GVSHP just found out that tonight Community Board #2′s Landmarks Committee will be hearing a proposal by the owner of 675 Hudson Street to legalize the illegal south-facing billboard on the rooftop of this building. This is one of many billboards in the Meatpacking District which GVSHP and many neighbors have been fighting. While the north-facing billboard on the building is considered legal because it was permitted before the Gansevoort Market Historic District was approved, the south facing billboard was added later without permits. This is one of several illegal billboards in the neighborhood which Hotel Gansevoort owner Michael Achenbaum pointed to as reason for why his billboards shouldn’t be singled out; in fact, GVSHP has been fighting this, and many other billboards in the area, since they appeared.

GVSHP has already gotten this billboard served with violation notices from the City. The owner can apply to the Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) to “legalize” the billboard. We think it’s important that the LPC be urged NOT to legalize the billboard, especially as illegal billboards are so rapidly proliferating in the Meatpacking District.

Community Board #2′s Landmarks Committee will hear this item tonight at 6:30 in the cafeteria at St. Vincent’s Hospital, 170 W. 12th Street. It is currently scheduled to be the 2nd item on the agenda. While the applicant or a representative usually appears at these hearings, it is not uncommon for applicants for legalizations not to show up. Also please know that the Community Board’s vote is only advisory (though it is given weight by the LPC), and that the Community Board is usually pretty sympathetic to our cause on these issues. GVSHP will be there to oppose the application, and will let you know when it comes before the LPC for a vote. However, you can also come to the Community Board meeting tonight to express your opposition to the legalization of the billboard. If you expect to attend, please just let us know (Melissa Baldock will be there for GVSHP), and we will keep you posted of the progress on this.

Best,

Andrew Berman, Executive Director
Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation
212/475-9585 x38
232 East 11th Street
New York, NY 10003

we are currently looking into the garden of ono at the gansevoort hotel and it’s illeagel entrance on hudson street, (by law all should enter through the restaurant on 13th street).
i am a big supporter of protesting the billboards, they are still not at the legal angle and that cost’s michael ackerman and the wagner group a lot of money to move them to the legal 90 degree angle they should be at.

Case-in-point: In May of ’05, almost exactly two years ago, the emails were flying to rally folk to attend a CB2 meeting to testify against PM Lounge so that they would be denied a sidewalk cafe application.

Now, emails are flying to rally folk to attend a CB2 meeting to testify against PM Lounge so that they will be denied a liquor license application in a new space across the street. Really, I could just re-post the old blog post, and replace SIDEWALK with LIQUOR and Monday, May 9 with Tuesday April 10. (you can get a history of some of this blog’s posts about PM Lounge by clicking “PM Lounge” in the ‘tags’ listed at the bottom of this post – nifty, huh?)

In all seriousness, however, this is a bit different. This time, PM Lounge (as part of a group called AM Operation Group, LLC – oh the witty wordsmiths) is applying for a liquor license at the space across the street, occuped by SASHA (53 Gansevoort Street) … Revoking a liquor license, well, that’s almost impossible but if you are one of the many who calls 311 repeatedly about noise levels at PM Lounge, here’s an even better place to make yourself heard. Bring your log of complaints to 311, your letters to local politicians, your letters to management, bring it all, and get a chance to testify.

The application is to be reviewed by CB 2 Business committee at a hearing Tuesday evening April 10 at 6:30 at Tony D’Apolito Recreation Center ..3 Clarkson St. THIRD FLOOR (It’s near Carmine and Seventh Ave South).

As an interesting comparison, it’s much easier to report on the Hotel G’s various (truly creative) skirmishes with the nieghborhood. First there was the contention that the site of the hotel was the original site for the water tunnel construction, which instead took over Seravalli playground; then there was the (no adjective necessary) design of the hotel; then the noise problems, first with music blaring from the roof; then the whirring sound of an airplane engine emanating from the hotel restaurant ventilation system. And now, of course, now we have their illegal, horrid billboard. I really wonder what’s next for them. Nothing horrid has appeared on the sidewalks out front. Perhaps they’ll accidentally defile the sidewalk next?

Once the lights go up on Hotel Gansevoort’s monstrous billboards we won’t even be spared during the dark months of winter….

Pastis

Lotus

5 Ninth

Florent

The Inn at Little West 12th Street

Cafe Cluny

The Waverly Inn

Spice Market

The Spotted Pig

“ refusing to take reservations from the the Hotel Gansevoort to protest the towering inn’s gargantuan billboards on Hudson Street. “The hotel benefits from the aesthetic and the character of the Village. Why detract from this by building a trashy, highway-sized billboard?” said Pastis owner Keith McNally. “

Standing on Hudson Street, I photographed 6 visible billboards. 6 BILLBOARDS!!! And that doesn’t count the two new ones at the Hotel. What’s up? Are we Times Square? Aren’t these streets designated historic districts? Please, please, please, I don’t want to be Times Square. Despite everything negative I have ever said about offal (offal: viscera and trimmings of a butchered animal often considered inedible by humans), I just want the meat-packers back. They would never approve of billboards.

Ok, maybe not, but still.

Ugh, not only are they erecting a hideously ugly billboard, but the billboard base has now taken the space where Hotel Gansevoort used to keep their trash, so now we have to walk by their massive loads of trash heaped on the sidewalk every day. Aren’t there rules about where and how you can store your trash? Rules intended to create a safe community with better quality of life?