Builder still had not produced a C of O after seven years. Two families separately contracted with Giovanni Culotta to build semi-attached homes at 243 and 245 Elm Street in Staten Island. In May 1998, both families closed and received temporary certificates of occupancy with an understanding that Culotta would later provide a final certificate. Buildings’ records indicate the last temporary certificates of occupancy expired in 1999. Subsequently, Buildings issued violations to the families for … <Read More>
Neon illuminated sign ordered removed
Tanning salon had installed sign on 1884 building. Portofino Sun Center, an indoor tanning bed salon, affixed without permits a large neon sign outside its store at 104 West 73rd Street. The building, a Queen Anne style rowhouse built in 1884 and owned by George Hearn, is located within the Upper West Side/Central Park West Historic District.
Landmarks issued a Warning Letter to Hearn for the neon sign and an exterior garbage enclosure, also installed … <Read More>
Three rowhouses to add rear additions
Proposal includes demolition of historic tea rooms. Margaret Streicker applied to Landmarks to alter three adjacent rowhouses on West 22nd Street within the Chelsea Historic District. Streicker proposed to demolish two wood rear porches on the 1851-built pair rowhouses at 327 and 329 West 22nd Street, replacing the porches with four-story additions extending 19 feet from the existing building line and adding one-story rooftop penthouses on each building. On the 1850 Italianate rowhouse at 331 … <Read More>
145-ft. phone tower sited at Seaview Hospital
Tower moved to new location to diminish impact. The Health and Hospitals Corporation sought Landmarks approval to construct a 132- foot telecommunications tower and an equipment building on the northeastern grounds of Seaview Hospital in Staten Island. The Seaview Hospital complex was, at the time of its 1905-38 construction, the largest and most costly tuberculosis hospital in rowthe country. It was sensitively designed to preserve the rural landscape along a 230-acre portion of Todt Hill … <Read More>
Landmarks denied permit to legalize addition
After constructing an addition without permits, the owner asked Landmarks to allow the illegal structure to be legalized and expanded. 160 East 92nd Street is a vernacular clapboard dwelling with Greek Revival and Italianate style elements. It was built in 1852-53 and was designated an individual landmark in 1988. Without Landmarks approval, Freud 92 Properties LLC, the building owner, demolished a two-story, wood frame rear yard addition and replaced it with an unarticulated, windowless, two-story … <Read More>
Extra floor allowed for small Chelsea building
BSA allowed seventh floor despite community board objection. Steve Edelson, the owner of 209 West 20th Street, a 2,309-square-foot lot in Chelsea, proposed to replace a vacant one-story garage with a seven-story, 7,090-square-foot residential building with twelve units. The seventh floor would exceed the R8B district’s 60-foot height limitation and provide one additional unit setback atop the structure.
Edelson argued that the site’s shallow 81-foot depth coupled with the district’s 30-foot rear yard requirement made … <Read More>