NY1
10/23/2008 09:46 AM
Plan To Restore Tin Building Divides Manhattan Neighborhood
To build or not to build and just how much to build, those are some of the questions swirling around South Street Seaport these days. As ideas to revamp the entire area are refined, disagreement over plans for a single building there illustrates a neighborhood divided. NY1's Rebecca Spitz filed the following report.
Nestled in the shadow of the FDR Drive and the shopping mall at Pier 17, the so-called Tin Building is almost impossible to see – but maybe not for long.
Plans are in the works to restore the former fish market building to its original glory.
"The Tin Building is important because it's really the only historic building on the water side of the FDR Drive," said architect Gregg Pasquarelli. "It's an incredibly important thing for us to save as a marker of what happened in this neighborhood with the fish market and the shipping and the water-dependent uses that were always here."
Developer General Growth Properties wants to move the entire building to its original location at the pier's edge and restore it; the structure was gutted by fire in 1995.
"We would like to actually recreate and rebuild all the pieces in the authentic materials, so when you do that, it's probably better to take it apart in pieces and rebuild the building from scratch," said Pasquarelli.
But the Tin Building's restoration is part of a larger plan to revitalize all of South Street Seaport.
First released in June, the design calls for more than two acres of open space, besides new shops and restaurants. The signature building would house retail, as well as a hotel and residential units.
The developer has already invested a lot of time and money and says it wants to make the space more welcoming for both residents of the area and the city at large.
"I think we've done a lot of work to engage the community and really feel we've made connections with people and gotten input all along the way," said Laurel Blatchford of General Growth Properties.
But there are critics of the plan to renovate the seaport and within that, the plan to move the Tin Building. Among the more vocal opponents: the Municipal Arts Society.
"Market buildings weren't necessarily out on the end of a pier," said Lisa Kersavage of the Municipal Arts Society. "They were on the streets where they could move goods in and out of the building rapidly. So the history here is important and it should be the guiding vision for this development."
In fact, opponents say the entire project as envisioned would be out of scale with the rest of the neighborhood.
Like it or not, the approval process is underway. Developers say they hope to start construction in two years and be finished by 2014.
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