Plans Rethought for Old buildings of Distinction

The city has decided, at least for the time being, not to devote any funds toward refurbishing two old, architecturally distinguished buildings it owns just north of City Hall.

The decision—plus the city's continued interest in demolishing the old Tweed Courthouse adjacent to City Hall—is ad hoc, not part of a master plan. So is recent consensus city officials have reached to try to purchase 250 Broadway, an 11‐year‐old, 28‐story, glass office tower in which the city already rents 60 per cent of the space. But such independent decisions have taken on added importance since the vast over‐all plan to redevelop the Civic Center, long delayed in controversy, appears now to have become victim of the bad economy.

The ambitious plan, which called for the demolition of blocks of buildings above Chambers Street and the erection of 52‐story tower designed by Edward Durell Stone in the middle of the vast, formal plaza, is “not legally dead, but not awakened from its slumbers,” according to Municipal Services Administrator John T. Carroll.

‘They Don't Fit’

But since the plan, in Mr. Carroll's words, “is not legally buried,” the city has decided not to invest any funds in rehabilitating 280 Broadway, the AngloItaliante structure that formerly housed The New York Sun, Wand 51 Chambers Street, the ornate Beaux‐Arts building next door.

Both structures passed into city ownership when their sites were condemned for the Stone‐designed tower in 1966, and they now mostly house city offices.

Mr. Carroll said that they are being used only on an “interim” basis. “They do not fit into any plan, and so the city has no intention of refurbishing them at this time,” he said.

Both buildings are of architectural quality. The white marble Sun Building at 280 Broadway, originally built in 1846 as the A. T. Stewart Store, was the very first commercial building in the nation to use the Italianate style, which was to become the standard mid‐19th‐century style for hundreds of other local buildings. Designed by John B. Snook and Joseph Trench, it has the air of a small palazzo, its marble facade in deliberate deference to nearby City Hall.

The 51 Chambers Street building, designed by Raymond F. Almirall, was completed in 1913 for the Emigrant Savings Bank. Its majestic Renaissance hall on the first floor, considered to be one of the city's truly great banking rooms, is now used by the city as a bureau for parkingticket payments.

Since the Stone plan—renderings of which still decorate corridors In the Municipal Services Administration offices at the Municipal Building—has become a casualty of the economy, the future of the Civic Center area remains as uncertain as ever.

Mayor Beame appointed a Civic Center Task Force in March, 1974, to coordinate planning in the area, and while the task force has issued no public statements, there are several factors relating to the area besides the decision to buy 250 Broadway and the apparent decision not to rehabilitate the older buildings. These include:

¶Dernolition is expected to be completed on a square block above Duane Street, which also was part of the Stone tower site, with the block apparently being devoted to a parking facility.

¶The Municipal Building has been cleaned and its interior will soon be renovated.

¶The idea of an annex behind City Hall, proposed by the task force, is understood to have been abandoned in favor of using office space at 250 Broadway. But the Tweed Courthouse behind City Hall, which occupies the site of the annex, is likely to be demolished anyway, despite the fight waged on its behalf by many architects, planners and buffs.

Still Without Plan

The city is still without a comprehensive plan for the area, however, and the task force appears divided between members like Mr. Carroll, its chairman, who prefer to leave options open for an eventual development, and John E. Zuccotti, chairman of the City Planning Commission, who says that “we must rethink all our premises in terms of planning today” and argues for more modest, preservationoriented approach.

The question of 250 Broadway's purchase and the city's choice not to renovate the older buildings represent another phase of what, for many at City Hall, has seemed an endless and so‐far insoluable problem of bringing order to the physical growth of the city's own facilities.

Since the city's needs expanded beyond City Hall over a hundred years ago, the government has devoured space at a rapid rate, occasionally building new structures, but, more often, making do, as it does now, with space leased from private owners.

Attempts to bring coherence to the Civic Center's growth began as long ago as 1902, when the Municipal Art Society proposed, for the first time, the demolition of the Chambers Street block and the construction of a new city office building on that site as a symbol of “economics, convenience and civic pride.”

There have been many other plans over the years, most of which, like the more recent Stone plan, have never been completed. As a result, much of what order there now is in the area comes from the fact that one architectural firm, Gruzen and Partners, has designed most of the recent structures in the Civic Center, including the new police headquarters opened in 1973, and has thus created a “master plan” of its own.

The task force, which is now the official planning body for the area, became the focus of major controversy last summer when it was learned that its preliminary report to Mayor Beame called for the construction of a new building to replace the Tweed Courthouse, the massive and little ‐ used Anglo ‐ Italianate structure behind City Hall.

The Mayor acted on that report, and it is now believed that the decision to buy the 250 Broadway building has the recommendation of a new City Hall annex. But both Mr. Carroll and Deputy Mayor James Cavanagh have made it clear that they favor in any event demolition of the Tweed building, which would be extremely expensive to restore. They are now understood to favor landscaping the site, which is part of City Hall Park.

The task force is also understood to be considering placing a parking area On the block bounded by Broadway, Reade, Elk and Duane Streets, which the city also acquired as part of the site of the Stone tower. Most of the buildings on that block have already been demolished, and although no new construction is planned, de molition of the rest of the area has been given priority.

If the city does purchase 250 Broadway, it will not be to expand but rather to save money on rental payments. Different city agencies pay a total of $4.78‐million in rent annually for space there, and they occupy a total of 60 per cent of the space in the glass tower.

The city also uses the majority of the space at 51 Chambers Street and 280 Broadway, the two older buildings, but agencies apparently worked under cramped circumstances there. Both buildings are in need of rehabilitation, which could become increasingly expensive if they deteriorate further.

There have been some. signs that the city is concerned about the older structures of architectural note it owns, however. Most significant, probably, is the recent cleaning of the Municipal Building, McKim, Mead and White's monumental, classically inspired tower that remains, in the opinion of many archtectural scholars, one of the, greatest civic buildings anywhere.

The building was recently cleaned at a cost of $300,000 and the statue atop its cupola, “Civic Fame”, was given a new coating of gold leaf. More funds have been appropriated for a complete interior renovation, which is expected to erase the “last hurrah” image of its old‐style offices.

The cleaning and renovation of the Municipal Building has tended to focus public attention anew on the future of the Civic Center area. According to Mr. Carroll, it is a sign that the city remains committed to its old buildings as well as its new ones, and he points out that the city is about to begin a similar cleaning job on the Surrogate's Court at 31 Chambers Street, the ornate Beaux‐Arts structure of 1911.

“We have great regard for that one,” Mr. Carroll said.