The time has come to officially say goodbye to the long-embattled Brooklyn Heights Cinema. After switching owners and architects, a five-story apartment building proposed for 70 Henry Street, which had once housed the movie theater in a white low-rise, earned approval from the Landmarks Preservation Commission yesterday. The new developers are Madison Estates and JMH Development, and Morris Adjmi, whose work is on the whole respectable, is designing; the LPC rejected rejected earlier iterations twice. Adjmi's revised plans preserves the exterior of the existing buildingin fact, it calls for the restoration of its original brick facadewhile splitting its interior into two stories and adding three more levels on top of it. There will be five condos occupying the building in total.
The commissioners were generally impressed by the new design, which Commission Chair Meenakshi Srinivasan called "very elegant," according to the Brooklyn Daily Eagle. But they weren't without grievances; the commissioners outlined three changes that they believed would make the new building more historically appropriate.
First, they asked that the railing on the building's roof not be too shiny so as to not distract from the building itself. Then, they noted that the cast-iron column marking the corner of the building and the block should not be too thick, in keeping with past precedent. Finally, they asked the architects to change the color of the brick for the new portion of the building so that it is distinguishable from the bottom two levels.
Although Judy Stanton from the Brooklyn Heights Association testified against the plan, the commissioners went ahead and approved it with their stipulations.
Proposed Orange Street elevation.
Proposed Henry Street elevation.
Floorplans for the new condos.
Wesley Yiin
· All Brooklyn Heights Cinema coverage [Curbed]
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