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14-16 Gay Street Design Plans Revealed
Building the Neighborhood’s Future
By Brian J Pape, AIA, LEED-AP
This photo shows the gap where 14 & 16 Gay Street, 197-year antique historic structures, were destroyed by unpermitted construction work. In the backyard, the properties connect to Christopher Street properties also getting renovated. Credit: Brian J. Pape, AIA.
What began as a routine construction permit for two of the oldest landmarked rowhouses in Manhattan soon turned into a full-fledged historic preservation disaster.
Celeste Martin, who died in December 2018 at a disputed age of 80 or perhaps the 90s, had holdings that included six connected, landmarked buildings on Christopher and Gay Streets that involve two retail stores and 31 apartments, of which 28 were rent-stabilized. She also owned two townhouses on Waverly Place nearby.
The eight townhouses owned by Martin may have been valued at $25 million, but they were all in a state of disrepair, overwhelmingly rent-regulated, and the subject of more than $1 million in combined unpaid property taxes and city building violations, according to court filings. The properties became the responsibility of the cit
For almost 200 years, the two little row houses clung together on Homosexual Street—one of those slender hideaway lanes in Greenwich Village that buck the city street grid.
Number 14 was built first, in 1827. Its original owner was a plow manufacturer named Curtis Hitchcock, according to the Greenwich Village Landmarks Preservation Commission designation report from 1969.
A year later, Number 16 went up next door, along with the rest of a row of three-story modest houses on the west side of the street. These tidy, low-stooped homes were occupied by the families of Recent York’s merchant class: petite manufacturers like Hitchcock, as well as shop owners and artisans.
For the next two centuries, the two houses stood witness to Gay Street’s transformation from a one-block lane of middle-class houses to a shabbier African-American and immigrant enclave (third image, 1894) to a slice of the Bohemian Village, dwelling to speakeasies, artists, and authors. (Above, photographed in 1937 by Berenice Abbott)
One of those authors was Ruth McKenney, whose writings about living with her sister, Eileen, in a basement apartment at Number 14 in the 1930s were the basis of the 1953 mov
Village Preservation has been battling for years to get the City to obtain action to shield five fragile, jointly owned, 200-year-old houses at 14-18 Homosexual Street and 16-20 Christopher Street, and to hold the owner responsible for the conditions and damage done there. The houses (briefly owned by the City itself) possess been in worsening conditions for years, and in delayed 2022 illegal operate at 14 Lgbtq+ Street (the former home of author Ruth McKenna, which inspired and was where she wrote My Sister Eileen, which later became Wonderful Town) led to the building’s destruction and demolition. Village Preservation has demanded that the City reform its system of oversight which led to the destruction of these and so many other historic properties, and that the responsible parties be held to account and a message sent that such actions will be severely penalized and strongly disincentivized.
However, following a recent meeting with the NYC Department of Buildings and the NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) arranged by Councilmember Erik Bottcher, we learned just the contrary was happening. The City agencies confirmed that there will be virtually no penalties for any re