Shreve, Crump & Low Redevelopment | 334-364 Boylston Street | Back Bay

Re: Shreve, Crump & Low bldng may be replaced w/ new develop

Well, yes. But mostly I was talking about Kim Stockwell.
 
Re: Shreve, Crump & Low bldng may be replaced w/ new develop

a majority felt the building was not significant beyond the local level.?
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Shouldn't that be good enough?
 
Re: Shreve, Crump & Low bldng may be replaced w/ new develop

Perhaps, but the commission has to follow the law that established it.
 
Re: Shreve, Crump & Low bldng may be replaced w/ new develop

I'm not a municipal law expert, but I do know that their are differing opinions on whether the applicable law requires that a building be significant beyond the local level in order to be designated a "landmark."
 
Re: Shreve, Crump & Low bldng may be replaced w/ new develop

PaulC said:
Shouldn't that be good enough?
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Not exactly. This isn't a value neutral proposition. In a vacuum, the failure to landmark Shreve's isn't a big deal. But when you consider that the result of it not being landmarked is its imminent demolition, I think that changes the game.

Do you think that the folks who've been trying to save the building have been tilting at windmills? You're a smart guy, Paul -- think it through. The process that determined that this building is only worth being consigned to the dustbin of history is a broken process, at once too formulaic, and too arbitrary.

And board members serve at the pleasure of the Mayor. We all know what happens when you cross King Tom.
 
Re: Shreve, Crump & Low bldng may be replaced w/ new develop

I meant that even if it's value was only on a local level then that could be enough to justify saving the facade.
 
Re: Shreve, Crump & Low bldng may be replaced w/ new develop

Sorry Paul -- I've become paranoid...
 
Re: Shreve, Crump & Low bldng may be replaced w/ new develop

Smashing a jewel
By Yvonne Abraham
Globe Columnist / November 26, 2008

It looks as if the old Shreve, Crump & Low building is history.

Developer Ron Druker plans to raze the 104-year-old limestone building at Arlington and Boylston streets, kitty-corner from the Public Garden. He says he is going to replace it with a couple hundred thousand square feet of luxury office space and amenities.

And in the process, he is going to wreck one of the city's loveliest intersections. He is planning to level a distinctive building - in a city that needs more of them - in favor of nine stories of corporate glass and stone.

The eclectic former Shreve flagship (officially, it's the Arlington Building) might not be perfect, but it's lovely all the same. Its ornate copper cornice, classical pilasters, and floral motifs give the neighborhood a quirky elegance. And it's right for that history-rich corner, across from Arlington Street Church and the statue-lined south side of the Public Garden.

But according to the Boston Landmarks Commission, the Arlington Building isn't valuable enough to protect. Twice, the commission decided the building is not sufficiently architecturally significant beyond its neighborhood. This in spite of the fact that Boston is a city of neighborhoods, and of the jewelry emporium's storied past, and of its location at the center of a historic district that is one of the city's most valuable assets.

Preservationists and some Back Bay residents are beside themselves over the demolition. One of the building's champions is suing to reverse the decision, but it's unlikely the Arlington Building will get a reprieve.

Which brings us to its replacement.

Zzzzzzzzzzzz.

That inexplicably moribund block of Boylston Street, between Arlington and Berkeley, definitely needs developing. And Druker has done some nice buildings in Boston - Atelier 505 at Tremont and Berkeley, for example. But the Cesar Pelli design he is planning for this site isn't shaping up to be one of them.

Blocky and dense, the renowned architect's proposal is singularly unspectacular. Like so many buildings constructed in the last two decades, it gestures awkwardly toward the city's history instead of moving in a new direction, its enormous bay windows and its segmented fa?ade echoing a row of brownstones. It's incredibly tame, unlike Pelli's other models.

If you're going to break people's hearts by erasing a beloved building rather than incorporating it into a new development, then for heaven's sake, propose something truly spectacular in its place.

But this keeps happening. While they seem to be getting the hang of edgy design on the other side of the river (bless you, MIT and Kendall Square), Boston's streetscapes keep collecting generic genuflections to 19th-century architecture and samey glass towers.

Rarely, something amazing gets through - the ICA at the Seaport or the Apple Store farther up Boylston - but they're exceptions that prove the rule.

