Proposed Building Threatens Merchant's House Museum

Councilwoman Rosie Mendez and representatives from the Merchant's House Museum will be asking Community Board #2 to deny a developer's application for a 9-story hotel adjacent to the museum at the Hearing tonight at 6:30 p.m., Father Demo Hall, Church of Our Lady of Pompeii, 25 Carmine Street.

The potential damage to the museum's very fragile 1832 building during demolition of the existing garage and construction of the new hotel is huge. The risk to the house may simply be too great. If nothing else, the statistics on houses that have collapsed under similar circumstances is frightening. We need to have an extensive study performed - by an independent engineer - to assess the potential impact on the MHM - before any design plans are even considered, much less approved.

This proposed development poses a beyond-serious threat to the structural stability of the house. Earlier this year, another 19th-century building in a near-by neighborhood sank four inches due to construction in an adjacent lot. Not only is the Merchant's House Museum at risk of collapse with the proposed development next door, but if our building shifts even a few inches we could lose our original decorative plasterwork, considered the finest extant in the country.

The Merchant's House Museum is New York City's only family home preserved intact - inside and out - from the mid-19th century. Home to a prosperous merchant-class family and their staff of four (mostly Irish) servants for almost 100 years, it is complete with the family's original furnishings and personal possessions, offering a rare and intimate glimpse of domestic life from 1835-1865.

For more information, visit www.merchantshouse.org