There was a lot of news in the past year on trying to rescue the row of brownstones at 408, 410 and 412 West 115th Street (just East of Amsterdam) from demolition by Columbia University and the follow-up to the story doesn’t end well. The State’s Historic Preservation Office described them as a “distinctive row of three, five-story Renaissance Revival residences with brownstone facades,” with an “unusual design with undulating bays at the first and second stories, reminiscent of low-scale row house design, but with three upper floors and cornice above.”
It seemed every public official and organization stepped up to plead with the university to reconsider and save the oldest residential brownstones in Morningside Heights. Preservation establishments such as the New York State Historic Preservation Office, Landmark West!, The Committee to Protect the Upper West Side, the New York Landmarks Conservancy and the Historic Districts Council all pushed for saving the buildings.
The above current photos now show an empty lot of the finish project since demolition started on the buildings back in June. So what’s planned for the site of this empty Columbia-owned parcel of land? It turns out that there’s actually nothing designated for the future of this now empty lot on the residential sides street. The buildings were taken down “to prevent further deterioration.”
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