Much of what happens to Boston's skyline has both preservationists and design devotees wringing their hands in despair. Of course it's not practical to preserve every one of the city's historic buildings. Some of them could even do with a good knock-down.

But there seems to be no ambitious citywide vision for what gets leveled and what replaces it. The Boston Redevelopment Authority, which should be laying out an independent plan for the city, is so tightly controlled by Mayor Thomas M. Menino that what gets built often depends on which developers have his ear. And the mayor, never shy about sharing his design preferences, tends toward somnolent safety. Developers eager to get projects off the ground anticipate the objections and play it too safe.

Boston is special, but no matter how much we try, we can't re-create the 19th century. That approach guarantees only that we'll end up with a second-rate version of what we already have.

We need higher standards. We need more creativity. We also need something else: to be brave.

Yvonne Abraham, a Globe columnist, can be reached at abraham@globe.com.
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That wasn't so hard to copy and paste.
 
Re: Shreve, Crump & Low bldng may be replaced w/ new develop

I think Yvonne may have read a thing or two posted here.
 
Re: Shreve, Crump & Low bldng may be replaced w/ new develop

The first half of the article was on the point...the second half....not so much.
 
Re: Shreve, Crump & Low bldng may be replaced w/ new develop

Is there some aspect of this selection from the second part of the article that you don't agree with?

Yvonne Abraham in the Boston Globe said:
But there seems to be no ambitious citywide vision for what gets leveled and what replaces it. The Boston Redevelopment Authority, which should be laying out an independent plan for the city, is so tightly controlled by Mayor Thomas M. Menino that what gets built often depends on which developers have his ear. And the mayor, never shy about sharing his design preferences, tends toward somnolent safety. Developers eager to get projects off the ground anticipate the objections and play it too safe.

Boston is special, but no matter how much we try, we can't re-create the 19th century. That approach guarantees only that we'll end up with a second-rate version of what we already have.
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Re: Shreve, Crump & Low bldng may be replaced w/ new develop

Well personally, I take issue with this:

(bless you, MIT and Kendall Square)
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Kendall Sq is not the role model we should be looking for here. (Or anywhere for that matter)
 
Re: Shreve, Crump & Low bldng may be replaced w/ new develop

Where she suggests the design attempts to be contextual to existing 19th century building stock, and that is a bad thing. I see this building as strictly post-modern, and not-contextual, and is insulting to 19th century brownstones to suggest this building follows their lead.

She then suggests we should looks to Kendall Square for architectual inspiration....

I like glass usually, I like acute angles sometimes, but this is hardly the location to push that agenda.
 
Re: Shreve, Crump & Low bldng may be replaced w/ new develop

If she is reading here she is ignoring ablarc.
 
Re: Shreve, Crump & Low bldng may be replaced w/ new develop

She uses a terrible example to support a call for better, more ambitious design standards in Boston. I agree that her thinking about Kendall Square is pretty tone-deaf; it's bad architecturally and urbanistically. She likes the "edginess" of the Gehry, Corea and Holl; it all falls to the ground if it doesn't work at eye-level. And we all know how well it (doesn't) work.

Druker and his team have suggested that their proposal is contextual at every meeting that I've attended. This is, of course, disingenuous.
 
Re: Shreve, Crump & Low bldng may be replaced w/ new develop

I like Yvonne; I remember being happy that the Globe was bringing in a fresh voice and not another provincial rube to belch anodyne crap (I'm talking to you, Adrian Walker).
 
preservation or lack of in NYC

Preserving the City
Preservationists See Bulldozers Charging Through a Loophole

By ROBIN POGREBIN
Published: November 28, 2008
Hours before the sun came up on a cool October morning in 2006, people living near the Dakota Stables on the Upper West Side were suddenly awakened by the sound of a jackhammer.


Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times
NEW ON THE BLOCK The Harrison, a luxury condominium project that supplanted the Dakota Stables and is to open next spring.

Times Topics: Landmarks Preservation Commission

Office for Metropolitan History
Preservationists lost a battle to protect the Dakota, built in 1894 and shown here in 1944, after the owner secured a stripping permit.
Soon word spread that a demolition crew was hacking away at the brick cornices of the stables, an 1894 Romanesque Revival building, on Amsterdam Avenue at 77th Street, that once housed horses and carriages but had long served as a parking garage.

