How about Hotel Buddakan atop Chelsea Market?

          How about Hotel Buddakan sitting on top of Chelsea Market?  Now that Stephen Starr has the New York Historical Society in his growing Manhattan collection with Caffè Storico in that newly renovated institution, he seems to be looking at enhanced room service with an inn atop what should have been a landmark, Chelsea Market.

          That would be Hotel Buddakan in the Jamestown Properties proposed project to crown the site between 10^th and 11^th Avenue across the street from Starr's Restaurant Buddakan.  Our source heard it from someone directly involved.  Doesn’t make the hulking construction look any cuter to me.

          Alas, the city did not include Chelsea Market in the old Nabisco building as part of the Gansevoort Market Historic District. It doesn’t mean a cup of lentils that it’s listed on the National Register of Historic Places. By rights, it’s open to commercial exploitation which admittedly, would bring cash and jobs to the neighborhood.

          Jamestown Properties has cut back the size of its proposed erection, a see-through glass box of offices and hotel rooms above the Market, after protests from the neighborhood.  Preservation activists are aghast at the monster addition crouching over the charming old factory. 

          Read Curbed for a running report on the controversy. http://ny.curbed.com/tags/chelsea-market