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Save Chelsea Market — Hearing tonight, and history

Those wanting to fight the plan to build massive additions atop the historic Chelsea Market complex might be interested in an important community meeting tonight, and some history about this unique set of buildings.

Chelsea Market with proposed 10th Avenue additions.

A coalition of community groups is urging the public to turn out for the full Community Board #4 meeting tonight beginning at 6:30 pm at the Fulton Center, 119 9th Avenue (btw. 17th and 18th Streets) and to sign up to speak during the public session to state your opposition to the Jamestown rezoning plan for Chelsea Market which would allow the construction of massive hotel and commercial additions atop the complex on 9th and 10th Avenues.  Those interested in finding out more about the effort can also join the Save Chelsea Market facebook group.

GVSHP has gotten involved in this fight because the Chelsea Market complex lies at the northern end of the Gansevoort Market Historic District which we proposed for NYC landmark designation in 2001 and which we got listed on the State and National Register of Historic Places in 2007 (the City removed Chelsea Market and a few other buildings at the northern end of the proposed district from the district they designated in 2003).

The complex was built over several decades for the National Biscuit Company (Nabisco), and was part of their larger holdings in the area which also included the factory on West Street between Bethune and West 12th Streets (demolished in 2006 to make way for luxury condos), which in its later years had been known for its final occupant, Superior Inks, but which was also originally built for the giant baking company.

The Superior Inks factory, formerly Nabisco factory, in 2005.

If you’re interested in more of the history of the Chelsea Market complex and the surrounding Gansevoort Market neighborhood, go to GVSHP’s “Resources” page, click on “designation reports“, then “historic districts”, and go to Gansevoort Market.  There you will find links to GVSHP’s nomination of Gansevoort Market to the State and National Register of Historic Places (information on Chelsea Market begins on pages 37 and 61), photos of the Gansevoort Market State and National Register Historic District (Chelsea Market images are on p.1, 2, and 6).  Find out more about the Gansevoort Market neighborhood by going to our Preservation page, and under “Large Scale Initiatives” click on  Gansevoort Market.

Cheslea Market and 15th Street bridge.

2 responses to “Save Chelsea Market — Hearing tonight, and history

  1. Jamestown Properties, a corporation based in Atlanta with no serious New York connections, bought Chelsea Market about five years ago and has been milking it for profits ever since. Everyone has noticed the shift from a useful place for neighbors to shop into a destination for tourists, and from wholesale food places to cute little shops. The biggest outrage was Anthropologie. The place has begun to look like a suburban mall decked out for Christmas.

    The new proposal will put a big hotel on Ninth Avenue, which means more taxi cabs and congestion. This adds to the one thousand hotel rooms that have opened in the neighborhood in the last few years.

    Enough is enough!

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