# Prison Stripes

We've heard of wearing stripes in prison, but here's a house that's imprisoned in stripes (above). And as the photo below demonstrates, the entire streetscape has been affected by this remuddling.

Once this west-side neighborhood of Baltimore comfortably housed families in large bungalows and Queen Anne homes along its tree-lined streets. Today, most of the generously proportioned houses

are divided...

"In this example, aluminum siding in alternating bands of black and white has been applied over the cer-dar shakes, creating the illusion of a huge log cabin. Since the building sits on a corner lot, the effect is startling."

— Francis and Debra Rahl
Baltimore, Maryland

WIN FAME AND $50: If you spot a classic example of remuddling, send us clear color slides. We'll award $50 if your photos are selected. The message is more dramatic if you send along a picture of a similar unremuddled building. Remuddling Editor, The Old-House Journal, 435 Ninth Street, Brooklyn, N.Y. 11215.

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SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 1990

9

## German Village Center (NR)
Columbus, Ohio

**Origin:** St. Mary's School, 1887

**Conversion:** Offices, 1972

**Developer:** Kinetic Ventures, Inc.,
Columbus

**Architect:** Nitschke-Godwin-Bohm,
Columbus

**Redevelopment:** Acquired for $72,000, the brick school house was converted to offices at a cost of $600,000. The renovated structure, with a gross building area of 19,929 square feet, is within a 233-acre historic neighborhood which has undergone residential and commercial revitalization since 1960.

10

## SEDCO, Inc.
Dallas, Texas

**Origin:** Cumberland Hill School,
1888

**Conversion:** Offices, 1971

**Developer:** SEDCO, Inc., Dallas

**Architect:** Burson, Hendricks and
Walls, Dallas

**Redevelopment:** Located on a prime downtown site, the two-story brick school building seemed doomed for demolition when the school board put the property up for auction in 1969. Instead, the building was purchased for $1.3 million and adapted by the president of SEDCO, Inc. as corporate headquarters for the international drilling and pipeline company. In order to recapture the character of the original design, the building's flat roof was replaced with a hipped roof, a cupola was reconstructed, and 20th century additions to the building were painted to blend in with the earliest part of the structure.

11

## Southwest Craft Center at Old Ursuline (NR)
San Antonio, Texas

**Origin:** Ursuline Academy,
1851-1882

**Conversion:** Craft center, 1971

**Developer:** Southwest Craft Center, San
Antonio

**Architect:** Ford, Powell and Carson,
San Antonio

**Redevelopment:** Acquired gradually as gifts from private individuals, four buildings from the old Ursuline Academy in downtown San Antonio have been converted to new uses as a craft school. A former dormitory building houses a

gallery, restaurant, and weaving rooms; the old cookhouse serves as the kiln complex; the chapel contains classroom and concert facilities; and another structure holds a printshop and studios for wood-working, pottery, and photography. Ongoing redevelopment work has included restoration of the earliest academy structure (1851) which is architecturally significant as an example of rammed-earth building construction in the United States. Construction funds have been received from the Economic Development Administration ($180,000), the Texas Historical Commission ($30,000), and the city of San Antonio ($50,000).

## 12 Old Female Charity School (NR)
Fredericksburg, Virginia

**Origin:** Female Charity School, 1835
(with 1903 addition)

**Conversion:** Offices, 1977

**Developer:** Female Charity School
Partnership, Fredericksburg

**Architect:** Mary Ellen Wheeler,
Fredericksburg

**Redevelopment:** The brick, Federal-style school, little-changed since its construction almost 150 years ago, has been adapted as professional office space with as few alterations as possible. An $85,000 construction loan from a local savings and loan was converted to a permanent mortgage upon completion of the redevelopment. The two-story building, which contains 3,000 square feet, was 100 percent rented before construction was finished.

3-2 St. Mary's School in Columbus, Ohio, was converted to office use at a cost of $600,000.

169

Compatible or Incompatible

Eleventh Street, including the townhouse destroyed in the Weathermen explosion, is featured in the top photograph. Hugh Hardy's design for the Greenwich Village townhouse, as actually built, appears in the center of the bottom photograph. The problem of the compatibility of Hardy's design with the street's existing architecture is one that surfaces in various forms for historic or architectural design commissions in cities throughout the United States. In rendering their decisions, these commissions must balance concerns for visual compatibility with the values associated with artistic freedom and, perhaps, constitutionally proscribed censorship of that freedom.

