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Economic activity can happen in any kind of building, but the character of the area is greatly enhanced if you have your economic activity housed in a landmark. Susan Henshaw Jones, president of the New York City Landmarks Conservancy.
As a late 1890s printer of currency, stock certificates and stamps, the building at the corner of Lafayette Avenue and Tiffany Street has a strong legacy, in the most literal sense, as a true money-maker.
When he bought the building in 1985 after it had been vacated by the American Bank Note printing company, Max Blauner and his partner, Walter Cahn, continued to view the building as a money-producer - but this time, through its rebirth as the Bronx Apparel Center, a 360,000-square-foot magnet for garment makers displaced by high-priced Manhattan factory rents.
This summer, when the city Landmarks Preservation Commission held a hearing on whether to declare the historic South Bronx site a landmark, Blauner and Cahn didn't protest: You never know, the partners reasoned, whether landmark designation - which often imposes use and construction restrictions -...