Work on a landmark office tower on Fifth Avenue will remain halted under a judge’s order filed in a lawsuit challenging renovations to the structure, the former Manufacturers Trust Company building, at 510 Fifth Avenue, at 43rd Street. New York City had filed a motion to dismiss a lawsuit by preservationists who charged that the owner of the building, Vornado Realty Trust, disregarded restrictions intended to protect the interior. But Justice Lucy A. Billings of State Supreme Court in Manhattan denied that motion last week and converted the temporary restraining order she issued last month into a preliminary injunction. It bans Vornado from doing additional work on the site until she considers the merits of the case.
Preservationists consider the building — a former bank designed by Gordon Bunshaft of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill — a model of Modernism. The building’s transparent interior was designated a landmark in February. But two months later the city’s Landmarks Preservation Commission allowed Vornado to change some of the elements in reconfiguring the space for a clothing store, Joe Fresh.
The lawsuit was filed by the Citizens Emergency Committee to Preserve Preservation and other parties. The city had argued that the plaintiffs did not have legal standing. “We respectfully disagree with the court’s conclusion to the contrary,” said Gabriel Taussig, chief of the administrative law division for the city’s Law Department. “We’re considering our options whether to seek to appeal on that issue now or preserve it for possible assertion at a later time.”