The Landmarks Preservation Commission approved a certificate of appropriateness last month for a new building planned for 52 Wooster Street in SoHo that is distinguished by the split personality of its facades.
The approved design had been revised by Arpad Baksa, the architect for the planned 6-story building that would rise on an existing parking lot at the southeast corner of Broome Street after the commission indicated at a hearing in July that it was concerned about the arrangement of the facades.
The building has a narrow frontage of Broome Street and the designed presented in July had half of its much longer frontage on Wooster Street in a light-gray grid facade treatment whose fenestration pattern would relate substantially to its immediate neighbor on Broome Street, an attractive cast-iron building.
On Wooster Street, the new building's neighbor is a masonry structure and Mr. Baksa designed the new building's adjoining facade in red masonry for its southern half to be contextual.
Most of the commission members seemed generally pleased with the design in July, but were tempted to tinker. Vice chairman Pablo E. Vengoechea indicated he has some "trouble with the material," but Commissioner Steven Byrns said he was "relatively comfortable with the material," adding that he liked the "sliver" on Broome Street where the adjoining building leans into it by about 22 inches because it shows the pecularity of old buildings.
Mr. Byrns suggested that the metal grid facade on Wooster should be reduced to just two bays at the corner, while commissioner Margery Perlmutter, on the other hand, said "rather than reducing the metal, extend it more" along the Wooster Street frontage.
Mr. Byrns's suggestion won out as evidenced by the new and approved rendering shown at the right.
The building would have five, full floor, three-bedroom residential condominium units with about 2,000 square feet each.
The developer is Ori Alpert.
The approved design had been revised by Arpad Baksa, the architect for the planned 6-story building that would rise on an existing parking lot at the southeast corner of Broome Street after the commission indicated at a hearing in July that it was concerned about the arrangement of the facades.
The building has a narrow frontage of Broome Street and the designed presented in July had half of its much longer frontage on Wooster Street in a light-gray grid facade treatment whose fenestration pattern would relate substantially to its immediate neighbor on Broome Street, an attractive cast-iron building.
On Wooster Street, the new building's neighbor is a masonry structure and Mr. Baksa designed the new building's adjoining facade in red masonry for its southern half to be contextual.
Most of the commission members seemed generally pleased with the design in July, but were tempted to tinker. Vice chairman Pablo E. Vengoechea indicated he has some "trouble with the material," but Commissioner Steven Byrns said he was "relatively comfortable with the material," adding that he liked the "sliver" on Broome Street where the adjoining building leans into it by about 22 inches because it shows the pecularity of old buildings.
Mr. Byrns suggested that the metal grid facade on Wooster should be reduced to just two bays at the corner, while commissioner Margery Perlmutter, on the other hand, said "rather than reducing the metal, extend it more" along the Wooster Street frontage.
Mr. Byrns's suggestion won out as evidenced by the new and approved rendering shown at the right.
The building would have five, full floor, three-bedroom residential condominium units with about 2,000 square feet each.
The developer is Ori Alpert.
Architecture Critic
Carter Horsley
Since 1997, Carter B. Horsley has been the editorial director of CityRealty. He began his journalistic career at The New York Times in 1961 where he spent 26 years as a reporter specializing in real estate & architectural news. In 1987, he became the architecture critic and real estate editor of The New York Post.
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