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THE ZONING ORDINANCE

THE ZONING ORDINANCE was adopted and put into operation in 1931. It was drawn up on a basis of a survey of the physical and economic aspects of the city and its buildings made in 1931. It provided for use districts, height and area districts, and an area designated as "Old and Historic," "for the preservation and protection of historic places and areas of historic interest." The Zoning Ordinance is administered by the City Planning and Zoning Commission and the City Engineer. A five member Board of Adjustment may be appealed to for interpretation of the ordinance, and the Board of Architectural Review passes on new construction and alterations in the "Old and Historic Area." When the ordinance was adopted its provision for the protection of historic and esthetic values attracted national attention. It was commended by Charles Henry Cheney of California as "one of the most forward advances in city planning work and architectural control that we have ever yet had in the country," and by Robert D. Kohn of New York, then president of the American Institute of Architects, as "the most progressive ordinance ever adopted in America." Editorial comment in the *Charleston Evening Post* characterized it thus: "It is a very difficult thing to order satisfactorily the growth of an old city, with all the settled ways and all the venerable landmarks it has acquired. The zoning plan which has been worked out after six months of intensive study and which is embodied in the ordinance now submitted for passage by City Council, has most happily disposed of much of this difficulty by following in the main the life lines of the community, recognizing established characteristics and instituting what might be almost called influences rather than regulations for the future to bring about a correction of departure from the true form of the community rather than to change it in any essential element."

The Board of Architectural Review which has under its special protection the area of the city designated as "Old and Historic" is to be credited with the greatest accomplishments of the commission. The Board has undoubtedly prevented many an architectural indiscretion in the years of great restoration activity in the old and historic area, and has exercised a wise and healthy influence upon would-be restorers. However, as illustrated by the accompanying maps, this area protects only some of the historic and valuable buildings of the community.

There is undoubtedly a lack of understanding on the part of the average citizen of the intentions of the Planning and Zoning Ordinance, and consequently there is frequently impatience and resentment of the restraint which it must sometimes necessarily exercise. If the members of the community as

Residential Real Estate

# TriBeCa Lofts Are Growing, and Growing Larger

By RACHELLE GARBARINE

Manhattan's heated housing market continues to fuel the conversion of old manufacturing buildings into loft condominiums in TriBeCa, where developers are trying to meet a demand they say still outstrips the supply.

"Throughout lower Manhattan, there is a virtual explosion of housing, and TriBeCa is part of it," said Paul Goldstein, district manager of Community Board 1, which tries to guide the area's growth. He said there are more conversions in TriBeCa now than during the heyday of the mid- to late 1980's.

Estimates from the community board are that in the last two years 250 loft apartments have been completed or are under way, and some 300 more are planned. That, along with rising prices, has bolstered the neighborhood's transformation, which began in the 1980's but was stalled by the recession.

Mr. Goldstein said the conversion activity is also "working its way northward" from Duane Street, the neighborhood's core, and bringing in "other types of developments," like restaurants and theaters.

Three projects illustrate the current activity. Work started early this month at a 56-unit project on North Moore. A 30-unit project on Duane is winding down its sales campaign. Construction also will start soon on a conversion of up to 42 units, which includes a six-screen movie theater, also on North Moore.

The conversion boom has been aided by zoning changes adopted by the City Council in 1995 affecting a 45-block area in TriBeCa. The regulations permit new construction and conversions south of North Moore to residential, business and art uses. Such conversions still require special permits from the City Planning Commission north of North Moore and Walker Streets.

The new projects are different in several ways from those of the 1980's, brokers said. Most offer larger apartments, averaging 2,400 square feet. They are also condominiums, reflecting consumer preference toward that more flexible form

Photographs by Don Hogan Charles/The New York Times

Loft conversions in TriBeCa include a former ice house at 27 North Moore Street, left, and the building at 166 Duane Street, right.

of ownership over the restrictiveness of co-ops.

Many of the larger new developments also come with more services than those of the last decade. Among them are 24-hour doormen, concierges and live-in superintendents.

"The new product has broadened the base of buyers," said Pamela Liebman, managing partner at the Corcoran Group, a Manhattan brokerage. In addition to artists and entertainers, today's buyers also include professionals in the finance and media industries, empty nesters and families, including some from the Upper East and West sides.

Sales are steady, prices are rising and "there are no signs that demand is waning," added Jeffrey Tabak, who runs Tabak Real Estate in TriBeCa. He said prices for existing lofts, which fell by as much as 30 percent since the market's downturn in 1990, have rebounded and surpassed their 1987 peak.

