Courtesy Robert Greenberg
Allan Appel Photo
Wednesday afternoon two workmen in easy-to-see orange vests were chalking an area at the base of the Ferry Street Bridge to prepare for equipment and crews to come by as early as 7 a.m. Thursday in preparation for a building demolition that preservationists had hoped to stop.
A safety fence to catch demolition debris had been set up earlier in the day
The ceiling has fallen down into the basement so that the sky is visible through the upper windows of the long vacant and neglected historic building.
The city has ordered an emergency demolition of the building, the gatehouse to a 1880s former brewery, now the Brewery Street Apartments, at Ferry and River streets in the Quinnipiac River Historic District. The building is listed on the National Registry of HIstoric Places.
The demolition order, issued by city Building Official Jim Turcio, called the building an imminent danger to public safety.
A Change.org petition set up to call for stopping the demolition attracted close to 1,500 signatures in recent weeks.
Robert Greenberg Photo
Take a last look.
Demolition of the building must be halted so that prudent and feasible alternatives can be explored and presented to the building owner and to the City of New Haven,” read the petition, posted by the New Haven Preservation Trust (NHPT).
Brewery Square Gatehouse Partnership, the Massachusetts-based owners of the Brewery Square Apartments, had sent a lawyer to appear before the Historic District Commission back in September seeking permission to demolish. After his presentation, the lawyer was sent back to the drawing board by the commissioners.
Commissioners said his application for a permit to demolish, required because the gatehouse is in the Quinnipiac Historic District, could not be granted because there was insufficient documentation, including an absence of testimony by an engineer trained in preservation. They also said the photographs to make the case for demolition were poorly taken and labeled.
That was September. No further appearances before the HDC are on record. In November, Turcio issued the order, and has now issued a permit.
The demolition order supersedes the directives of the Historic District Commission and any other organizations involved.
Courtesy Robert Greenberg
The site more than a century ago.
“The owners were denied demolition at the September HDC meeting, but the HDC does not have authority over other city departments,” Holt wrote. The NHPT worked with state preservation offices to find an alternative to demolition, “but unfortunately that emergency demo order trumps all alternatives,” NHPT Preservation Services Officer Elizabeth Holt stated in an email message.
The complex’s management and attorney could not be reached for comment Wednesday.
Neighbor Ian Christmann, who spotted the demolition fencing going up Wednesday morning, termed the situation demolition by neglect, a way to go around the Historic District Commission. He called the whole business “foul-smelling.”
“I would add,” wrote City Plan Director Mike Piscitelli, in an email exchange with local preservationists, alders, and neighbors, “the City truly appreciates the extra efforts put forth by NHPT, SHPO (State Historic Presrvation Office) and CT Trust (for Historic Preservation) as well as the HDC. The HDC’s commentary and direction was clear; the outcome is beyond unfortunate.”
Much of the old Quinnipiac Brewery, which dates to the late 1800s, has been converted to apartments.The building that fronts Ferry Street, known as the gatehouse, has long sat vacant.
The building’s windows had been boarded over with green painted plywood. Back in 2014, the owners hired a local artist to paint trompe‑l’oeil window dressing, house plants, and even a cat or two.
The idea was to give the impression that the building wasn’t vacant. It appears that’s the only thing that was done to care for the building,.
Courtesy Robert Greenberg
“It looks OK on the outside, but it’s crumbling to death on the inside. It’s terrible on the inside. If you go inside, to the center, you’d fall to your death,” said one of the workmen preparing the site, who declined be identified.
He pointed out how the brick facades on the street side were leaning inward and in danger of falling.
The demolition does not include two adjacent structures, one flat roofed and one peaked, which meet the gatehouse as it wraps around on the driveway side of the structure. Those will be saved.
“If the paperwork is in order, crews come at 7 a.m.,” the workman said.
Click here to read a previous story on the demolition by Lucy Gellman.
I find history and oldder buildings enchanting but at some point, logic needs to prevail. For the historic folks obstruct safety is disturbing.