Retail Plan Approved for a Grand Landmarked Lobby By Carl Glassman
POSTED JAN.10, 2007

David Levinson stood in the marble forest of soaring Doric columns, his eyes scanning the cavernous temple-like space that is the lobby of 195 Broadway.  “Think about owning this,” he said, opening his arms as if to embrace the grandeur of it all. “It’s awesome. I don’t think there’s a building like it in the city.” As chairman of L&L Holding Co., Levinson, in fact, does own it--as well as the million square feet of office space above. This is the former home of AT&T, both its exterior and interior designated as city landmarks last year.

On Jan. 9, Levinson and his team convinced the Landmarks Preservation Commission that his plan to put three stores--up to 12,000 square feet of retail space--in the lobby would not spoil the magnificence of the space.

““These spaces will not get rented unless the tenant falls in love with the space as I have, and all of you have,” he told the commissioners. 

The vote by the Commission was unanimous, with nine in favor and one abstention. Under Levinson’s plan, the lobby of 195 Broadway, with its 30-foot ceilings and bronze and alabaster chandeliers, will open to the public for the first time in years. It will be among only four of Downtown’s 14 landmarked interiors that the public can enter. Levinson, who bought the building in 2004 for a reported $270 million, said that putting stores in the lobby allows him to secure it for public use.

Visitors would traverse a 20-foot-wide corridor or “galleria” running between entrances at Dey and Fulton Streets, and opening onto each of the three stores. Off of Dey Street would be a separate, private entrance and lobby for the office tenants.

In order to create the individual spaces and maintain nearly unobstructed views of the grand interior, the proposal calls for sheer glass partitions rising 30 feet and ingeniously held in place by thin bronze cables and small plates. It is a partition system that the plan’s architect, Michael Gabellini, calls “operating at the outer limits of plausibility.”

An interior, 135-foot-long wall of glass, running the block-long length of lobby between Dey and Fulton Streets, will define the public corridor. “We’ve created some budgets that are astronomical--many millions of dollars,” Levinson said as he took a reporter on a tour of the space. The glass, he said, “is the most expensive piece.”

The building is at the junction of the Fulton Street Transit Center and the new World Trade Center PATH terminal, due for completion in 2010. According to Levinson’s plans, the three stores on the ground floor would also open onto lower levels that will be traversed daily by hundreds of thousands of commuters and subway riders. Escalators and an elevator would be installed in the lobby.

Last month, Levinson presented the plan to Community Board 1’s Landmarks Committee, where it won advisory approval. But the committee worried about how the openness of the space would be preserved, and about the visual effect of merchandise and signage.

“Those are the things that impact on the beauty of this space,” said committee member Marc Donnenfeld, “and the space right now is a sacred one.”

Another committee member, Eric Anderson, expressed “grave concerns” over the merchandising in the space. But he voted for the plan.

“One of the great things about the scheme,” he said, “is you will be able to go into the space--even if there’s some stuff in there that isn’t as pristine as the original use.”

At the LPC hearing, only one speaker, Nadezhda Williams of the Historic Districts Council, argued against the plan. In a prepared statement, Williams said that the lobby would change for the worse with the addition of glass partitions, elevators, and escalators as well as signage and merchandise. “The once elegant space will be turned into little more than a mall with a lot of columns,” she said.

“What I think we have to assume is that throughout the space everything up to 10 feet will be blocked,” said Commissioner Elizabeth Ryan. “That leaves 20 feet above, plus the galleria. I hope that all the space under 10 feet isn’t blocked, but even if it is I can still easily approve this design.“

Once tenants have been chosen for the space, they or the design team will appear once more before the Commission to seek approval for signage in the building.

“All I want to say,” Commissioner Jan Hird Pokorny noted,” is we should send the tenants to design school.”