In its midyear survey, the Corcoran Group reports that existing loft apartments, with 2,250-square feet, sold on average for $322 a square foot, or $724,500. The firm puts the average sales price for new lofts at

The New York Times

Some large-scale loft conversions in TriBeCa's housing boom.

$400 a square foot, with some going as high as $500.

"I would not say prices have peaked," Ms. Liebman said. But she added, "It will be difficult to achieve prices too far beyond the $500 a square foot level in the near future."

Sales began four months ago at the 12-story Duane Park building, at 166 Duane, which Hudu Development of Manhattan turned into 30 lofts, at

sizes from 2,700 square feet to nearly 6,000. Contracts have been signed or are pending on 23 units at the building, which will offer a concierge. Prices range from $695,000 to $3.7 million with monthly maintenance fees, including taxes, from $1,259 to $4,834

"The demand is being driven by young Wall Street families," said Mark S. Blau, Hudu's president. Initial occupancy will start this fall and be completed by year's end, he said.

Work started three weeks ago on the conversion to 56 lofts of the former John Ericsson Ice House, a 10-story, 1905 Renaissance Revival structure at 27 North Moore. It is being done by Jack Lefkowitz and Joseph Pell Lombardi, who is also the project's architect.

The design calls for restoring the building's exterior, installing windows in its now mostly windowless facade and carving a courtyard from its core. The last will allow more light to the building and provide each loft, ranging from 1,600 to 4,700 square feet with exposures on the street and on the courtyard. The cut-away space will be relocated as two and a half floors for penthouses, said Mr. Lombardi.

Prices for the lofts will be $425 a square foot and monthly common charges, including taxes, will be $1,600 to $4,700. Amenities will include an exercise room and a concierge.

Next month, work is to begin on the conversion of the 16-story Atalanta Building at 25 North Moore into up to 42 lofts and a movie theater on the first five floors. Most of the apartments will have 1,035 to 2,500 square feet, and the penthouses will have 5,000 square feet, but all will be offered as unfinished space and can be combined, said George L. Olsen. Mr. Olsen and Martin Shaw are general managing partners of 25 North Moore Associates, which is developing the project. Mr. Olsen said prices will be competitive.

The intent is to provide buyers with smaller units that are not now available and with flexibility to design their own space, he said, noting, "We do not see demand abating."

Industrial Properties, Acreage
Merchandise Offerings
Room and Board
Wanted to Purchase

The New York Times

REAL ESTATE & EMPLOYMENT

Help Wanted, Situations Wanted
Temporary Office Services

Section 9

Sunday, December 24, 1978

Copyright ©1978 The New York Times

# The Making of a City Neighborhood

By CARTER B. HORSLEY

Hemmed in by warehouses, factories and garages, the streets are still cobbled. Not much has changed, in many ways, since the turn of the century. The buildings are the same, well-worn, now, but not deteriorating. From the river nearby comes an occasional whiff of salt air. At the wholesale meat markets to the north, workers in white smocks still sort carcasses of beef.

Yet unmistakable signs of fundamental change are everywhere. There are carting containers full of debris on the streets. There are a few new stores and restaurants. There are soaped windows and more lights at night. Most noticeably, there are more people on the streets, not crowds, not workers or tourists, but people busy with domestic errands — residents.

What is happening here, west of Hudson Street in what might be called the "Far West Village," is the birth of a neighborhood. It is a process of regeneration that is vital to any healthy city, a familiar process, in its broad outlines, but one that is also little studied, often misunderstood and usually strewn with pitfalls.

What is a neighborhood? When does an amorphous collection of buildings and people develop an identity of its own? What are the dynamics of the process, its thresholds of area, population, development and services?

There are no precise answers. Many famous "neighborhoods" of New York City — Greenwich Village, Yorkville, Park Slope — are really aggregates of small, diverse, even unrelated entities that would themselves have to be called ... neighborhoods.

A neighborhood may be no more than a block or two long. Its thrust may be vertical (high-rise) as well as horizontal (low-rise.) It has to be human, that is, it somehow has to attract to itself those tendrils of human feeling that can attach to a special place — affection, revulsion, aspiration, nostalgia. It has to be compatible with an individual's need for a larger context, though at some point, at least as the terms are defined today, "neighborhood" turns into "community," a larger, often political entity involved in causes and battles.

