it’s demolition week

Thursday saw the beginning of the end of the Superior Inks building. At the corner of Bethune and West Street, the structure was originally built as a cracker factory for Nabisco (it was an annex to the National Biscuit Company’s main New York facility just north, in what is now the Chelsea Market). The 1919 building is the last remaining example of the kind of factories that used to line the West Village waterfront. It’s distinctive brick smokestack stood as a neighborhood landmark.

Of course, that’s “landmark” by local definition, but not by city designation. The Landmarks Preservation Commission resisted concerted efforts to landmark Superior Inks, even as other blocks in the area were brought under landmarks protection.

“It was sort of a special gift to this developer [Related Companies] that he got to not only knock down the building but build a very tall residential tower here,” said Andrew Berman of the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation.

What is it, you think, that Related Companies did to deserve such a gift? What gift do you think they gave “the city” in return for being allowed to fuck with the character of a neighborhood?

And this very tall and, until now, illegally massive residential tower the city is going to allow in place of Superior Inks? Well, from the looks of it, somebody’s got a kid in 8th grade drafting class. (How gifted!)