Bid To Landmark Dakota Stables Is Derailed

Clearing the way for a huge residential development, the city's Landmarks Preservation Committee yesterday decided not to grant landmark status to a former stable on the Upper West Side.

Several of the commissioners who voted against giving landmark status to the Dakota Stables on 77th Street and Amsterdam Avenue said they were influenced by the impending demolition of the building's exterior.

The owner of the Dakota Stables, Sylgar Property Company LLC, received a façade demolition permit from the New York City Department of Buildings in early September allowing all of the exterior moldings of the original building to be demolished. Presently, the beaming red bricks of the stable are surrounded by scaffolding and netting.

A large developer, the Related Companies, is in contract to buy the old livery stables that now serve as a parking garage. The company plans to construct a large residential building that would take up the width of a full-city block.

Three commissioners accused the developer of marring the building's façade in an attempt to make it ineligible for landmark status.

"I'm truly appalled that a company held in such high stature would do this," a commissioner for the New York City Landmarks Preservation Committee, Richard Olcott, said.

A senior vice president at The Related Companies, Bryan Cho, said, it was the current owner of the building that "made the decision to pursue façade alterations and prosecute such work prior to having an agreement in place with us and without our knowledge."

An advocacy group, Landmark West, which has been petitioning to landmark the building for about 20 years, put blame squarely on the committee.

"The landmarks committee has had every opportunity to save the Dakota Stables," the executive director of Landmark West, Kate Wood, said. "It's no good to point fingers."

Another building on 75th Street and Amsterdam Avenue, the New York Cab Company Stable, was given landmark status yesterday. That building shares a similar history and architectural design as the Dakota Stables, but was not disfigured.