Two Newark preservationists have resigned from a city commission over a controversial project at Penn Station.
Richard Partyka, who spent the last seven years protecting the city’s historic buildings as chair of the Landmarks and Historic Preservation Commission, stepped down. A few days later, he was followed by the vice chair Susana Holguin-Veras. The absence of leadership has left the commission in limbo – their last meeting was in April.
It’s not clear when the relationship between city officials and the commission first soured, though Liz Del Tufo, a former chairwoman of the commission, says Mayor Ras Baraka has a longstanding, ideological distaste for the work of preservationists.
“The mayor doesn’t like historic preservation,” Del Tufo said.
The city’s Business Administrator Eric Pennington defended the mayor’s position on preservation. “Liz Del Tufo is entitled to her own version and interpretation of our city’s, and our country’s, history, and her own personal feelings about historic preservation, monuments and statuary,” Pennington said. “But she is not entitled to speaking about that subject on behalf of Mayor Baraka, who has been quite clear, repeatedly, of his pride in the city of Newark, whose story cannot be told honestly without illuminating the fullness of its people’s struggle and triumph.”
The situation finally erupted over the city’s plan to build a $110 million pedestrian bridge near the Prudential Center that connects to Penn Station. The city, for whatever reason, wanted Partyka’s commission to offer a letter of support for the project without giving them a formal review.
In November, the State Historic Preservation Office backed Partyka’s stance that, because the pedestrian bridge touched Newark Penn Station, which is listed on the National Register, the commission needed to formally review the plan, Jersey Digs reported.
“We never tried to get in the way of a project that the city wanted to do,” Partyka told Jersey Digs. “The Penn Station project took us by surprise — they said that we were unsupportive but we weren’t unsupportive — all the commissioners feel it could be a worthy project if handled properly.”
Holguin-Veras declined to comment on the cause of her resignation. Both stepped down following an attempt by the city’s Pennington to have Partyka removed. On Jan. 10, the City Council passed a resolution to hold a hearing that would have led to his dismissal. But both resigned before a hearing took place.
Pennington, speaking through a press officer, told Jersey Digs that he thought Partyka’s choice to issue criticism of the pedestrian bridge to the state office on official city letterhead was “inappropriate” and was the cause of their fall out.
The project at Penn Station was not the first time the city government under Baraka has tried to exclude preservationists from participating in a major project. The last time involved the renaming of Washington Square Park as Harriet Tubman Square, and installing a statue of the abolitionist. That particular park, like Penn Station, is listed on the National Register, so proposed changes require the Landmarks Commission’s approval.
From its inception, the Landmarks Commission has had to manage tensions with the city government. The founding chair Liz Del Tufo, who was sworn in by Mayor Sharpe James in 1990 and served for 16 years, was eventually fired over her unwillingness to submit to political pressure.
In 2006, Del Tufo and several of her colleagues were dismissed over their refusal to approve the demolition of a historic carriage house at 486 Parker Street in Forest Hill Historic District that was owned by James’s friend, Veronica Awkard.
“It made the front page of the Star-Ledger,” said Del Tufo about her ouster. “James Willse, who was editor at the time, said he got more letters from the public regarding my firing than any other issue in his tenure.”
Since then, Del Tufo, who is the daughter of first-generation Irish immigrants, has remained the unofficial doyenne of the city’s preservation scene and has become one of Baraka’s harshest critics due to his interpretation of Newark’s history solely through the lens of Black nationalism.
Pennington responded to Del Tufo’s characterization of Baraka by accusing her of “whitewashing” and “wishfully rewriting” history.
Architect David Abramson, who succeeded Del Tufo as the nine-year chair of the Landmarks Commission, said the city’s relationship with local preservationists remained friendly during Senator Cory Booker’s turn as Newark’s mayor. One of the reasons Abraham attributes to the peaceful coexistence is that the city created a paid position — filled by Michelle Alonso, who is now Asbury Park’s planning director — to serve as a liaison between the commission and City Hall.
One of Baraka’s first acts as mayor was eliminating that position in 2014. “I had weekly interactions with Michelle and that helped eliminate conflict,” said Abramson who served during the construction of the Prudential tower at 655 Broad Street.
Partyka and Holguin-Veras presided over the commission during what might be described as the Newark’s modern skyscraper age that brought unique tensions to the downtown historic districts. The past few years have seen clashes between developers wishing to build 40-foot-tall glass towers next to three-story century-old buildings and community members who called these proposed projects garish and out of scale.
Most recently, Vice Chair Holguin-Veras took the lead in negotiations with the KS Group to slightly lower the height of their proposed 508-foot-tall building on Market Street in reverence to the downtown district’s tallest building, the National Newark Building.
Their tenure was also marked by preservation victories. One was saving the Cathedral House, an important building in Black history, and its accompanying Paula Scher-designed mural, which NJPAC sought to demolish in 2022 for a loading dock.
The city has only had four Landmark Commission chairs in its 34-year history – Liz Del Tufo, David Abramson, Bill Mikesell, and Richard Partyka. Those who have taken up the long hours of this unpaid position have all had impressive tenures. If the commission’s four-month hiatus is any indication, it isn’t an easy position to fill.
