As an architect and developer, Bernard Marson was famous for transforming the industrial district of Lower Manhattan into SoHo. Soho was an affordable neighborhood for artists to work and live in before it developed into a district of chic boutiques, celebrity bars and expensive apartments. At his home in Los Angeles on July 9th. he was 91 years old.
His death was confirmed by his son Alexander.
“Mr. Marson was almost solely responsible for developing New York City’s SoHo into an artist community and historic district.” Raquel RamatiIn recommending him for a fellowship with the American Institute of Architects, the former head of the Urban Design Group in Mayor John V. Lindsay’s administration said:
Mr. Merson was already a prominent architect in the late 1970s, many of whom were in the South Houston industrial district, a 50-block area of five- and six-story buildings with elegant 19th-century cast-iron façades. I met Robert Moses’ Lower He Manhattan neighborhood had just escaped the storm when plans for the Manhattan Expressway were cancelled.
The district was in transition and ripe for a project Mr. Merson embarked on in Jerusalem with Israeli architect Moshe Safdie. From 1974 to 1976 he renovated the Western Wall of the Old Town and the Jewish Quarter Square.
In Manhattan, many tenants between Houston and Canal Street, mostly small businesses — string and paper brokers, rag processors, blind and cardboard box manufacturers, clothing sweatshops — are tax and labor-intensive. Moved to cheaper locations, leaving declining industrial sites behind. A base that the city authorities desperately tried to protect.
These businesses had been replaced by a burgeoning artist colony south of Houston Street, already informally known as SoHo. The artist had converted his high-ceilinged, undivided loft area into a studio and living space. This violated the regulations of neighboring cities zoned for industrial use.
In the late 1970s, when the city’s economy was in recession, Mr. Merson was at the forefront, transforming former manufacturing buildings into a whole new neighborhood.
Along with other investors, he bought four buildings, including architect Ernest Flagg’s 12-story Little Singer Building and a former glue factory.
Some of the space was already being used illegally by artists, but Merson found a loophole in what most city officials believed was an ironclad ban. This is a vague zoning resolution that allows “studios with a life of accessories” in manufacturing districts. To the dismay of officials, the city’s standards board ordered the Building Department to allow Mr. Merson to proceed.
What followed was a protracted legal and administrative dispute. On one side were city officials and some landlords trying to enforce zoning laws to protect existing tenants and forestall gentrification. On the other, a group of developers and artists, led by Mr. Merson, argued for zoning differences to reflect the new realities of the real estate market.
“This basically legitimized what was already happening,” said Peter Samton, an architect and former colleague of Merson’s. “A unique aspect of his contribution was the fusion of architecture and development, which was very unusual at the time, some 50 years ago.”
In 1982, the state legislature said Carl Weisbrod, director of New York City’s Loft Enforcement Authority, said it would protect 90% of loft tenants, including tenants in major loft neighborhoods such as SoHo, Tribeca, and NoHo in Lower Manhattan. passed the law.
Anthony Siripa, president of the New York chapter of the American Institute of Architects in 2010, described Mr. Merson at the time as “a key role in transforming SoHo from its sweatshop past to its jewel-like present.” accomplished,” he said.
Recent record sales in the area included a $4 million two-bedroom apartment at 561 Broadway and a $2 million one-bedroom apartment at 242 Lafayette Street.
Bernard Aaron Merson was born in Manhattan on March 21, 1931, between Alexander Merson, an immigrant from Russia who became a paint salesman, and Etta (Jermaine) Merson, who worked in a Harlem store. was born in He grew up in the West Bronx.
After graduating from DeWitt Clinton High School in the Bronx, he received a degree in civil engineering from the New York University School of Engineering in 1951. During the Korean War he served as a nuclear weapons officer.
After graduating with a degree in architecture from The Cooper Union in 1961, he worked alongside Marcel Breuer as a site representative for the Whitney Museum of American Art on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. A nearby museum is under renovation.
Mr. Merson was specifically commissioned to refurbish the 1920s Montauk Manor, the Tudor Revival Hotel in Long Island’s East End, designed by Schultz and Weaver and built by Carl G. Fisher, who developed Miami Beach in the 1920s. I was. Converted to condominiums in the 1970s.
He married Ellen Sue Engelson in 1978. and two grandchildren. The couple moved to California in 2017.
