Former Lundy’s, Sheepshead Bay’s only landmark, gets ‘thumbs down’ for new lighting proposal
Former restaurant building is the only city landmark in Sheepshead Bay
Let there be light.
But don’t do it by cluttering the building’s facade.
That’s the message the Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) sent the landlord of the only city-designated landmark in all of Sheepshead Bay.
The property in question is the F.W.I.L. Lundy Brothers Restaurant building at 1901 Emmons Ave.
A company called Lundy’s Management Corp., with Steve Pappas as a partner, controls the now-defunct restaurant’s former home through a long-term net lease.
On Tuesday, at a public hearing at the city preservation agency’s Lower Manhattan headquarters, NSC Architecture proposed the addition of numerous sconce light fixtures on the facade of the stucco Spanish Colonial Revival building and the replacement of sconces that are already in use.
“The existing light fixtures, … like all previous modifications to this building, were installed without permits,” Patrick Waldo of the Historic Districts Council said in testimony at the hearing.
“There’s such an accumulation of detritus [on the facade] at this point, the building is secondary,” Commissioner Michael Devonshire said during a discussion of NSC Architecture’s proposal.
Commissioner John Gustafsson said there was so much exterior lighting proposed for Lundy’s, “it’s more of a stadium than a restaurant.”
Ultimately, in its vote, the commission instructed Lundy’s Management Corp. to remove most of the sconce light fixtures that are already on the building instead of adding new ones, and to position proposed light poles in a parking lot so they’re set back from the building’s rear facade.