Feelings Get Hurt as Greenwich Village Made Even More Historic

The city's biggest historic district just got a little bigger, drawing the ire of local preservationists. Say wha? No, we're not in Seinfeld's bizarro world, just Greenwich Village. Today a very busy Landmarks Preservation Commission (more on all the board's actions coming up later) extended the Greenwich Village Historic District for the second time since the boundaries were first set in 1969. The 235-building expansion includes parts?and there's the key word?of the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation's much desired South Village Historic District. The GVSHP has already issued a breathless press release expressing happiness over the extension, but frustration that two-thirds of its South Village proposal is still vulnerable: "Ongoing building demolitions, slow pace of designation and lack of commitment by city to consider remaining two-thirds of neighborhood concerns advocates," the group writes. Did we mention that's just part of the press release's headline?
The LPC can still consider the parts of the South Village left unprotected for designation, but the GVSHP is worried about what else will be lost in the meantime:

Losses already include demolition of the Circle in the Square Theater (New York’s first non-profit theater), the Sullivan Street Playhouse (one-time home of the longest running play in modern history, the Fantasticks), the Provincetown Playhouse and Apartments (considered the birthplace of modern American theater, as well as the home of several of the early 20th century’s most important cultural institutions), the Tunnel Garage (a unique monument to the dawn of the automobile age and possibly the first Art Deco building in New York City), 178 Bleecker Street (an 1861 house located in the middle of a row of similar houses in the heart of the South Village) and the alteration of 7 Cornelia Street, a late 19th century tenement which was the former home of poet W.H. Auden.Wow, we're surprised there's anything left! The LPC's press release (warning: PDF) covers the new parts of the historic district and some of the architectural highlights, including the Our Lady of Pompeii church (seen up above) at Carmine and Bleecker. Lucky gal!
· South Village Historic District coverage [Curbed]
· Protecting the South Village [GVSHP]