Noting a West Village ‘Annieversary’
It’s been many years since the sad saga began at the Annie Leibowitz properties in the West Village. The 1830s buildings, part of the Greenwich Village Historic District, are located at 755-57 Greenwich Street and 305-311 West 11th Street (and are now back on the market). It was October 11, 2002 when work (without a permit) performed at the internationally recognized photographer’s buildings at 755 and 757 Greenwich Street undermined a common wall with neighboring 311 West 11th Street. The wall shifted and a chimney collapsed in 311 West 11th Street, filling the house with gas. The Department of Buildings declared the building unsafe for occupancy, and the family which lived there was evacuated by fire and rescue personnel, forced to leave their home and all their possessions inside. In a settlement of a lawsuit with the affected neighbor, Leibovitz eventually purchased the third damaged house.
After the construction accident, Leibovitz took years to make repairs to the damaged trio of buildings, during which time the fragile structures deteriorated even further and trash and rodent problems spread to nearby buildings. Yet the celebrity owner received no more than a slap on the wrist (two $500 fines) for the dangerous illegal work which resulted in these conditions and for the failure to restore the buildings expeditiously.
GVSHP doggedly pursued getting necessary repairs made to the properties to prevent further damage to them, holding a protest in front of the properties on October 7, 2003 to pressure Leibovitz on the one year anniversary of the illegal work and destruction. GVSHP also revealed that the city’s Landmarks Preservation Commission may have allowed inappropriate changes to these buildings as part of the restoration. Without the required public hearings, LPC approved the addition of a new doorway and stoop, the creation of new windows, the alteration of an original wrought-iron fence, and the insertion of a new areaway. Additionally, the irreplaceable original bricks on the buildings’ facades were replaced with new bricks, destroying the protected original historic fabric of the building. Though the buildings have since been stabilized and renovated (and stripped of much of their original historic detail), the three properties serve as a reminder of what can go wrong when fragile historic resources that are supposed to be protected by multiple city agencies literally fall through the cracks — resulting in reconstructions that bit by bit erase our city’s historic integrity.
