127 & 136 W 123 Are Adding Floors

A year or so the Mount Morris Park Community Improvement Association began work to try to get the blocks between Lenox and Adam Clayton Powell landmarked. Currently they’re recognized by the National Register of Historic Places, but not by NYC’s Landmark Preservation Committee.

mount morris historic district map with extension shown

The gray area is the part that’s landmarked, the blue area is on the National Register, but not landmarked – that’s the part MMPCIA has been working to get landmarked.

Well, on our block it’s a bit too late… Two buildings on the block are adding stories – something they wouldn’t be allowed to do if they were landmarked. The two buildings are 127 West 123 and 136 West 123. I’m fine with 127 adding a floor, but I’m really disappointed to see 136 add a floor…

127 West 123rd Street

127 West 123rd Street is one of two old townhouses that are sandwiched between the two halves of the Windows on 123 condos. Windows on 123 maxes out the possible building height and sorta dwarfs the townhouses. So from my perspective it’s not horrible that floors are added to the townhouses… Here’s a photo right after they started adding the floor…

127 west 123rd street

I wish they had set the extra floor back a little, but given what it’s up against, it’s not horrible… Here it is again as a 3D drawing…

127 w 123 3D drawingActually, I’m a little surprised 75′ is the max height on a 60′ wide street – but that is what it is…

136 West 123rd Street

In contrast to 127, 136 West 123rd Street is one of 16 continuous brownstones that have not been altered. Adding a floor to it is a much bigger deal since it breaks something that still has the potential to be pristine…

Brownstones on West 123rd Street between Lenox and Adam Clayton Powell

I’m really disappointed that the view you see above is going to be marred by an extra story on top of one of those buildings. Not only are they going up a floor, but they’re pushing the back wall back to the maximum 65 feet with the minimum 30 foot rear yard…

136 west 123 street 3D drawingIf we had been landmarked LPC could have mandated that the additional floor be set back far enough that it not be visible from the street. At least there’s some set back (6′ 6″), but a 10 or 15 foot setback would have been so much nicer.

As sort of a side note, 136 W 123 was for many years the neighborhood hangout – mostly older (Belizian?) guys with who were pretty big into music. (We even bought a couple CDs off one of the guys – and they weren’t bad). There used to be a social club in the ground floor which had it’s ups and downs. The guy who lives behind them on 122nd Street still has a bullet hole in his window thanks to that club. When the club closed they just moved their socializing onto the stoop. They’re generally good guys, but their hanging out got pretty loud. Just the other day one of the neighbors I “met” due to the RCN incident told me she got only 4 hours of sleep a night during the summer because they were so loud. So 136 being renovated will really change the block since it was one of the remaining centers of the old culture on the block.

Back when MMPCIA started their push to get the blocks between Lenox and ACP landmarked, I wasn’t so keen on the idea. I still don’t think landmarking is warranted for the north side of our street which already feels like it has three zilliion styles of architecture. But as I thought about it, the unbroken row of 16 brownstones on the south side of the street was worth protecting – but once 136 gets rehabbed, that purity will be gone. We can never go back to what it used to look like.

The architect seems like he’s got it in him to do a decent job. I just hope his client is spending the money to execute a good design. If we’re going to have a visible addition marring the view – please, just let it be fairly well designed.

UPDATE:

I went to see the Windows on 123 lofts yesterday and looking down I could see that there were already additional floors added to some of the brownstones on the south side of the street. Here you can see that 132 West 123 has an extra floor added already…

132 West 123 additional floor added

That’s a rather large amount of “stuff” that was added and it’s fairly close to the edge – yet it’s not readily visible from the street, so I’m hopeful that the additional roof on 136 won’t be visible either. [136 is the one two doors down with the blue tarp.]

152 West 123 also has an extra floor, but it’s stepped back further and features a bigger/nicer roof deck off what I assume is the master bedroom…

123rd street roofs

I just find it really odd that they had the money to add an extra floor, but not enough to restore their cornice.

[In the picture above you can see our bulkhead in the distance. It looks pretty small compared to everything else…]

So seeing that there are already several with extra roofs added, I’m far less worried about roofs being added – though I’m hoping none get added on 122 that would block our view 🙂

Yesterday’s Big Purchase – Balusters

We’ve been going back and forth on whether to get new ironwork cast for the stoop or buy old stuff and restore it. Unfortunately we’ve put it off so long there isn’t time for new any more (the lead time is months, not weeks). So yesterday we went to Demolition Depot and got 11 balusters…

The ones with peeling yellow paint are an exact match to what was on our house. The brown ones are the same except in one little detail.

