{"id":228885,"date":"2025-09-15T14:11:31","date_gmt":"2025-09-15T14:11:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/228885\/"},"modified":"2025-09-15T14:11:31","modified_gmt":"2025-09-15T14:11:31","slug":"dob-faces-scrutiny-over-bid-to-demolish-building-in-protected-hells-kitchen-zone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/228885\/","title":{"rendered":"DOB Faces Scrutiny Over Bid to Demolish Building in Protected Hell\u2019s Kitchen Zone"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hell\u2019s Kitchen residents and advocates are raising red flags after the City\u2019s Department of Buildings (DOB) appeared to accept a developer\u2019s application to raze a historic, century-old building where demolition protections are in place.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"404404 W50th Street is a four-story brick tenement building from 1880 just west of 9th Avenue. Photo: Catie Savage<\/p>\n

Developer Benjamin Braka and real estate investment company Aetna Realty filed plans late last month<\/a> to demolish the four-story, yellow-and-brown brick residential building at 404 West 50th Street (bw 9th\/10th Ave). In its place, Braka intends to develop a new eight-story building \u2014 but there\u2019s a catch.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The property is located in a preservation area of the Clinton Special District<\/a> \u2014 created in 1974 \u2014 that covers much of Hell\u2019s Kitchen and is intended to preserve the neighborhood\u2019s affordability and character. It prohibits the demolition of \u201cany building containing dwelling units,\u201d unless deemed unsafe, according to zoning regulations<\/a> reviewed by W42ST.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The building is listed in DOB records as containing two dwelling units \u2014 and we even found an old StreetEasy listing<\/a> for a one-bedroom apartment for rent in May 2022 for $2,750 \u2014\u00a0leaving members of Hell\u2019s Kitchen\u2019s Manhattan Community Board 4 (MCB4) to wonder why the agency is considering issuing a permit to tear it down.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\"\"
\nImages from a StreetEasy listing for a one-bedroom apartment in the building that was delisted in May 2022. Photos: StreetEasy<\/p>\n

Aetna Realty purchased the building in April 2022 for $10 million, property records show \u2014 just a month before the apartment on StreetEasy was delisted.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

The demolition is \u201cnot permitted, period,\u201d MCB4 member Joe Restuccia said after the Clinton-Hell\u2019s Kitchen Land Use Committee\u2019s meeting this week.\u00a0The Committee unanimously agreed to take a firm stance and send a letter to DOB, urging it not to approve the permit.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cNo demolition does not freeze development\u201d on the site, Restuccia stressed. \u201cThis is a building that could be gut renovated, that could be added to, and you put money into it. The difference is, you will not knock it down.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"404The ground floor of 404 W50th Street is currently being used by Amish Marketplace around the corner on 9th Avenue. Photo: Catie Savage <\/p>\n

\u201cWe have buildings all over the neighborhood that have new structures inside, that have been added to,\u201d Restuccia said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

This isn\u2019t an isolated instance, Restuccia said, highlighting at least 15 sites across Hell\u2019s Kitchen where developers attempted to demolish buildings within a special zoning district in the past decade.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a fight that we have had many, many, many times before,\u201d said Paul Devlin, co-chair of the committee.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The affordable housing nonprofit organization Clinton Housing Development Company<\/a>, of which Restuccia is president, has created a map that shows which buildings in the core of Hell\u2019s Kitchen, known for its prewar tenement-style architecture, are protected from demolition \u2014 and those that have already been illegally demolished.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"SpecialMap of the Special Clinton District showing all buildings that are protected from demolition. Image: Clinton Housing Development Company. <\/p>\n

But Restuccia warned that last year\u2019s approval of the City of Yes<\/a>, a citywide package of laws intended to increase housing development, would further incentivize developers to build within the neighborhood, by increasing the amount of additional square footage that they can build.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He pointed out that the DOB\u2019s online filing system, DOB NOW<\/a>, is lacking a tag for when demolition is restricted at a location, in addition to the tag for special districts. \u201cThey have all kinds of checked boxes and that\u2019s not one of them,\u201d Restuccia said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

When asked why the agency was considering the demolition permit if demolition is restricted on the site, DOB spokesperson Andrew Rudansky said that the permit had not yet been denied or approved and that \u201cproperty owners are not prohibited from filing a demolition or construction application for their property with the Department of Buildings.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Rudansky reiterated that DOB already has public-facing tags for Special Zoning Districts, but did not state why a tag for demolition restrictions could not be added.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Aetna Realty did not return a request for comment.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hell\u2019s Kitchen residents and advocates are raising red flags after the City\u2019s Department of Buildings (DOB) appeared to…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":228886,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5122],"tags":[5229,123666,405,403,5226,5225,5228,5227,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-228885","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-illegaldemolition","10":"tag-new-york","11":"tag-new-york-city","12":"tag-newyork","13":"tag-newyorkcity","14":"tag-ny","15":"tag-nyc","16":"tag-united-states","17":"tag-united-states-of-america","18":"tag-unitedstates","19":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","20":"tag-us","21":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/228885","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=228885"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/228885\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/228886"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=228885"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=228885"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=228885"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}