The New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission held a special public hearing today on the proposed designation of the former Van Tassell & Kearney's Horse Auction Mart building at 126-8 East 13th Street, a property that had been acquired last year by a developer who filed plans this past July to replace it with a 7-seven-story residential condominium building with a mostly glass facade with balconies designed by Kutnicki Bernstein Architects.

No demolition permit has yet been applied for and the commission's meeting was requested by several preservation groups including the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation.

Robert Tierney, the commission's chairman, announced at the start of the hearing that no action on the proposed designation would be taken today, but added that the commission had reached a "stand-still" agreement with the owner, who was identified in city documents as Isaac Mishan of Ultimate Realty and who was represented at the hearing by Jay Segal, an attorney, who said the owner would "work hard" to see if an alternate revenue scheme for the property could be found, noting that the system was "flawed" when owners make purchases "in good faith" based on market values and the city's preservation intentions for the properties are not established.

Andrew Berman, the executive director of the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation, thanked the commission "for taking the unusual action of holding this emergency meeting?to bring a treasured piece of New York City's history facing destruction back from the brink."

Mr. Berman praised the building's "unassuming monumentality," and "stateliness with humble proportions," noting that it is likely the last surviving example in the city of a horse auction mart and that "in later years it served as an assembly line training center, including for women during World War II, and from 1978 to 2005 served as the studio of one of the late 20th Century's greatest and most influential artists."

"You don't often get a better resume for landmark designation than that," Mr. Berman declared, adding "How many structures in New York can conjure up images of the Vanderbilts purchasing polo ponies, Frank Stella creating masterpieces of 20th Century art, and Rosie the Riveter fighting the war on the home front?"

Theodore Grunewald told the commission that the building "exhibits, both inside and out, a remarkable fidelity to its original purpose and, as such, it can be counted among the last intact vestiges of Union Square's glittering history," adding that "To casually glance at a property map from 18th or 19th century Manhattan, it is striking to see how thoroughly the town was peppered throughout with equine-architecture?.All of the big rings, though, are now vanished; from the private riding rings of the Vanderbilts and Goulds on 57th Street, to the more poignantly remembered Fiss, Doerr & Carroll Horse Auction Mart on 24th Street between Lexington and Third Avenues, which stood until quite recently; destroyed to make way for Baruch College's 'vertical' campus."

Other testimony in support of the proposed designation was given by City Councilperson Rosie Mendez and representatives of the Municipal Art Society, the New York Landmarks Conservancy, the Historic Districts Council and State Senator Thomas K. Duane, State Assemblyman Deborah J. Glick.

Jack Taylor of the Union Square Community Coalition told the commission that "the narrower and less significant secondary facade on East 12th Street...has been compromised by modern glass blacks and single-pane fixed windows. But these unsympathetic architectural elements can be readily eliminated and the facade restored."