High-Rise Stalls South Street Seaport Redevelopment Plan

Feb. 19, 2015 — Don't mess with a New Yorker's view, especially when it's a view of the Brooklyn Bridge. That's just one of the reason local officials, civic groups, preservationists, and some community residents are seriously ticked off about plans for a 494-foot-tall condominium tower over the water at the foot of Beekman Street. The condo tower is part of a planned $1.5 billion redevelopment years in the making that aims to "rehabilitate crumbling piers, preserve landmark buildings and bring new vitality to the 400-year-old historic [seaport] district on the East River," according to The New York Times. But it looks like thanks to the tower, the project is going nowhere fast — this despite a $300 million amenity package, which also includes "rescuing the city’s financially ailing maritime museum, building a school and affordable housing, renovating the Tin Building and extending an esplanade." The tower, aside from obscuring view of the Brooklyn Bridge, would also stick out like a sore thumb in the "low-scaled, early-19th-century brick buildings that make up the 11-block seaport district, once the center of the city’s maritime industry." It may seem to some like it's much ado about nothing, but they do make a good point that applies to a lot of new construction all over the city. When we can't save old buildings, such as Harlem's historic Renaissance Ballroom on 138th Street and 7th Avenue, it would be nice to at least erect new buildings in their place that reflect a sense of the neighborhood's own history. Likewise, it would be nice to see a new building constructed in the historic seaport district that is aesthetically sensitive to its surroundings.