Letters to the Editor

Postal pondering

To The Editor:
To the best of my knowledge, no one has explained what will happen to the James A. Farley Post Office if the Moynihan Station is built. Will we lose our 24-hour post office? Will it be relocated to some remote location where it is dangerous to go after dark? And what will happen to the mail of people who live or work in the area? Where will we go to buy stamps? Or to send certified or registered mail, or express mail? I wish Chelsea Now would get answers to these questions.

Bernice G. Rosenthal

W. Chelsea Historic District

To The Editor:
Re “New group vies for W. Chelsea Industrial District” (new article, Nov. 16):

First, I want to thank Chelsea Now, and especially Al Amateau, for the particularly comprehensive article about the proposed West Chelsea Industrial Historic District and the new organization, Save Chelsea. The proposal for the new historic district has received a generally favorable response, and we hope for positive outcome by the Landmarks Preservation Commission.

To give credit where credit is due, though, I would like to correct one point. The group that initially proposed the formation of the WCIHD and, for months, has been the main force in promoting its designation, is Community Board 4’s Landmarks Task Force, chaired by Ed Kirkland. Save Chelsea strongly supports the designation, and we did sponsor the November 10 walking tour. But we haven’t, in fact, even been around long enough to have started that particular ball rolling!

Save Chelsea is, as your article put it, “an adaptive re-use” of the ad hoc organization Save Chelsea Historic District. SCHD considered its purpose fulfilled when the General Theological Seminary agreed to erect its new Ninth Avenue building within the parameters of both the Chelsea 197-a Plan and the Chelsea Historic District. The 700 or so SCHD members and supporters realized, however, that Chelsea lacked a permanent neighborhood-wide organization whose purpose would be to protect the character of all of Chelsea from inappropriate development, and, wherever possible, preserve the existing housing stock for those who presently live there. Now, when there is so much new building in Chelsea, it is crucial that there be such an organization.

In addition to promoting the designation of the West Chelsea Industrial Historic District, Save Chelsea is currently focused on an effort to help shape the plans for the development of Hudson Yards. Hudson Yards is right at the northern edge of our neighborhood. But it is of a size and scale that it will have a huge impact on Chelsea. Development—a more intensive use of the available land—is a given in Manhattan, and Save Chelsea is definitely not opposed to it. Our concern, and our goal, is simply to prevent the new building from totally overwhelming the existing character of the neighborhood.

More information about what Save Chelsea is doing, and how others can join us, is available at our website, www.savechelsea.net.

Mary Swartz
Swartz is president of Save Chelsea

The travesty of Trump

To The Editor:
The Department of Buildings’ position on the Trump Soho hotel is that the 30-day maximum occupancy requirement satisfies the law for a transient hotel. This position is contrary to the policy that D.O.B. has enforced for many years.

D.O.B. has for the past 30-plus years refused to accept plans where they suspected that the space would be used illegally, even though what was stated on the plans was perfectly legal. For example, a cellar space calling for a recreation room, a storage room, a three-fixture bathroom and a laundry area with a sink are all perfectly legal, but would be disapproved if D.O.B. thought the cellar was intended for an illegal apartment. To prevent the cellar from being used illegally, D.O.B. requires that the bathroom be limited to a two-fixture lavatory, shelves be installed on the walls of the storage room and the cellar have no separate entrance to the street, as a minimally acceptable arrangement.

In the case of the Trump “transient” hotel, D.O.B. has accepted the developer’s statement that all stays will be less than 30 days, even though it would be impossible to enforce this requirement. The decision to allow a transient hotel with kitchen facilities is contrary to the established policy of preventing a building from being used illegally, which could be easily prevented by the simple expedient of not permitting kitchen facilities. Without kitchen facilities, the Trump units would be legitimate transient hotel suites, avoiding the necessity of D.O.B. checking on the 30-day-stay limitation.

It would be relatively easy to check on the installation of an illegal cellar apartment after it is built, whereas it is impossible to check if a transient hotel suite has been occupied by the same person or persons for more than 30 days. Yet D.O.B. still prevents anticipated illegal cellar occupancies while not preventing anticipated illegal “transient” hotel use.

I. Donald Weston
Weston is chairperson, Urban Design Committee of AIA Brooklyn