Goodbye to a Piece of Soho

The Wall Street Journal reported last week that the city's Landmark Preservation Commission approved a plan to demolish three buildings in Soho: a BP gas station, a former mechanic shop, and - perhaps most dismaying for many fans of beer and high wood booths - the bar Puck Fair, at 298 Lafayette Street just below Houston. The owner of the properties plans to replace the formerly historically-protected buildings with a seven-story office building with a retail component. The LPC unanimously approved the application to exempt the parcel from the Soho Cast Iron Historic District Extension, which was designated in 2010, after it found that the buildings are "atypical of the structures found elsewhere in the district."