Quantcast

The DNAinfo archives brought to you by WNYC.
Read the press release here.

Dorothy Parker Home Moves Closer to Date with Wrecking Ball

By Leslie Albrecht | December 7, 2011 8:07am | Updated on December 7, 2011 8:08am

UPPER WEST SIDE — Legendary writer Dorothy Parker's childhood home is inching closer to a date with the wrecking ball.

Community Board 7 voted Tuesday night in favor of a request to leave 214 W. 72nd Street, where the Algonquin Round Table wit lived as a young girl, out of a proposed historic district extension.

Carving the house out of the historic district would help clear the way for its demolition, but the community board's vote is only advisory — the Landmarks Preservation Commission has final say on the issue.

The owners of 214 W. 72nd Street, mother and daughter Peggy and Tiffany Ma, say their building was severely damaged when the luxury high-rise The Corner was built next door.

The 19th-century structure is now in such disrepair that it can't be salvaged, the Mas told Community Board 7, and they want permission to demolish it and replace it with a 12-story apartment building.

The five-story building, which the Mas bought years ago as an investment, now has cracks in its foundation and leans almost two inches to the east, according to the Mas, who tangled with The Corner's developers in court and received some compensation for the damage to their building.

But to Kevin Fitzpatrick, an Upper West Sider and president of the Dorothy Parker Society, the building is worth saving despite its dilapidated state.

Parker, who later made her mark in the literary world with poetry, short stories and reviews for the New Yorker magazine, lived at 214 W. 72nd Street for a few years around age five.

It's one of many Upper West Side houses that Parker's family, the Rothschilds, lived in when she was growing up in the neighborhood. Fitzpatrick said the home is worth saving, even if Parker only lived there a short while.

"I ask the community board to remember this important writer," Fitzpatrick told the board. "The Upper West Side was very important to Dorothy Parker. She's one of the area's strongest and most identifiable writers. Any home that belonged to an author is worth preserving, no matter how long they lived there."

Fitzpatrick asked fans of the writer to join him in a letter-writing campaign to save the building. Nine people sent written requests to Community Board 7 asking that the home not be torn down.

The letters were mentioned only in passing at Tuesday's board meeting.

Discussion focused more on whether removing 214 W. 72nd Street from the proposed historic district extension could open the door to other building owners asking to be left out of the mass landmarking.

Lauren Schuster, chief of staff for State Assemblymember Linda Rosenthal, who represents the Upper West Side and supports the proposed historic district extension, warned that cutting 214 W. 72nd Street out of the district was a "slippery slope."

"You start carving out one corner, then it's another corner, than it's an entire side street," Schuster said.

But Community Board 7 chair Mark Diller said the Mas deserved to be left out of the historic district because they were the victims of an "irresponsible" developer who "took advantage" of them.

Other board members agreed. "This is such a unique set of circumstances, it's verging on unconscionable not to allow an exemption," said Community Board 7 member Jay Adolf.

The Mas agreed to honor Parker's memory by installing a plaque at their new building.