9-19 Ninth Ave

This two-story commercial building on the most prominent corner in the Gansevoort Market Historic District reflects an amalgam of uses that the site has hosted over the last 150 plus years. BKSK’s proposal, as approved by the Landmarks Preservation Commission in June 2014, preserves surviving clues about the building’s past as an open-air market and stables, while also vertically expanding the property with a finely detailed 2 1/2 story addition. The piazza-like setting in front of the site—a rare pedestrian experience in Manhattan—provided ample justification for this bold transformation. Far from being a simple contemporary addition, the expansion celebrates the historic grittiness and utilitarian character of this former market building and its neighborhood context. The new volume is set apart from the old masonry base with a subtle reveal and is screened by a steel skeletal system from which framed crumpled glass panels are suspended, a detail reminiscent of the bygone meatpacking days. At the street level, a new corrugated sidewalk canopy converts from metal to glass, denoting the location of the former market and stables on the site.