Another Upper West Side Landmarked Building Faces Demolition — But This One Might Be Different

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“It’s really bizarre that, after years without any such proposals, we’ve had two landmark demolition applications in one week — and they are very different,” said Klari Neuwelt at the Community Board 7 Preservation Committee meeting on Thursday, November 13.

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One application, submitted by Extell Development, seeks to de-landmark 30 West 67th Street, part of the former ABC campus, for a nine-story building designed for affordable units. The other, voted on last week by the full CB7 board, involved West-Park Presbyterian Church, which had filed its second hardship application in recent years. Unlike the church case, the Extell proposal is not a hardship application. The New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission will have the final say, with a hearing slated for December 9.

Extell came buttoned up, as they always do, with a polished presentation about their plans for the landmarked confines of 30 West 67th Street — the building with floor-to-ceiling windows constructed in 1979 and designed by Kohn Pedersen Fox specifically for ABC’s needs. But before the presentation could get underway, the Preservation Committee, which also came prepared, asked Ward Dennis — the presenter and a principal at Higgins Quasebarth & Partners — to clarify whom he was representing as he began walking through the deck.

“This is a project by Extell,” Dennis replied, before getting a little cheeky and making clear he wasn’t trying to hide that his client is the same Extell planning a 1,200-foot tower just steps away on Columbus Avenue — roughly the size of the Empire State Building without its spire. “If you would, maybe on the next slide or two we’ll get to it, thank you.” Extell wasn’t listed on the agenda either.

There it was on the fourth page of the deck — and Extell appears seven more times in the 86-page document. This moment, just two minutes into the hearing, set the tone for the hour-and-a-half session that followed: the big-city developer and the local community board, back at the table again.

“When Landmarks designated the district, they did not include this southern building. So they really bifurcated the building itself — half the building was put in the district, half out of the district,” said Dennis, who included several New York Times stories: the 1979 piece ‘ABC’s New Buildings: A Lesson in Placating Fearful Neighbors,’ and the 1993 article ‘Making a Street: Forget About Logos on the Skyline,’ both by Paul Goldberger, who won the Pulitzer Prize in 1984 for Distinguished Criticism in architecture.

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“Neither of the two new ABC structures is a masterpiece, but that is not the point. They are both intelligently designed, discreet buildings, created as background structures more than foreground ones,” wrote Goldberger in 1979, in the early days of the building, while crediting the architects for coming “respectably close” to keeping West 67th Street the way it was — not an easy task considering ABC’s needs at the time. “How could it be, given the massive amount of space added to the block?” Goldberger wrote.

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The Pulitzer winner also noted West 67th Street’s changing community demographics: the studio buildings once constituted something of an artists’ colony, but a shifting apartment market was turning it into a place for upper-middle-class lawyers and other professionals — yet the sense of it being a special enclave still remained.

Dan Lobitz of Robert A.M. Stern Architects (RAMSA) presented the plan for 30 West 67th Street. Their vision is a nine-story building with 90 studio apartments, plus a one-bedroom unit for the building’s live-in super, with 13 units per floor. Taking into account the neighboring buildings on the block — Gothic Revival, Renaissance Revival, brownstone with detailed stucco work, warm orange Roman brick, and lighter granite — they said they wanted their design to harmonize with the existing streetscape.

Lobitz described the design’s street-level detailing, noting the deeply set openings meant to create sculptural framing around the doors and windows. These recesses, he said, would also allow for planters to introduce greenery — an idea used on other buildings on the block, and one they believe “connects back to the street trees and back to Central Park as well.”

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He pointed to the custom metalwork and lanterns, and the small decorative metal railings that suggest balcony forms — not actual balconies, but a familiar New York detail, shaped here with a gentle curve to echo elements found elsewhere on West 67th Street. A cross-section of the entrance showed how deeply set the stone frame would be, along with a fabric canopy — “such a New York feature that we love and want to do here as well,” Lobitz said.

On the opposite side, balancing another entrance for ancillary uses, the design features similar detailing, but with a metal marquee to differentiate it from the main entrance. The residential door itself, shown in the plan, has sculptural stone framing at the base and detailed elements above, complemented by photorealistic renderings of dark bronze, custom-made door pulls. The second-floor railings reflect the same attention to detail, and Lobitz noted plans for a custom lantern similar to the main entrance. Cross-section plans highlight the deep openings with planters, showing how alternating stone and brick create structural depth. Elevation details illustrate how these elements interact along the façade, which also includes subtle setbacks. At the rooftop, the amenity space features green metalwork with decorative elements that both conceal mechanical equipment and create the feel of a small rooftop village.