In just four days the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission was to hold a public hearing on pleas dating back 20 years to designate the low-rise building, with its round-arched windows and serpentine ornamentation, as a historic landmark.

But once the building?s distinctive features had been erased, the battle was lost. The commission went ahead with its hearing, but ultimately decided not to designate the structure because it had been irreparably changed. Today a 16-story luxury condominium designed by Robert A. M. Stern is rising on the site: the Related Companies is asking from $765,000 for a studio to $7 million or more for a five-bedroom unit in the building.

The strategy has become wearyingly familiar to preservationists. A property owner ? in this case Sylgar Properties, which was under contract to sell the site to Related ? is notified by the landmarks commission that its building or the neighborhood is being considered for landmark status. The owner then rushes to obtain a demolition or stripping permit from the city?s Department of Buildings so that notable qualities can be removed, rendering the structure unworthy of protection.

?In the middle of the night I?m out there at 2 in the morning, and they?re taking the cornices off,? said Gale Brewer, a city councilwoman who represents that part of the Upper West Side. ?We?re calling the Buildings Department, we?re calling Landmarks. You get so beaten down by all of this. The developers know they can get away with that.?

The number of pre-emptive demolitions across the city may be relatively small, but preservationists say the phenomenon is only one sign of problems with the city?s mechanism for protecting historic buildings.

?This administration is so excited about the new that it overlooks its obligation to protect the old,? said Anthony C. Wood, author of ?Preserving New York: Winning the Right to Protect a City?s Landmarks.?

In an interview Robert B. Tierney, chairman of the Landmarks Preservation Commission, called end-run alterations and demolitions ?a terrible situation and a complete misuse of the process.?

He added that the commission was trying to address the issue. Before putting a property on the calendar for landmark consideration, for example, Mr. Tierney or the commission?s staff members meet with owners to explain the potential benefits of landmark designation ?a federal tax credit for repairs or improvements, for example ? in the hope of enlisting cooperation or even support.

?Owner consent is not required, but I strongly try to obtain it whenever possible,? Mr. Tierney said. ?It helps the process going forward. It?s not a continually contentious relationship.?

But some owners pay little heed. In one of the most memorable cases, a wrecking ball destroyed a corner tower of the former Paterson Silks store near Union Square on March 8, 2005. The double-height glass tower was the signature feature of the building, designed by the architect Morris Lapidus, known for his flamboyant Miami Beach hotels.

A few hours later the commission, seemingly oblivious, agreed to schedule a hearing on the building?s future.

Preservationists were outraged, particularly because they had been trying to bring the building to the commission?s attention for at least three years. Yet the owner, Donald J. Olenick, vice president of BLDG Management, then a co-owner of the building, said he did not understand the objections. ?This is certainly not the Plaza Hotel,? he said the day the tower toppled. ?I?m a little surprised anyone was concerned about it.?

For years, preservationists seeking to save midcentury Modernist architecture in New York have sought landmark status for 711 Third Avenue. That William Lescaze building, near 45th Street, features a wall mosaic in the lobby by the artist Hans Hofmann. Just last month the owner, SL Green Realty, began tearing out the lobby?s distinctive blue mosaic ceiling, as well as the door surrounds by the Abstract Expressionist sculptor Jos? de Rivera. The Hofmann artwork will be preserved; the de Rivera may be relocated within the lobby.

A spokeswoman for the landmarks commission, Elisabeth de Bourbon, said the lobby had been under review as a potential interior landmark. Upon learning of the demolition, she said, the commission entered into ?a standstill agreement,? under which the owner was prohibited from altering the Hoffmann mosaic during the reconstruction. A spokesman for the owner said that a formal agreement had not been signed.

As for the rest of the lobby, Ms. de Bourbon said that because of alterations in the 1980s and the current renovation, it was not landmark-worthy.

Under current rules, once a landmark hearing has been scheduled, building owners may not obtain demolition or alteration permits. But if such a permit is secured before a hearing is scheduled, as was the case with Dakota Stables and 711 Third Avenue, the work may proceed without penalty.

Safeguards crumble because the landmarks commission and the buildings department lack an established system of communication, and commissioners often are unaware that permits have been issued. There is also no set procedure by which the buildings department alerts the commission when someone seeks a permit to strip off architectural detail.

