It’s a miracle so much of [the Seaport] is intact,” said Randy Polumbo, of 268 Water St. “It’s time for New York to circle the wagons around this magical kingdom and protect it.” “I love the neighborhood, how it maintains its scale, and its prideful reverence for the past,” said Sarah Hinkley who lives at 330 Pearl St.

Barbara Marks, wearing a home-crafted velvet hat topped by a small school of gold-painted dried fish (to honor the departing Fulton Fish Market), was asked by one of the commissioners how many people live in the seaport historic district.

“Not a lot,” Marks, a resident of 25 Peck Slip, replied. “But we’re good fighters.”

Indeed, for 20 years, Seaport residents and Community Board 1 (CB1) have fought to block Milstein Properties from putting up a high-rise building at 250 Water St., a block-long site that is now a parking lot. A tall building, they say, would destroy the architectural fabric, historic character and charm of the small-scale neighborhood.

The four-hour hearing on Jan. 22, attended by about 40 residents, may have been the final showdown.

The commission is considering a CB1 proposal to tighten the zoning rules in the 10-block Seaport historic district, bounded by Fulton, Pearl, Dover and South Streets and encompassing 250 Water St. on its western edge. The board’s “downzoning” proposal would set a maximum building height of 120 feet.

“We believe in development, but we believe in appropriate building,” said CB1 chair Madelyn Wils.

Gary Fagin, a former CB1 member and a leader of the Seaport Community Coalition, a residents’ group, said the community feared a wave of tall buildings. Noting current laments about the destruction of Penn Station and other landmarks, he asked, “In 100 years, if our descendants see tall towers protruding on the small-scale brick buildings of the South Street Seaport historic district, New York City’s oldest surviving neighborhood, will they also ask, ‘What were they thinking, how could they have let that happen?’”

Paul Goldstein, CB1’s district manager, who has worked extensively on the proposal, told the commission that the rezoning would accommodate profitable projects on the 250 Water St. site and that maintaining the area’s historic feeling would spur economic development. Representatives of numerous local elected officials and preservation and business groups also spoke in favor of the rezoning. But Milstein representatives and Steven Spinola, president of the Real Estate Board, called the plan simplistic, overly restrictive and improperly targeted at a single development site. “The appropriateness of reasonable, high-density development in Lower Manhattan has not changed and, in fact, it is more necessary than ever given the city’s plans to rebuild and revitalize Lower Manhattan,” said Milstein attorney Ross Moskowitz. The Milstein team for the first time publicly exhibited its new proposal for 250 Water St., a 450-unit residential building with two towers, 24 and 13 stories tall. Charles Platt, its architect, said the building would work well on the site, which the Milstein team called a “bridge” between the historic district and the three 27-story buildings of Southbridge Towers, a residential complex across Pearl Street. Milstein wants a chance to present the design to the Landmarks Preservation Commission, which must approve new buildings in historic districts, but the plan would be prohibited under CB1’s proposal. Since acquiring the site in 1979, Milstein has proposed half a dozen buildings for 250 Water St., up to 43 stories tall, that were rejected by the Landmarks Commission as inappropriate. The City Planning Commission was scheduled to discuss the rezoning proposal at a review session on Feb. 3 and must vote on it by March 19.