Columbia study calls preservation key to Lower Manhattan revival

Real Estate Weekly, April 3, 1996

Lower Manhattan is in trouble because it doesn't have enough businesses, residents or visitors, a new study by graduate students at Columbia University concludes. And it lacks both an appreciation of its architectural greatness and the grass-roots drive to save itself, the students say.

To become a vital, booming district again, the study says, Downtown must become an official historic district, change its building and zoning laws, tame short-sighted speculative real estate interests, educate its property owners, raise money, fix its parks and waterfront, rehabilitate its subway and ferry stations and promote its attractions, all within the binding force of preservation.

The study, titled "Reviving Lower Manhattan: Preserving the Past to Ensure the Future," was released last Friday, accompanied by talks by such well-known architects, planners and scholars as Robert A.M. Stern, Andrew S. Dolkart, Carl Weisbrod, Saskia Sassen, and Richard L. Schaffer, most of whom teach in Columbia's Graduate School of Architecture Planning and Preservation. The 34 student who produced the nine-month study are members of the school's historic preservation program. Carol Clark, executive director of the New York chapter of the American Institute of Architects and an adjunct professor at Columbia, led the students in their work.

"Proposals for Downtown s revitalization have failed to address the real issue," the study states, "a lack of concern for Lower Manhattan's past and for the architectural and cultural treasures that have come from three hundred years of commercial growth. "

"There is a serious possibility that Lower Manhattan will no longer thrive and that unsympathetic physical changes will obliterate some of the finest of the historic buildings in New York City," the study warns. This "rich but aging building stock is virtually unprotected" and its vitality is being "sapped by high vacancy rates and lack of investment," the study states.

The study criticizes city and state efforts to revive the area as a "quick-fix approach, stimulating speculative and rehabilitation activity with financial incentives, to be sure, but failing to instill in New Yorkers the desire to preserve and care for their buildings. "

"The goal of preservation is not to stop progress, not to freeze a moment in time for future generations to reminisce over, but to stimulate a level of economic growth that can make use of historic resources to stabilize and enrich the community," the Columbia students note.

Their study urges that Lower Manhattan be designated both a federal and a city historic district, which are needed to provide guidelines for transformation into a thriving mixed-use community. At present, the city's Landmarks Preservation Commission has named only three small districts in the area: South Street Seaport, the Fraunces Tavern Block and the African Burial Ground and Commons at City Hall Park. In the area, which includes the Civic Center and everything south of Chambers Street and the Brooklyn Bridge, only 40 of 181 significant buildings and 49 interiors identified by the students as worth saving are now landmarked. "The designation of a Lower Manhattan National Register District would increase tourism and offer tax incentives for rehabilitation work," the students say. "The more rigorous city designation [a City Historic District] would have a direct and stabilizing influence on the real estate market, eliminating the intense speculation that superficially inflates land values and endangers the future of smaller buildings."

Without such designations, the study says, "economic rebirth and the possibility of building re-use is entirely dependent on the erratic trends of the real estate market." A new Downtown Historical Society and other grass-roots organizations should take the lead in encouraging federal and city action, the study concludes.

In legislation, new building regulations should be introduced, the students say. All commercial rehabilitation work is now eligible for tax abatement, but a new incentive program does not distinguish between preservation-conscious and other unregulated work, according to the study. "It is essential that the city provide more restrictive measures if significant features of Lower Manhattan's buildings are to be retained," the report says. "The city should target specific areas for residential conversion and attempt to attract small business to the core in order to preserve its business character. Conversions should be permitted only in buildings outside the Financial Core, and even then only in buildings whose scale and type invite residential use. "

To promote rehabilitation, a revolving fund should be created from a variety of public and private sources, the report recommends. And tourism should be promoted. Walking tours should be expanded from geographical to theme excursions: The Crooked Streets of New Amsterdam; Wall Street: Banker to the World; and Broadway, Canyon of Heroes, are some suggestions.