Turns out Demolition Depot also has a newel post that’s very similar to the ones originally on our house. This is what ours looked liked…

Our Stoop 1940We know from looking at our older, cousin townhouses on 127th, that ours probably had a finial at the top which was missing by 1940…

127th Street Newel Posts

Now compare those to what Demolition Depot has…

Not exactly the same, but very similar. Problem is, it’s not for sale – they’ll only rent it out for castings (@ $2,500/week!!!) Still, I’d LOVE to have a reproduction of something that’s even close to what was there originally – though we may just settle for masonry/stucco newel posts.

What we absolutely need to find are railings. We have most of one side, but the top of one side and all of the other side are missing. If anyone knows where we might find railing, please let me know – jay@beatingupwind.com

Don’t Trash Your Townhouse’s Original Details

old green door frameFriends are about to start renovations on their South Harlem brownstone. Their place is a total wreck and there aren’t enough original details to warrant a renovation with a traditional aesthetic. Still, there are some original details left and instead of just throwing them out they let Demolition Depot come in and rescue what could be rescued – mostly door and window moldings…

Demolition Depot is giving our friends a small store credit with which they hope to buy an “original” front door. Mind you, to actually use whats being rescued you’d need to strip 100 years of lead-based paint – so there’s a reason why the store credit isn’t all that large.

Below is one of the window frames Demolition Depot took out. It’s not all that special (I wonder why they wanted it), but some of the woodwork on the parlor floor was pretty cool and more interesting.

old green window frame

One item Demolition Depot discovered were pocket doors on the parlor floor that our friends didn’t realize were there. I was there when they were taking them out…

pocket doors being removed

Our friends are now thinking they may use those doors as their front doors…

So if you’re doing demolition, don’t just throw everything in a dumpster – if you let a salvage yard rescue what details you have left, it may come in really handy to one of your neighbors. For example we got our front doors from Demolition Depot, and we’ll probably get a bunch of stoop ironwork from them as well.

Our Cornice Is Now Restored

While it’s been a rough week with the two robberies and having to sleep at the house in the freezing cold to prevent more robberies, one thing did get completed this week and it looks great – the cornice.

Restored cornice on Harlem brownstone

As you can see, we went with black. Also, the portion of the top floor to the right has been painted – that’s the final version – it looks good, and the color Dan picked goes well with the window color. But we need to get the Bird-X spikes up there quickly before it’s covered in bird droppings.

It wasn’t easy for the guys to fix the cornice. Everything they touched just seemed to disintegrate when the touched it. Here’s what it looked like before…

Crumbling cornice on Harlem TownhouseIn the end it doesn’t look new – there are imperfections in it. But we like the imperfections – it looks like an original cornice that’s in decent shape, which is exactly how it should look…

There’s warm weather this coming week, so hopefully the façade will get done in the next few days. The stoop is getting a scratch and resurface rather than a painting. I think the goal is to get the scratch coat on this week.

UPDATE:

Dan pointed out to me that the cornice isn’t actually black – it’s a dark bronze color that’s so dark it’s almost black. Here you can see it in comparison to the true black cornice two doors down.

cornicesI sorta like the almost black, but not quite, quality of it. You can see the difference a bit better in person – but even then it can fool you, like it did me the first time I saw it.

Stripping Old Doors Surprisingly Simple

A number of things have been going on recently… The windows should all be installed by the end of the week. The electrician is fixing things up in preparation for closing up the walls, etc. But the new and interesting thing is that work on restoring the old doors we bought from Demolition Depot is starting – and the process of stripping off 130 years of paint was surprisingly easy.

Yesterday the guy put on a thick paste (Peel Away brand) and then covered it with plastic…

Putting on a thick paste to remove paint from old doorsToday he took off the plastic and was able to remove all the old paint in one fell swoop. It was basically just a mush that came right off without much of a problem…

Old doors after one pass at stripping 130 years of paintI think they look great for just one pass at getting rid of paint. Looks like they’re probably mahogany, which is cool. They’ll need a bunch of patchwork, so a simple stain is out of the question. Looks like we’ll use a “solid stain” – whatever that means. Dan’s picking the color – we’ll probably make them a dark dark brown – almost black. Though we’re also contemplating having them be black.