Preservation Issues by Geographic Region

14th Street is the longest cross-street in Manhattan, and marks the widest point of the island. It has traditionally been treated as the boundary line between “uptown,” with its orderly grid of streets, and “downtown,” with its centuries-old crooked street pattern. 14th Street bisects many different neighborhoods and districts, and is often described as an “in-between” area. In fact, 14th Street has a remarkable diversity of urban expression in its buildings, its character, and people. From river to river, the street changes in feeling and in how people perceive it. These changes have come to define our understanding of the street and, accordingly, we have divided the street into six geographic regions for study. They are:

• - From the Hudson River to Ninth Avenue
• - From Ninth to Seventh Avenues
• - From Seventh Avenue to University Place
• - Union Square
• - From Fourth to First Avenues
• - From First Avenue to the East River

While understanding the street’s discreet areas is helpful for the in-depth analysis necessary in creating a plan, it is also important to understand the characteristics of the entire street. The components of “character” that we will be looking at are zoning, use, age, scale, materials, and conditions. Zoning – There are three types of zoning on the street: manufacturing, residential, and commercial. The manufacturing zones are concentrated on both the western and eastern waterfronts, while residential and commercial zoning designations are concentrated in between. Often the combination of residential and commercial is produced by a commercial zone overlaid with its residential equivalent.

Use – The land use follows the zoning closely, although commercial enterprises are encroaching on the traditionaly industrial western waterfront. Scattered along the entire street are government, institutional, and church buildings.

Age – The buildings that exist today on 14th Street and Union Square span almost two hundred years of development, from 1820 to 2006. The majority of buildings were built in an eighty-year range, from 1870 to 1950.

Scale – While it is difficult to make broad generalizations concerning scale on the longest street in Manhattan, buildings on the north side of the street are generally taller than those on the south side. Also, buildings near the western and eastern extremities of the street are generally lower than those towards the street’s midpoint at Union Square. Eighty-one percent of the buildings in the Study Area are six-stories or fewer.

Materials – The majority of buildings in the Study Area are made of brick. Other prevalent façade materials include stucco, cast iron, glass, terracotta and stone. The following section will present a brief look at the character of each Geographic Region. Special attention will be given to the Significant Resources located within the area.