By Andrew Berman, Executive Director,
Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation
Many Villagers still cannot believe their eyes when they gaze upon the triangular plot of land located between Greenwich Avenue and Seventh Avenue South, where an MTA vehicle yard once stood.
The new structure, a ventilation shaft for the subways which intersect underground here, seems like a mirage, a bad joke, or an inexplicably unfinished construction project.
But it is all too real. And the look is exactly as the MTA intended.
For those who haven’t seen it, the building is a three-and-a-half-story concrete structure which fills out all but the corner of this triangular site. The concrete itself is rudimentary and undifferentiated, but oddly, one corner of the building is partially covered in a two-and-a-half-story faux brick façade, complete with fake window openings, which looks like a cheap imitation of a more traditional brick row house. The base of the building is covered in chain link fencing.
Is this supposed to be some clever commentary on the artifice of design? Or some thought-provoking juxtaposition of domestic and industrial architecture?
Who knows what was in the mind of the MTA designers. But this structure is clearly one of the ugliest, least well-thought-out new buildings in New York, sadly located at a prominent intersection in one of the world’s most historic and charming neighborhoods. (It remains to be seen if the project’s only potential redeeming value, providing a permanent home on its chain link fencing for the “Tiles for America” 9-11 memorials previously found on the fence around the old MTA parking lot, will ever come to be.)
The situation has left many observers scratching their heads or cursing under their breath. “How could this happen in a landmark district?” many have asked.
Unfortunately, the MTA, a bi-state “authority,” is not subject to local landmarks regulations. So while designs like these are taken to the Landmarks Preservation Commission as a courtesy, they are not obligated to abide by the Commission’s wishes, nor do they need their permission to move ahead.
Thus persuasion was our only power here, and we tried hard to exercise it. When the MTA came before the community with their ideas for the design of the structure, the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation pushed back hard on the proposed design, urging the MTA to use an outside architect rather than relying on the in-house staff which came up with this and other sorely lacking ideas. And we were not alone; scores of neighbors, the community board, and elected officials all urged the MTA to re-think their design, and arrive at something more worthy of its surroundings.
But the MTA didn’t budge. The project was put on hold for a few years, and then the MTA simply began to proceed with work.
Some might question whether a ventilation shaft could ever really fit in or contribute to the streetscape at this location, but that’s letting the MTA off the hook too easy.
Just two blocks up Greenwich Avenue at West 13th Street is another utilitarian MTA structure, a 1931 substation. While the function is different, the exterior design needs are pretty similar. The building is also about three-and-a-half-stories tall, sits on an irregularly shaped lot at a prominent intersection (facing Jackson Square Park), it’s windowless, and requires thick, blank walls.
But unlike the Mulry Square Ventilation Shaft, the 13th Street substation is an impressive piece of art deco industrial architecture, which blends in with its surroundings while offering honest expression of its utilitarian function. Most passersby probably never notice it because it blends in so seamlessly; the building was even listed on the State and National Registers of Historic Places.
GVSHP urged the MTA to look towards buildings like this as a model; they refused.
Lest one thinks such aesthetic alchemy could only be performed in the early 20th century, look no further than West and Canal Streets. There, a similarly-sized, recently-built concrete Sanitation Department salt shed has drawn significant praise and been cited as a new local landmark. Using the same concrete material as the MTA vent shaft, the shed is a sculptural element that conjures up images of the snowdrifts its contents are employed to face. Love it or hate it, there was an entirely different level of thought and imagination employed with this design.
Even the MTA itself is clearly capable of better. Anyone who has seen new subway stations designed by the MTA at 34th Street and 11th Avenue, or Fulton Street in the Financial District, knows the agency is capable of thoughtful, engaging, even joyous designs—when it wants to be.
But not here. In the middle of Greenwich Village, the MTA retreated into the most banal, unimaginative, thoughtless design. Maybe a few decades from now, the shaft will no longer be necessary, and like another much-maligned intrusion into the neighborhood, the Women’s House of Detention on Sixth Avenue and 9th Street, will be demolished.
Until then though, we are going to have to look at this sadly missed opportunity, this insult to our neighborhood. Every building tells a story. This one will tell generations just how thoughtless and unimaginative the MTA can be. And how special, and not to be taken for granted, so much of our surroundings are.
