Allan Appel Photo
Luis Colon at 181 Putnam.
Luis Colon wants to help his friend buy and restore this stately high-ceilinged 140-year-old house. A not-for-profit developer also stands ready to step in to save the house along with two other venerable clapboards on Putnam Street. And city preservationists want it rehabilitated— rather than demolished, which is what the city plans to do with all three buildings.
The fragile-looking boarded-up houses in question are at 138, 181, and 197 Putnam St. in the Trowbridge Square section of the Hill, a neighborhood developed in squares around a green in the 1830s by abolitionist minister Simeon Jocelyn.
The first of the three targeted houses, near the corner of Edgar, is in the Trowbridge Square National Register Historic District. The other two stand between Howard and Dewitt and are on the city’s Historic Resource Inventory.
For that reason of geography and law, although the demolition clock is ticking, on July 20 the city received a letter from the State Historic Preservation Office that stays demolition 90 days. Preservation Officer David Bahlman recommended in the letter that the city “retain,” “refurbish” and “reuse” the properties.
Click here to read the letter, in which the city is enjoined to demonstrate “that there is no reasonable and/or prudent alternative to the proposed demolitions.”
138 Putnam.
The city came to own the buildings in 2010. At the time the Hill Development Corporation (HDC), which had obtained the long foreclosed properties for redevelopment with the city as a partner, fell on hard financial times and abandoned the rehab efforts. The city’s neighborhood anti-blight agency, the Livable City Initiative (LCI), purchased the mortgage from Citizens Bank of Rhode Island and accepted a deed in lieu of foreclosure from Hill Development.
LCI Director Erik Johnson said that at that time the agency did an evaluation to see if the city had resources to continue the rehab. Also at issue was what to do with the various lots that surround the three Putnam Avenue properties in question.
“Figuring out what was best for the neighborhood, we came up conceptually with a plan to demolish the three, create new homeownership opportunities for residents in a two-family type concept that would be historically consistent,” Johnson said.
He said all three properties have serious structural problems. Owners had long abandoned them before Hill Development took them over over, Johnson said.
A gut-rehab would add $400,000 to $600,000 more to the cost, Johnson said.
He added that to work on just those three buildings, as opposed to trying to integrate the non-conforming lots with new structures, would be to do less for the neighborhood.
No. 138 does sit lonely on two huge non-conforming side yards.
“The only way to restore the street grid is to knock them down and create some conforming lots. The intent is to rebuild street frontage along Putnam instead of the gap toothed model that has taken place over time,” Johnson said. He said the city is ready to begin work on the project — dubbed — Putnam Street Development — early next year.
Farwell: Use Past To Plan For Future
That approach disappoints Luis Colon and local preservationists.
197 Putnam.
Anstress Farwell of the New Haven Urban Design League said all three buildings should be preserved. “They can add a lot to the National Register District, especially in an area that has had so much demolition,” she argued. “You use the historic buildings as a basis for a plan for the future.”
New Haven Preservation Trust [NHPT]‘s John Herzan concurred. “They are historically recognized. [NHPT] believes the buildings should be evaluated for feasible reuse.” His group did a study of Trowbirdge Square in the 1980s calling for greater efforts toward historic preservation.
Luis Colon agreed with Herzan..
While Hill Development was still involved with the properties, it hired Colon, a Vietnam vet and area handyman, to cut the grass and board up the windows against occupation by drug users.
“A lot of junky people” abused the building, he said as he showed the fence that was put up to protect 181’s high stoop and noble porch. The absence of a lock to keep vagrants out made the fence useless, he noted. He pointed to the steps strewn with broken bottles.
“A lot of work was done inside,” Colon said of the partial HDC rehab, which he witnessed. He called the interior of the Italianate 1870-era building “beautiful,” especially the high ceilings.
His friend Reyita Cerda came out of the adjacent building that she owns at 185 Putnam. Speaking in Spanish through him and trailing three little girls eager to get into their backyard pool on a hot day, Cerda said she wants to buy the building.
“She’s been trying to get me to get information how to do that. She’s got good credit,” Colon said.
Alex Johnson, a man in his early 20s who grew up in his grandmother’s house kitty-korner from 138 Putnam, offered his opinion from behind a screened door on the porch: “I think they should start fresh. New is better.”
NHS At The Ready
“The historic features in 138 [Putnam] were already taken out by HDC and improvements done that were not historic,” LCI’s Johnson noted. “Vinyl siding. Vinyl windows. We think that the proposed new construction is going to be more consistent with the architectural intent of the neighborhood.”
More open floor plans and more attractive efficient spaces will also make the properties more marketable, he argued. The money to create four or five new two-family home ownership opportunities on Putnam will come from afederal “Neighborhood Stabilization” program.
Through a combination of public and private money, “we have sufficient resources to complete the proposed plan,” Johnson said.
181 Putnam, with its high Italianate windows.
Meanwhile, another group with a long track record in town — the not-for-profit affordable builder Neighborhood Housing Services — has spoken with LCI about prospects of rehab. “It doesn’t matter to us the condition. I’ve looked in the windows [of 138, 181, 197 Putnam]. We’ve taken the worst of the worst and dealt with it,” said Henry Dynia, NHS’s director of design and construction.
He said the most recent contact with the city was a number of weeks ago with these results: “We are out of the picture with it. The city indicated they have their own plans.”
NHS Director Jim Paley was circumspect when asked about Putnam Street. “We as individuals may have certain feelings about demolition, but NHS as an organization needs to remain a collaborator with the city. We have more than enough work with all our focus in Newhallville,” he said, so NHS will not take a position on the Putnam demolition.
“We don’t interfere with their plans whatsoever,” Paley said. “If they decide to pursue rehab, we have offered to be the developer.”
“I have no comment to Mr. Paley’s comment,” said Erik Johnson.
Johnson added: “We have a larger [plan] for the street that seeks to create sustainable and long term impact, and we’re not sure we’ll be able to achieve that if we don’t have the opportunity to build new.”
Before LCI can begin on the project, it must answer the state preservation office’s letter and demonstrate that no feasible alternative exists to demolition. “Based on the state’s reaction to our response, we’ll have to determine what the next steps are,” Johnson said.
Should the city prevail, “we have no intent to put up a suburban style house in Trowbridge,” he said. “Any development would be based on design guidelines established by the city, and we would welcome the influence of the preservation community.”
Over on Putnam Street, Luis Colon opened and closed the lockless chain link gate in front of 181. “We just want to rebuild our neighborhood,” he said.
The policymakers have no idea what they are losing. Existing and future generations will condemn this horrible, ignorant destruction of our neighborhood resources.