An architectural landmark in downtown Yonkers that for more than eight decades held a collection of alleged miscreants could be a new home and freer space for artists and a renowned collection of art.
Daniel Wolf, a private Manhattan collector and dealer in art, photography and furniture, has signed a $1 million purchase contract for the vacant Yonkers City Jail at 24 Alexander St. on the city”™s downtown waterfront. The two-story, 10,800-square-foot relic of the Roaring Twenties is furnished with 39 confining cells and features rows of distinctive iron-barred windows.
Wolf is married to sculptor and architectural designer Maya Lin, whose career was notably launched in 1981 by her winning and controversial design of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial while she was still an undergraduate at Yale. In Yonkers if not in the larger world of art and architecture, Lin is also known for her 2003 design of the aluminum-skinned Greyston Bakery at 104 Alexander St., a short walk from the former jail.
City officials said Lin, who operates Maya Lin Studio in Greenwich Village, will join her husband in designing studio space in the neoclassical building designed by architect and Yonkers native William P. Katz. The couple”™s pending purchase still must be approved by the Yonkers City Council.
Lin, who recently appeared with her husband outside the former jail as Mayor Mike Spano announced its artful reuse, in a written statement said the property “offers enormous potential but the breathtaking view of the Palisades from the door step of the Hudson inspires a vision as unique and beautiful as the building itself.”
Wolf, owner of Daniel Wolf Inc. on the Upper East Side, in the purchase announcement called Yonkers “a natural place to set down roots. The proximity to Manhattan and the opportunity to transform incredible sites like this beautiful building that the city has made available made the decision to move here a simple one.”
The Yonkers police department vacated the building earlier this year when it moved its courts and detention services division to the Cacace Justice Center on Nepperhan Avenue. Finding no buyer last spring after issuing a request for proposals for redevelopment of the building, the Spano administration retained Rand Commercial Services to market the property at a reported asking price of $2.5 million.
Currently zoned for industry, the jail is included in the city”™s master plan for the redevelopment of the Alexander Street industrial corridor as a commercial site that could house restaurants and cafes. City planners in this year”™s request for proposals said it could also be converted to a brewery or microbrewery and retail shops.
Spano when announcing the property”™s new owner said the prime waterfront real estate “was no place for a jail, but it”™s an ideal location for an international art collection like that of Daniel Wolf.”
City officials said Wolf will house his private collections in the still-intact jailhouse, which opened to inmates in 1928, and also use it as a base for his art dealer”™s business and to plan and promote museum and gallery exhibits from the Wolf collection. Wolf and Lin also plan to create a first-floor space for art exhibits, dance performances, lectures, photography shoots and other public events.
Yonkers officials said Wolf plans to later add two floors to the building to house several artist studios and residences and capitalize on the site”™s “unparalleled light, views and location.”
Perhaps a new Hudson River School of painters breaking free of 21st century art on the Yonkers waterfront?
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