Landmarks Body Considers Topless Bar

And does this also mean that from here on out the landmarked building would always have to be used in a “similar function”? The Landmarks Preservation Commission considers the case of a topless bar:

Robert Kremer, who holds the lease on the Pussycat Lounge, spoke in favor of landmark designation of one of Manhattan’s oldest houses at a public hearing yesterday at the Landmarks Preservation Commission.

Preservationists say 96 Greenwich Street House, along with the adjacent 94 and 94 1/2 Greenwich St. buildings, are rare examples of a row of Federal-style houses, offering a glimpse of early New York. The area south of ground zero has suffered from being blocked off from the rest of the city by the 16-acre void left at the site of the former World Trade Center. Recently, developer Joseph Moinian has begun work on a 53-story hotel and condominium nearby. Much of the financial district has seen conversion to residential from office space in the past few years as the nature of downtown has changed toward a more full-time environment.

The Pussycat Lounge, long a neighborhood watering hole for Wall Street brokers and civil servants, sits on an eclectic block that also has a boxing gym and delis. A long bar runs most of the length of the Pussycat Lounge, behind which is a stage where scantily clad women perform. A small knight and a cat are design props upon the stage. The second floor is a rock ‘n’ roll club.

The executive director of the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation, Andrew Berman, said these structures, built when John Adams was president, were among the few surviving relics of the first era of development in New York.