City Planning Commission gives Noho East District final approval

Noho East District final approval

The City Planning Commission on Aug. 27 approved the designation of the Noho East Historic District along Bleecker St. between Lafayette St. and Bowery.

The one-block district, which the Landmarks Preservation District designated in June, is an addition to the 1999 designation of the first Noho Historic District from Mercer to Lafayette Sts. between Eighth and Houston Sts. and from Astor Pl. to Great Jones St. between Bowery and Lafayette St.

Simeon Bankoff, director of the Historic District Council, hailed the new extension as a first step in the preservation of Noho.

“But we’re still looking at the area from Bleecker St. to Cooper Sq. between Lafayette St. and Bowery,” Bankoff said. “That’s where most of the soft sites are and where most of the development pressure is.”

The remaining area that preservationists hope to include in the historic district is zoned for light manufacturing and includes several parking lots. The Board of Standards and Appeals has granted the Related Companies a residential variance for the parking lot that Cooper Union owns on Astor Pl. Nevertheless, Jack Lester, attorney for the Coalition to Save the East Village, has filed a lawsuit challenging the variance.

Harriet Fields, director of Noho New York, the neighborhood Business Im-provement District, also welcomed the Noho II designation and called for designation of the entire Noho area.

Andrew Berman, director of the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation, said he hopes the new Noho designation is an indication that Landmarks will designate other districts.

“The designation of the Noho East Historic District is an extremely welcome development,” Berman said.  “It not only means that these buildings will be protected, but it’s a hopeful indicator of a willingness to move on other nearby and similar areas. Gansevoort Market, the undesignated areas of Noho, the Greenwich Village waterfront, the South Village and parts of the East Village face tremendous pressure and are being compromised and eaten away at as we speak.  We need the city to act on these areas very quickly as well,” Berman said.