“That is a magnificent plan. Every detail — the contextual piece, the architecture, the finer points — is just extraordinary. I would hire you,” said CB7 member Sheldon Fine. “But this is a residence for whom? And what relationship — and this involves Extell — to the affordability of the project in general? Is this an affordable residence? If it’s affordable, build it up. If it’s not, it’s just a beautiful addition to the neighborhood.”

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Extell and RAMSA said they designed the building for “affordable units,” but declined to get into detail or conversation about units being classified as affordable housing, saying that the focus was on determining whether the building contributes to the character of the historic district. One board member questioned, “saying it’s designed to be affordable; what does that mean?” asking if it was ever contemplated to have a certain percentage of affordable housing, and to what income levels did they see the units selling to. “We’re not ready yet today to discuss affordable and what pop[ulation] and you know, what type of units, that’s really not for here, we’re ready to discuss LPC application,” said a rep from Extell. “I don’t really want to go beyond that for this meeting. I think we’ve been in touch with a lot of people here, but this is really focused on the LPC portion.”

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Preservation board member Jay Adolf led the conversation, suggesting that the Landmarks Committee focus on the building’s aesthetics, while the Housing and Land Use Committee work with Extell and RAMSA to discuss affordable housing options. The same approach applied to questions about the building’s residential courtyards and plans for the cellar and sub-cellar.

When it was time for public input, Megan Fitzpatrick, director of Research and Preservation from Landmark West, a historic preservation and land-use nonprofit, shared the following statement:

“The proposed new design for 30 West 67th Street is architecturally beautiful — there’s no question about that. However, in pursuing it, we would lose one of the last remaining vestiges of the ABC campus, the only purpose-built, protected remnant of the broadcaster’s seven decades in the neighborhood, and thus a piece of our neighborhood’s layered history.

“The existing building, although a non-contributing feature of the historic district, is not an eyesore or an afterthought; it is an integrated part of the streetscape, designed to pay homage to the many significant apartment buildings and studios that surround it. Its setbacks and scale complement the surrounding landmarks, allowing their architectural details to stand out rather than compete.

“Additionally, we should ask ourselves what the City truly wants to prioritize. The current structure is well suited for adaptive reuse, particularly for housing, and demolishing it would run counter to the City’s own “City of Yes” proposals, which specifically promote the reuse of existing office buildings and the goal of a carbon-neutral future.

“Preservation and progress do not have to be in opposition. Here, they can and should work hand in hand. There is ample footprint in the 2.6-acre site to redevelop otherwise, as-of-right.”

City Council Member Gale Brewer also joined via Zoom, adding:

“I would say that we have to get the beautiful building, and talking to some of the residents — not everybody — people on the block are willing to go to 13 stories along North Holland. We have to get to 30 percent or more of the entire 2.4 acres as affordable housing. How we get there, I’m not sure, but it has to include, in my opinion, senior housing and definitely family housing. Our schools need families, and the schools around the city need families. The administration of all stripes and sizes is interested in family housing. So how we get there, I don’t know. I think it’s fine to have a discussion, but we need that kind of percentage — 30 to 40 percent of the 2.4 acres — which obviously translates to spread. However we get there, I don’t know, but we are going to get there.”

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Both the Preservation Committee and the Housing Committee voted in favor of the building’s application as appropriate for the Historic District. The resolution notes, “Large portions of the Upper West Side have fewer apartments than they did 10 years ago due to dwelling unit consolidation, a challenge particularly acute in the Historic District.” It also states, “New York City is in a housing crisis driven in part by a lack of housing, and CB7 consistently ranks affordable housing as its top district need.” The resolution recommends that the applicant, Extell, return to CB7 and the LPC with a larger building that would use more of the lot’s eligible floor area to provide additional affordable housing on the Upper West Side, particularly within the UWS/Central Park Historic District.

The Housing and Land Use Committee meeting is scheduled for Wednesday, November 19, at 6:30 pm. Register here.

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