New C.T.S. buildings

To the Editor:
I am writing as the President of the West 400 Block Association but also as a 30-year resident of Chelsea. I was very pleased to see, at its May 17 presentation to the Community Board 4 Landmarks Task Force (LTF), that the General Theological Seminary had brought the height of its proposed Ninth Avenue building down to the mandated seven and a half stories (or 75 feet). What concerns me, however, is that, even this late in the process, there are still a great many questions about what that building and the proposed building on West 20th Street will actually look like. For instance:

• On the top of the Ninth Avenue building, there is a two-story, totally glass structure stretching nearly the full width of the building from West 20th to West 21st Streets. This is one of the most dominant elements of the building. It seems totally inappropriate to the Chelsea Historic District. But, the look of it was not at all clear from the drawings presented, and the architects had no samples of the glass to show the LTF Committee members.

• There will be retail space on most of the ground floor of the Ninth Avenue building. However, there was no way of telling from the drawings whether this space will be divided into three or four small shops, in keeping with the other commercial uses on Ninth Avenue, or will be laid out as one ungainly big-box space. The answer to that question will make a huge difference in the visual presence of the building. But neither G.T.S. nor its architects could provide any information.

• The entrance to G.T.S. has been moved to West 20th Street. (The Ninth Avenue entrance will be reserved solely for residents of the new luxury apartments.) As currently designed, the 20th Street entrance consists of a very tall, totally glass “atrium,” or “tube,” stretching from the east wall of the new building to the west wall of the West Building—the oldest building on the Close. Does the Buildings Department require this glass atrium because the new building is being erected very close to the old building? Is there some other justification for this design element, which is totally inappropriate to the Historic District? And is the slab of flat, gray Manhattan schist which forms the eastern façade of the otherwise red brick and brownstone new building appropriate because it may be seen to create a transition from the new building to the old, West Building, which is entirely faced in blocks of Manhattan schist?

• Putting in the glass atrium requires digging out and exposing some of the foundation of the West Building. What will be the effect of that on the structural and historical integrity of the West Building? At the May 17 meeting, there were questions about this but no answers.

The Landmarks Preservation Commission will have the final say about the appropriateness of the two new buildings. However, before LPC meets, the full Community Board 4 will vote to approve or disapprove the present designs at its next public meeting, Wednesday, June 6, at 6:30 at Roosevelt Hospital, Tenth Avenue between 58th and 59th Streets. Hopefully, by then G.T.S. will be able to provide answers to the questions above and to all the others raised by the LTF Committee on May 17. But if satisfactory answers are not forthcoming, C.B. 4 should hold off voting to approve or disapprove these two new buildings until the members know what they will actually look like.
Mary Swartz

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