from next-door hotel project
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The Merchant’s House staff, as well as leading preservationists, say construction on the property to the west of the museum, currently home to a one-story building, will surely wreak havoc on the nearly 200-year-old building’s original ornate plasterwork. MERCHANT’S HOUSE, continued from p. 8
to shore up the museum’s plasterwork will cost up to $80,000, and that the resulting damage — even with that additional support — will cost around $200,000 to repair. “In my estimation, the Merchant’s House is without a doubt the most important historic house museum in this city, and unfortunately it’s now probably the most endangered one,” said Devonshire. And, again, those costs may be just the tip of the iceberg for the museum, which relies on both government grants and private donations for its survival. Gardiner said that, along with paying for numerous engineering studies to help prepare for the eventual construction, the museum will have to fund its lawyers as they attempt to work out more specific deals with the hotel development team regarding damage prevention. Along with a protection plan directly focused on the plasterwork, the executive director explained that she’s pushing for three additional agreements to further mitigate building vibrations, water infiltration and building settlement. The developer has predicted that work on the new hotel will cause the Merchant’s House to settle, or shift, about a quarter of an inch — an amount of movement that musuem engineers have said will undoubtedly cause damage. But some of those engineers have also predicted that the museum could potentially shift up up to an inch and threequarters, leading to far more disastrous ef-
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fects, according to Gardiner. And a contractual agreement regarding that process could play a vital role in helping to force the developer to stop or alter its work if the building’s settling approaches a certain threshold. “We’d really hoped that the L.P.C. would have taken the initiative on those extra protection plans,” said Gardiner, “but they didn’t, so now it’s up to us.” Neither Fotos nor SRA Architects responded to request for comment. Meanwhile, top city preservationists have pledged to support the Merchant’s House as it struggles onward — as they have since the first L.P.C. hearing in 2012 — while expressing extreme disappointment at the commission’s decision to approve the new development. “It’s not over for us,” said Andrew Berman, executive director of the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation. “The fact the city would approve this without explicitly sufficient safeguards for the Merchant’s House’s structural integrity is, quite frankly, shocking. And if there are any issues that come up during construction, we’ll definitely step in to push hard on the city agencies to make sure no illegal or shoddy work is going on.” Simeon Bankoff, executive director of the Historic Districts Council, said his group will “support our friends at the Merchant’s House in any way possible.” He echoed Berman’s sentiments regarding the lack of explicit protections involved in the L.P.C. approval. “The fact is that New York City has plenty of boring eight-story hotels,” said Bankoff, “but we only have one Merchant’s House.”
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O. OTTOMANELLI NEW YORK’S FAMILY MEAT MARKET
285 Bleecker Street, btwn 7th Ave. & Jones St. April 17, 2014
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