The six-story building was designed by Robert Maynicke and completed in 1899. It served as the offices of Germania Bank (and its future names) until it was sold in 1966 and became a private residence. In 2005, it was designated an individual landmark. Last year, it was purchased by Aby Rosen’s RFR Realty for $55 million. They plan to restore the building and convert it back to office space, with the ground floor for an as yet undetermined retail tenant. — New York Yimby
In collaboration with MdeAS Architects, Jørgen Cleemann of the preservation architecture firm Higgins Quasebarth & Partners received approval from the Landmarks Preservation Commission for their restoration plans. They aim to rehabilitate the stained glass, wooden doors, and other features of the building, while preserving the graffiti that ornaments the facade.
7 Comments
Its interesting that they're proposing to keep the graffiti.
It is interesting, especially since you can scrub it off when the joke gets old, although it's surprising that the same folks who bemoan NYC for becoming too 'suburban' are not up in arms. Graffiti as stage set. Are they going to pay actors to break dance on the street corners next? I'm glad to see them restoring the building, but this seems a bit phony.
davvid, I think it's interesting too. It would seem that these architects, are considering the street art as part of the preservation process, so to thoughtfully include the work as part of the restoration seems appropriate, and rather novel interpretation of preservation. I think they could do some selective "demolition" of the random "tagging" on the higher stories, and maybe clean some of the facade, to accentuate the more interesting pieces, but this seems right.
Aby Rosen is big in the NYC art scene, I wouldn't be surprised the idea to keep the graffiti came from him directly. He's done a lot to exhibit contemporary art in his other projects. I'd imagine keeping the graffiti is a mix of personal interest and potential marketing... does that make it phony or legitimate?
RFR has done some nice restorations on properties they own... Lever House and Seagrams Building among others. Cheers to them for keeping nice buildings nice.
Lever house is cool. You actually feel the historic mad men vibe.
"does that make it phony or legitimate?"
It helps that the program is office space, not luxury apartments. Offices naturally bring in a more diverse mix of people who work for a living and are probably in a creative industry. If it were luxury apartments, it would attract the same class of trust fund consumers that are up and down the highline.
I walk past this building once or twice a week..and it's been great seeing different stuff on the walls all the time. Most of the new graffiti is paste ups..not spray paint. The falseness is keeping the building as-is. I'm sure it will be much harder to tag..and most of the surfaces for pasting (plywood over the windows) has been removed so there really isn't room for anything new.
Since I've lived here I've seen almost every place that was tagged regularly get taken over and renovated (in lower Manhattan). I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing, but places like Wooster street, this building, a building down the street from this building on the bowery.. all had interesting stuff to look at on them. But I understand removing it is progress I suppose. I for one like the paste ups and photographing them...I'll just have to search for other places to find it.
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