A neighborhood can be extremely sensitive to change. It may be affected by something as inconsequential as a freshly painted facade, a newly designed storefront, the planting of a few trees, the giant shadow of a skyscraper. Sometimes, the change is merely a logical expansion, as has occurred recently northward along Madison Avenue in the nineties, and sometimes it is truly radical, as has occurred along Columbus Avenue in the seventies.

The New York Times / Dec. 24, 1978

Barbara Ward, the economist, once described a neighborhood as somewhere that "children can grow up without being run over, where friends can meet, where that deeply neglected resource, two human legs, can be recovered and used, and where the sociability and the exchanges of human existence can

*Continued on Page 2, Col. 1*

Three "Far West Village" projects: the Shepherd, left, the Archive Building, rear, and West Village Houses

drawing by Emil Lowenstein

drawing by Ray Pioch

A PROTOTYPE ACCESS TREE:
GRAND CENTRAL STATION

The rendering above shows the double-level loop system of tracks as well as how each movement system is meshed into Grand Central on different levels.

The perspective section below shows the "mixing chamber" or grand concourse level and how this reference level extends out to integrate other buildings in the complex.

The schematic plan at the right shows the horizontal movement systems: regional trains, metropolitan subways and local shuttles are indicated in blue. The grand concourse level (reference plenum) and its extension to 21 buildings in the complex are shown in gold, with the vertical movement system (elevators) in red. The image conveyed by this diagram is one of a single organism, or more simply, one building. This preoccupation with organic integration of all the various movement systems has made Grand Central the prototype of all multi-level, multi-use urban distribution centers.

GRA

## THEN — PALACE OF THE GOVERNORS, ca. 1868 (inset ca. 1881)

The Palace of the Governors was originally constructed between 1610-1612 under the first governor of Santa Fe, Don Pedro de Peralta. It has undergone continuous renovation and repair since that time. The reason was its adobe construction. Adobe is a fragile building material subject to weathering. Without a protective outer surface, it gradually disintegrates into mud, whether it is adobe bricks such as the Spanish introduced or "puddled" walls (successive hand-formed layers) such as the Pueblo Indians built.

The Palace was never a palace. The very name is a misnomer. It is only one of many contra-

dictions throughout New Mexico's history. It was called "Casa Real" or Royal House because it was the seat of government and the governor's residence. In the 1600s and 1700s it was part of the Spanish Presidio, which included several other buildings and cultivated fields. It was originally larger than it is today, having a chapel on the east end and dungeons on the west end. Descriptions given in early manuscripts indicated the doors were small and low and there were few windows. The roof was made of peeled logs (vigas) placed side by side with a layer of brush and hard-packed earth on top. Until 1877, when a tin roof was added, the Palace roof always leaked in a rain-storm. The only solution, one visitor noted, was to use an umbrella when inside! The floors

Pinnacle, 1900-1909

275

293. St. Bartholomew's Church, new building on Park Avenue by Bertram G. Goodhue, 1917-30, portals moved from previous building.

PULASKI SQUARE - JONES STREET

■ 46 Buildings stabilized (restored or in process)

* 38 Units reclaimed through Historic Savannah

... it was a 13-acre deteriorating, near-slum neighborhood. It is now being reclaimed.

46 buildings have been stabilized . . .

38 were reclaimed by Historic Savannah

28 of the 38 through direct purchase for resale

another 10 influenced by Historic Savannah's efforts since the program's inception.

THIS WAS DONE IN ONLY 18 MONTHS!

REMUDDLING

opinion...

Hill Street may have to be renamed Remuddling Row, if the house in the middle doesn't spark a restoration trend.

# Hill Street Blues

These three houses (above), located on Hill Street in San Francisco, were reportedly all constructed by the same builder sometime around 1890. One hundred years later, they look like houses from three different cities, inexplicably lined up together on the same street.

The house on the right still bears a family resemblance, even after having been trimmed of its trim and (mis)treated to some substitute siding. But the stuccoed house (detail, right) has lost virtually everything: trim, siding, fenestration — and character. The beautifully maintained Victorian standing between them (detail, far right) is either a proud survivor or a desperate hold-out, depending on one's point of view. But however one regards it, that house has become a stranger on its own street, squeezed by the remuddlings of its neighbors.

Thanks to David Johnson for submitting the photos.

Slap on enough stucco, and the most handsome of Victorian row houses (far right) can look like an anonymous box (right).

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JANUARY/FEBRUARY 1991