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Is Architect Ruining His Building with Addition?
Now, Posinelli is back with an equally audacious plan to add five stories to the building. Most everyone who has walked on Duane Street between Hudson and Greenwich has noticed his design, sandwiched between four- and five-story buildings on the south side of the street. Polsinelli’s renovation retained the building’s original cast-iron façade, but only as a screen, a ghostly reminder of Tribeca’s 19th-century past. The new facade at 172 Duane Street, composed of glass brick tiles, was set back seven and a half feet from the screen, creating a contemporary building nested inside its historic predecessor. The building is hardly a historic landmark—indeed, it almost certainly would not have been allowed if the Tribeca West Historic District had been created a few years earlier. But it certainly has its fans. As a Community Board 1 resolution last month declared, “It became an icon of what Tribeca’s historic architecture was about in its soul.”
But regard for Polsinelli’s previous work doesn’t earn him a free pass for his new plans for the building. More than two decades after he first transformed the building, Polsinelli has been hired by its new owners, a pair of international businessmen who want to turn it into residences for both their families. His solution is a plan to build an additional five stories on top of his beloved gem. True to his earlier bold innovation, Polsinelli’s new design is ambitious. Rising three stories above the original screen arcade, he plans a glass-enclosed winter garden at the streetface, in the structural façade set within, 15 feet back. The glass, set at an angle to the street, would be supported by custom-made cast-iron vertical struts, arranged in a pattern of interlocking circles that will allow air into the space. Polsinelli is finding that he may be a victim of his own earlier success, however, as CB1 (which voted against his proposal in May), preservation advocates and Landmarks commissioners worry that his new design will undermine the look of his previous work. At a recent meeting of the Landmarks Preservation Commission, Nadezhda Williams of the Historic Districts Council argued against the new design, saying it would “reduce the original building to being a pretty little pendant on a large new structure.” Commissioners agreed, though a final vote was put off until a later meeting. “I have issues with the bulk,” said Commissioner Elizabeth Ryan. “It seems more program-driven than design-driven. The number of floors and the height they reach overwhelm the original building.” Commission Chairman Robert Tierney said the proposal was “close to being in the range” of something the commission could approve, and that it was helped along by the uniqueness of Polsinelli’s designs, both new and old. Still, he said, “I don’t think the uniqueness overcomes some of the lines that it crosses. This has got to be rethought in terms of the bulk.”
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