The Daily Ramble: The Greyston Development in Yonkers
We Yonkers residents have a love hate relationship with development. We love the idea of improving our neighborhoods, but we hate the process. While development is a tortured process in any big city, it just seems to be worse here. Faction after faction, pander and pander some more is the rule of the day. Yonkers is blessed and cursed with a marvelous history, as well as many areas, including big parts of downtown, that are as they were when Dolly Levi got off the train in Yonkers and fell in love with Horace Vandergelder.
In the downtown area we have several developments in various stages, most notably Cappelli’s multi-billion dollar project to construct a ball park, retail and residential hotel on Chicken Island. Then there is the Alexander Street development, which is currently on hold.
Thirdly we have Greyston’s project to build workforce housing in a new building, located in a recently designated Historic District by Phillipse Manor Hall, perhaps Yonkers most well know 18th Century (or is it 17th Century?)building. There is a strip of architecturally distinct, yet decrepit buildings whose future is in doubt, because if they had their druthers, Greyston would rip them down. Instead, the city wants at least the facades preserved. The real issue is the ugly 12 story building that the developer wants to construct over the existing low rise properties. The downtown has become very sensitive to view blockage given the fighting over the blockage over Hudson River views.
Enter the Yonkers Landmarks Preservation Board. the Board’s purpose is noble, and in general I support it. I am a firm believer in historic preservation, with an eye towards sensitive adaptive reuse of obsolete product. We all know about South Street Seaport, Portland Maine (see below), and Boston. All of these cities have embraced their heritage and made parts of their downtowns not museums to the past, but vibrant neighborhoods with people, shopping restaurants and history.
Tonight there was a Real Estate Committee meeting televised, and it was obvious that the City Council and the Developer are a bit peeved at the LPB. There are as many opinions as there are members, and there appears to be a lack of direction internally, as well as in the form of feedback and/or direction to the developer. Until now, it has been pointed out, the LPB has been primarily concerned with the Cedar Knolls Historic District, an area of upscale homes on the East side of Yonkers. One could argue that this deal is a bit over their heads, although they are rapidly getting it together.
My City Councilman, John Murtagh wrote the following opinion which was published by the Journal News today:
Yonkers must preserve heritage while improving downtown
John M. Murtagh
In decades past, as local cities like White Plains and Stamford, Conn., remade themselves during earlier development booms, the City of Yonkers repeatedly missed its opportunity. While other aging downtowns throughout the region became shopping and office destinations, Yonkers, naturally blessed with a breathtaking waterfront and proximity to Manhattan, nonetheless remained stagnant. Today, however, our waterfront has been remade and developers continue to plan a downtown renaissance despite the challenges now presented by recent economic turmoil.
Still, it was once remarked to me that Yonkers had one advantage precisely because it had missed earlier building booms; simply put, we had never bulldozed our history. Now, as our downtown is finally reborn, we have the opportunity not only to continue to protect that history, but, indeed, to make that history a centerpiece of the new Yonkers. The first test of whether this will happen is now being played out before the Yonkers Landmarks Board. The decisions made in the coming weeks and months with regard to the Philipse Manor Historic District will determine how Yonkers redevelops, and whether its elected and appointed officials are prepared to protect the rich and vibrant history that the downtown contains.
The district was created by the Yonkers City Council just a year ago. Across the street from Philipse Manor Hall, a National Historic site dating to 1682, the district is bordered by Wells Street, Warburton Avenue and North Broadway. The site is surrounded by additional buildings of similar historical and architectural importance along Warburton and North Broadway. The site contains an unbroken line of 13 buildings offering distinctive representations of Italianate, Renaissance-revival, Queen Anne, Romanesque-revival, and Beaux Arts styles. One of the buildings is the work of the prominent Yonkers architectural firm of Edwin A. Quick & Son (also the architects of Yonkers City Hall). Another was once a hotel, later still Yonkers first police headquarters and, during the Civil War, a jail used to hold Confederate prisoners during transport. The remains of the 19th century cells are still observable in the basement.
Philipse Manor Hall, sitting just across Warburton Avenue, was itself the seat of the loyalist Philipse family until Revolutionary times, was later Yonkers first city hall, and at various times played host to the likes of George Washington and John Jay.
Although the buildings in the district are in disrepair due to years of neglect, most of the original detail remains intact. Yet, all of this history, and the opportunity to create a flourishing historic district, are now threatened by plans for a 12-story condominium tower proposed by the Greyston Foundation, the major property owner in the district. Greyston’s laudable goal is to create affordable home ownership opportunities for Yonkers’ work force. However, under Greyston’s plan, all but the front façades of its buildings would fall to the wrecking ball in order to make room for a five-story parking garage. In effect, the proposal is to turn this row of 19th-century buildings into the front wall of a brand new parking structure with the original windows backed up by faux backdrops designed to hide the cars parked behind.
Greyston reasons that its project is not economically viable if the buildings aren’t razed. Parking mandated by the City Code, it argues, make it impossible to build unless the historic buildings are demolished. My council colleagues have pledged to take a hard look at how the parking requirements might be changed to make the project work. This is a good first step, but it cannot be the last. The Landmarks Board, the council and the administration must dedicate themselves to preserving this history. Most communities would consider it a blessing to have such significant history to preserve and embrace the opportunity to do so.
The Landmarks Board, which will have the final say, has taken a strong stand in favor of safeguarding Yonkers’ heritage. Nevertheless, pressure will mount for the board not to “stand in the way of progress.” It is critical, therefore, that board members, all of them citizen-volunteers, know that they have the backing of concerned citizens and elected officials. Certainly Yonkers must find a way to create the kind of workforce housing Greystonproposes, but the opportunity to take the history-filled streets of the waterfront and make them a vibrant district akin to the Old Port in Portland, Maine, Market Square and the historic downtown in Portsmouth, N.H., or even New York’s South Street Seaport is a rare opportunity that we cannot afford to squander.
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John is right. There has to be balance. Yonkers does have a rich heritage that should be embraced, preserved and adaptively reused for 21st century purposes.
Does that mean no development? Of course not.
Does that mean rip it all down and start with a clean slate? No way!
John made a point of mentioning Old Port in Portland Maine. I was there on business a number of years ago, and had a chance to walk around. It really is great. South Street Seaport comes to mind as well. Most older cities have extensive waterfronts, simply because that is how commerce was done until the 20th century. In so many municipalities these areas, always commercial and industrial, were left to rot. Today, this land is worth millions.
Yonkers is big enough, and has enough available land and obsolete property to allow Greyston to build their needed project elsewhere. This is simply not the place. We are already ripping up a lot of the downtown for Cappelli’s development as well as others. There is an historic district that preserves what we have, and encourage the fix up and reuse of old buildings. We have to use that right. Yes, these buildings are old and decrepit. Yet so were the ones in South Street that now have expensive shops. I am sad to say that those who only see old ‘derelict” buildings really do not see the point. They may not have a particular interest in history, and that is fine too. But that does not mean they are right.
The mentality in Yonkers ‘we own the land so we can build what we want without regard to the area” is one of the many mistakes that have led us to where we are today as a city.
Personally I think this is the wrong place for this development. There are many opportunities in Yonkers that are better suited, and still have convenience to downtown. Yonkers needs a Master Plan!
What do you think?
