Frankie Quinney puts the finishing touches on raising the Big Top tent for the Big Apple Circus in Lincoln Center. Tickets go on sale this week for the circus’s all-new, 34th season production, Legendarium!

WEST SIDE HISTORIC DISTRICT APPROVED
Last week, the City Council voted unanimously to officially designate the first extension of the Riverside-West End Historic District, covering West End Avenue and its adjacent side streets from West 79th Street to West 87th Street.

This final move marks the first victory in what preservation advocates hope will be a series of three designations expanding the Upper West Side’s historic districts, eventually covering West End Avenue and the surrounding areas continuously from West 70th Street to West 109th Street.

“West End Avenue is one of the world’s most important ensembles of residential buildings, as architecturally harmonious and perfectly scaled to its spacious boulevard as is Park Avenue,” Council Member Gale Brewer said in a statement praising the vote. “Regrettably, West End’s buildings are being demolished one by one, and replaced with a stylistic hodgepodge of high-rises that endanger the avenue’s architectural character.”

Support for this extension, and the other two pending extensions, has been widespread among elected officials and local preservation enthusiasts. The extensions were proposed to the Landmarks Preservation Commission by the West End Preservation Society. Next up will be the West End-Collegiate Historic District Extension, which covers much of the area between Broadway and Riverside Drive between West 70th and West 79th streets.

TAVERN ON THE GREEN NEARS FINAL APPROVALS
Crain’s New York Business reported last week that the Emerald Green Group, which signed an agreement with the Parks Department for a 20-year operating license for the former Tavern on the Green restaurant, is one step closer to making a newly revamped dining spot a reality. The contract has been submitted for registration with the comptroller’s office, and a Parks Department spokesperson said the final step was imminent. After the city is finished with the renovation of the space this summer, the Philadelphia-based company is planning to open a new restaurant with 300 seats inside and an additional 300 outdoor seats, Crain’s reports.

FREE FLU SHOTS
Assembly Member Linda Rosenthal is hosting a Free Flu Shot Day, in partnership with Roosevelt Hospital/Continuum Health Partners, at her district office on Tuesday, Oct. 30, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Anyone aged 50 or older (and especially anyone over 65) is strongly encouraged to get a flu shot. The office is at 230 W. 72nd St., Suite 2F. Appointments are required; please RSVP by calling 212-873-6368 or email rosenthall@assembly.state.ny.us.

The proposal would add 190 buildings to the Upper West Side’s Riverside-West End Historic District between West 79th and 87th streets. Although the proposal must go before the City Council, which has 120 days to make its decision, many who had been promoting the extension for years consider this small step a success

“This extension is a perfect complement to the existing historic district and deserves the same degree of protection,” said Robert B. Tierney, chairman of the LPC, in a press release. “A number of owners, block associations and preservation advocacy groups, in particular the West End Preservation Society, were instrumental in bringing this extension to fruition, demonstrating the broad-based support for the landmark protection of this historic neighborhood.
Josette Amato, executive director of the West End Preservation Society, said that since its founding in 2007, the organization has pushed for an extension of the district. The group commissioned a Columbia University study to evaluate the stretch of blocks in March 2009. As it turned out, the commission offered to expand the district even further than the society initially suggested—a welcome change for Amato.

“We had several representatives at the vote and we were just overwhelmed—we were so incredibly happy,” Amato said. “Some people in the room were actually breaking down in tears. We were just thrilled.”

Local resident Sukey Gutin, who lives on West End Avenue and West 85th Street, thinks the decision fosters an awareness of the neighborhood’s rich background.

“I’m absolutely delighted because we’re preserving some history, which doesn’t seem to mean much to most people,” she said. “This district is livable and charming, and I think it’s one of the last areas that can be preserved.”

Mark Diller, chair of the Upper West Side’s Community Board 7, said the Board “enthusiastically and overwhelmingly” supported the creation of the Riverside-West End Historic District.

“West End Avenue is a desirable neighborhood, and it can only remain so if it is preserved,” Diller said. “It takes government to do it, and I’m proud that my Board supported it.”

Local elected officials have also expressed their support for the district extension, and Amato said their help was instrumental in gaining the commission’s favor.

“Regrettably, West End buildings are being demolished one by one,” said Council Member Gale Brewer in a statement. “Unless we act, it will become just another hodge-podge of high-rise warehouses occupied by people who think of New York as a motel on the way to somewhere else.”

The extension is only one piece of a larger proposal under consideration. The commission will also consider extending the West End Collegiate District, from West 70th to West 79th Street, and the far northern end of the district, from West 89th to West 109th Street.
Despite this success, Cristiana Peña, interim executive director of LANDMARK WEST!, another group that advocated for the extension, doesn’t think future extensions will be a shoe-in.

“West Siders know better than to think of this as a fait accompli,” Peña said in an email. “Our continued collaboration and perseverance is critical.”

The extension has not achieved all-around support; the Real Estate Board of New York has spoken out against it, arguing that further landmarking would prevent property owners from making even the slightest changes to their buildings. The Board did not respond to requests for comment.

But Amato said that the landmarking will not heavily hinder building changes.

“We don’t see it as dropping development or freezing anything in time,” she said. “What we do see it as is having oversight or guidance on what changes will take place and what development will actually occur. We don’t think this will prevent anything from changing.”

It was with amazement last week that I read a letter by the Real Estate Board of New York (REBNY), the Manhattan Chamber of Commerce, the New York Building Congress and other organizations to the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC), calling for the LPC to delay its long-awaited first vote on the proposed extensions to the Riverside-West End Historic District.

Despite a transparent, public process that spanned months, REBNY and its cohorts argued that the LPC’s process lacked sufficient notice and information for property owners. This bold statement came even though REBNY’s testimony at the first public hearing mentions LPC’s community meeting with property owners six months before its first hearing—a step taken to ensure that owners were made fully aware of the proposal and the nature of landmark designation as early in the process as possible.

Despite the public meeting, the hearings, the countless community meetings by preservation advocates and community organizations, numerous articles on the proposed district and even articles in REBNY’s own newsletter, owners allegedly still do not know what landmarking means or are unaware that they are included in the proposed district?

While these assertions are incredible, REBNY’s position at this juncture is anything but surprising. This is simply a last-ditch attempt to derail a critical designation that has been years in the making.

I certainly did not take the enormous amount of public testimony on both sides of the issue that I heard during each of the three hearings held by LPC last year on the proposed extensions as an indication that the owners did not have enough information or that insufficient notice about the hearings was given to allow everyone to weigh in with their opinions.

Notice about the proposed historic district and all of the meetings and hearings on the proposal has been given to every block in the proposed district more than enough times by LPC, local residents, news media, community groups and offices like mine. Demanding that the draft designation report, draft guidelines or other information be released before a vote is unnecessary; I find it extremely doubtful that any property owner concerned by his or her building’s inclusion in the proposed district has missed the deluge of information or could not find the maps of the proposed districts or regulations governing historic districts on LPC’s website.

Owners have had ample time to process the detailed information provided by LPC and more than ample opportunity to give their views. Numerous buildings opposed to being landmarked have asked to be carved out of the district, and owners throughout the district have testified both for and against the proposal.

The landmark designation process is the furthest thing from broken, and I hope to see the LPC approve the first historic district extension on June 26.

Linda Rosenthal is a state Assembly member who represents the Upper West Side.