Some City Council members are determined to change that. Tony Avella, who represents northeastern Queens, has introduced a bill that would require the buildings department not only to withhold demolition permits but also to suspend existing ones and issue a stop-work order when the commission schedules a hearing to consider landmark status for a structure.

Another bill, proposed by Rosie Mendez, a city councilwoman representing the Lower East Side and the East Village, would require the commission to notify the buildings department as soon as a property comes under consideration, even if a hearing has not been scheduled. The department would then alert the commission if an owner applied for a work permit. Both bills are wending their way through the council.

A school in Ms. Mendez?s East Village neighborhood galvanized her to introduce the bill. In June 2006 the landmarks commission designated former Public School 64, a French Renaissance Revival building on East Ninth Street near Tompkins Square Park, as a landmark over the objections of its owner, Gregg Singer.

After that designation, Mr. Singer used an alteration permit that had been granted in 2003 and stripped the terra-cotta elements and copper cornices from the building?s exterior. This month a State Supreme Court judge in Manhattan upheld the school?s designation as a landmark despite the architectural changes. But the damage remains.

?Because of a loophole, if there is an existing permit you can move forward, irrespective of the designation of the building,? Ms. Mendez said. ?It was alarming to me that it was happening.?

Mr. Tierney said he had talked with City Council members about the bills but was also working to address the problem by improving the commission?s database to include information about permits that have been requested or issued.

?We?re not just sitting back waiting for legislation,? he said. ?We have ramped up the interaction and communication.?

Under current procedures, when an owner of a building that is under review by the commission applies for a demolition permit, the commission has 40 days to schedule a hearing on the structure.

But ?it is difficult to put together a designation in that time frame,? Mr. Tierney said. And when it comes to an entire historic district, he said, the job ?is difficult if not impossible.?

At times the commission can move swiftly. When a northern swath of the Crown Heights neighborhood in Brooklyn was placed on the calendar in June 2006 for consideration as a historic district, a developer quickly obtained a demolition permit for the George B. and Susan Elkins House, the only known free-standing mid-19th-century wood-frame house remaining in the area.

?We pulled the building out of sequence and did an individual designation in two to three weeks,? Mr. Tierney said.

Sometimes landmark designation is awarded after major alterations. In 2006, for example, the commission reinstated protection for two tan-brick apartment houses on the Upper East Side known as the City and Suburban Homes, even though the owners had reclad them in reddish-pink stucco, drastically changing their appearance.

?It was a Pyrrhic victory,? said Seri Worden, executive director of Friends of the Upper East Side Historic Districts. ?Now we have a red stucco building, but it?s a landmark.?

In the case of Dakota Stables, some preservationists have accused the landmarks commission of deliberately dragging its heels. ?The commission had no intention of designating Dakota Stables,? said Kate Wood, the executive director of Landmark West!, a preservation group. ?They waited until it had been torn down. It was clearly too late for them to do anything meaningful.?

?It was all so carefully orchestrated,? she added. ?It was politics. It was all just theater.?

But Mr. Tierney said he fought genuinely hard to have the case heard. ?It was knock-down, drag-out time trying to do everything we could do to have a fair and open hearing on that building,? he said.

He also said he was ?extremely unhappy with how the owners proceeded? on Dakota Stables and on Paterson Silks, yet added, ?That?s two out of thousands ? not to minimize them.?

Mr. Stern, the architect who designed the Harrison, the luxury condominiums replacing Dakota Stables, said the late-night demolition created ?a controversial and awkward moment,? adding, ?I don?t like to tear anything down if I don?t have to.?

Some commissioners say the landmarks commission and the buildings department should adopt a more reliable alert system to prevent pre-emptive demolitions. ?When a property owner goes to the buildings department for a permit to strip, it should be a red flag,? said Roberta Brandes Gratz, who has served on the landmarks commission since 2002.

Christopher Moore, a commission member, also said the situation demanded redress. ?There is a standard of honor I wish the developers would follow,? he said.

?The landmarks commission should have greater authority? over the granting of demolition permits, he added. ?All of a sudden, the cornice is gone.?
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http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/29/arts/design/29landmarks.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1
 
Re: Shreve, Crump & Low bldng may be replaced w/ new develop

These people are true Philistines. Disgusting.
 
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