Ranks Break at Landmarks Over 2 Columbus Circle

Observer Staff — Tue, 09 Aug 2005 04:05:00 -0400

Sherida E. Paulson, former chair of the Landmarks Preservation Commission (2001-03), wrote an Op Ed in July 30's New York Times on the fate of 2 Columbus Circle, the vaguely Moorish-looking monolith designed by Edward Durrell Stone which is in danger of having its facade ripped off and replaced by a modernistic response to the Time Warner Center.

Ms. Paulson, who refers to Stone's controversial masterpiece in the Op Ed as "the black hole of Columbus Circle," said that " ... preservationists have pressed with new urgency to have the the building designated a landmark. But 2 Columbus Circle simply doesn't qualify. That is the professional judgment of the 19 people, myself included, who have served on the New York Landmarks Commission since 1996."

But--oh damn--one of those 19 people, current L.P.C. commissioner Roberta Brandes Gratz, wrote back to The Times on Aug. 6, saying, "Neither I as an individual commissioner nor the current commission as a whole has rendered a 'professional' judgment on whether there should be a hearing or a designation." Snap!

Adding fuel to the fire was a letter, on the same day, from Beverly Moss Spatt. Who is Ms. Spatt, you ask? Only the chair of the L.P.C. from 1974 to 1978!! She wrote that she "find[s] it difficult to believe that the 19 commission members since 1996 could have reached an absolute consensus that the building is unworthy of even a public hearing to weigh its merits."

"If such overwhelming consensus is indeed the case, where is the public record of this decision? The failure to hold a hearing is a distressing sign of how out of touch the current commission is with the public it serves." Double snap! - Matthew Grace

NY Observer > Beverly Moss Spatt

Ranks Break at Landmarks Over 2 Columbus Circle