A Stitch in Haste

Time for me to gripe again about the Landmarks Preservation Commission:

The Landmarks Preservation Commission will hear a proposal today from the MTA and the owner of the "Honest Boy" fruit stand at the corner of Broadway and Houston in SoHo, Pan Gi Lee, to allow the construction of a two-story glass, steel, and aluminum building. The new structure, which would incorporate one of the entrances to the Broadway and Lafayette subway station, has been submitted to the commission for an advisory opinion because it would sit within the SoHo cast iron historic district.

It's bad enough that the LPC is out of control, declaring patently unimportant structures "historic landmarks" for no other reason than because, well, it's the raison d'être of the LPC to declare landmarks -- so where there are not enough "landmarks" to be found, the LPC simply invents them.

But now we also have the added gobbledygook of the "Historic District." If you visit New York City, you'll always know when you're in such a District by the brown (rather than green) street signs. And you will find them everywhere -- see generally, "the LPC simply invents them."

You have a subway station that is in no way historic or a landmark. You have a rickety old fruit shack. You have a plan to build a nice, aesthetic structure, increasing commerce in the process.

And you need the permission of a gaggle of unelected patronage appointees, not because any worthy structure is at stake, but because they have been granted central planner authority over an entire district?

Lovely.

More:

With the neighborhood exploding with shoppers and luxury, glass-encased apartments and boutique hotels, some locals said they would miss the old rickety stand.

And so everybody else, all the people who are not mentally questionable clods who enjoy dilapidation, have to suffer as a result?

Lovelier.

Still more:

Yesterday, the local Community Board 2 submitted a request to the Landmarks Commission that the proposal be denied and "something better built."

Clash of the unelected would-be central planners! Whoever wins -- we lose.

(Via Gothamist, which has a small picture of the shack in question.)