So far, Hedy Pagremanski is winning her race against time, and not because she is 85 years old.

Months ago, when winter coats were giving way to short sleeves, she planted her folding chair in the 400 block of Grand Street, between the pharmacy and the bank on the corner of Clinton Street. She had an unobstructed view of what she wanted to see.

What she wanted to see was across the street: Two tenement-style buildings. The word was that they would be demolished.

Mrs. Pagremanski paints landscapes of disappearing New York — buildings that are to be torn down, blocks that are to be remade. Websites like the Lo-Down had reported that the two buildings at 400 and 402 Grand Street were part of a 1.9 million square-foot development known as Essex Crossing.

The project’s website shows drawings of what is to be: Towers rising from boxy metal-and-glass bases.