L to R: Preservationists Fern Luskin and Julie Finch in front of scaffolding-draped Hopper-Gibbons House, whose fifth floor addition has been the topic of a long court battle.
BY ZACH WILLIAMS | The ongoing legal battle over Manhattan’s only documented and landmarked Underground Railroad site continued in the appellate division of the New York Supreme Court on Feb. 4 through contesting arguments of the city permit process necessary for the building owner to pursue alterations to the building.
Opponents of the construction argued that Tony Mamounas, owner of the Hopper-Gibbons House (339 W. 29th St. btw. 8th & 9th Aves.), needs approval from the city Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) in order to conclude construction of a fifth story to the building. But his attorney, Marvin B. Mitzner, told the five-judge panel that a 2005 permit from the Department of Buildings (DOB) preceded the 2009 historical designation of Hopper-Gibbons House and adjacent buildings as the Lamartine Place Historic District. Thus, he argued, Mamounas should be allowed to bypass the landmark review process and apply directly to the city Board of Standards and Appeals.
A decision from the court will likely take months.
The DOB permit resulted in alterations in the building protruding above adjacent rooflines — which together served as an escape route for slavery abolitionists fleeing from the 1863 Draft Riots. With scaffolding and the roof addition in place, visiting history enthusiasts are already deprived of an opportunity to properly appreciate the old building, said Fern Luskin, lecturer of art and architectural history at LaGuardia Community College, who a member of Friends of the Hopper-Gibbons Underground Railroad Site and Lamartine Place Historic District, a group of local activists leading the push to protect the structure.
“People come from other states to see this and that is what they see,” said Luskin. “They are not able to see the true history of the place because that is so dependent on the uniform cornice line.”
The DOB revoked the permit shortly before the building became a landmark because of the revelation that it cannot waive provisions of the city Multiple Dwelling Law (MDL), despite a longstanding practice of doing so, Mitzner notes. According to the City Charter, only the city Board of Standards and Appeals (BSA) can waive MDL provisions.
But that was not clear when his client applied for the permit, according to Mitzner, who told the judges that his client acted in good faith by pursuing the permit through DOB as others had done before. But using an invalidated permit as a pretense for circumventing the subsequent historical designation of a building was questioned by one judge on the panel — to which Mitzner said there was precedence through the case of a building on E. Sixth St., when a zoning law changed but a voided DOB permit was nonetheless reinstated.
The BSA and Manhattan Supreme Court Judge Eileen Rackower agreed that Mamounas would need LPC approval for the construction, Chelsea Now reported in Aug. 2013, resulting more than one year later in the current appellate case. But Mamounas has not acted in good faith, according to Julie Finch, who has led the preservation effort with Luskin. He defied a city order to remove the fifth floor addition and claimed on a self-certified application that the building already had five floors, she said in an email.
Mitzner maintains that the original permit remains relevant to his case. The issue of historical designation is beside the point, Mitzner told Chelsea Now in an interview.
“The way you correct the mistake DOB made is to go to BSA for (the waiver),” he said. “That’s what the board failed to do and why we’re here.”
If the appellate court reverses that decision, the historical integrity of the building will crumble, according to Jack L. Lester, attorney for Friends of the Hopper-Gibbons. Furthermore, the 2005 DOB permit was never valid and thus could not be reinstated in any form, Lester and a city attorney argued in court on Feb. 4.
“All we are asking the court to do is sustain what BSA has already done. Allow landmarks to review this, allow the historical importance of the buildings to be reviewed and then the owner still has the right to get his waivers and everything else from BSA,” Lester said.
Fundraising efforts last year aided the effort to oppose the construction. State Senator Brad Hoylman, Assemblymember Richard Gottfried and Councilmember Corey Johnson, according to Luskin. Gottfried also leveraged his neighborhood contacts to boost attendance at a July fundraiser, also attended by Johnson, that helped raise more than $10,000 for the effort, Luskin said.
But even if preservationists and the city eventually prevail in the current case, it could be years before the additional floor is removed and the roof restored to its original height, according to Lester.
L to R: Julie Finch, City Councilman Jumaane Williams, Assemblymember Richard Gottfried and State Senator Brad Hoylman were among the friends of Hopper Gibbons House who braved the cold at a Feb. 10, 2013 rally.
The roofline played an important role in the saga of Abigail Hopper-Gibbons and her family, who were outspoken supporters of slavery abolition and the embattled President Lincoln before and during the Civil War. These associations left them a target when mobs of white men, predominately Irish, rampaged through city streets for four days in July 1863 in response to the first-ever U.S. military draft.
They attacked free blacks in the city and resented a provision of the draft which allowed wealthy men to pay substitutes to serve in the military for them. Tensions were already running high between blacks and whites and among different social classes before the imposition of the draft, according to the Greenwich Village Society For Historical Preservation.
“Working class men were in direct competition for scarce jobs with African Americans, and the recently proclaimed Emancipation Proclamation further tied the war to the cause of slavery,” notes a July 2012 online report from the society.
On July 14, 1863, the rioters came to the Hopper-Gibbons House, broke down the door and ransacked the place. Two members of the family escaped the mob with help of a family friend who led them across the rooftops, down into a home at 355 W. 29th St. where a carriage waited outside, according to the 2009 Lamartine Place Historic District Designation Report.
Commemorating that day and the city’s mixed history with slavery is a religious calling as well for Finch — who, like Abigail Hopper-Gibbons, is a Quaker. She first learned of the preservation effort through the Fifteenth Street Monthly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends (15 Rutherford Place). But it’s another group of people who truly inspire her years of advocacy on behalf of the historical integrity of 339 W. 29th St.: the unknown slaves who escaped the South by following the North Star persevered despite the dangers.
“If they can do that and not give up, we [Luskin and I] are not going to give up in our efforts to get that illegally, secretively-built fifth floor torn down,” said Finch.
