Reply With QuoteIdiots.
Lisi de Bourbon is a parakeet.
Morningside Heights Historic District Could Exclude St. John the Divine
The Landmarks Preservation Commission is considering a historic district that excludes important buildings.
By Della Hasselle
MORNINGSIDE HEIGHTS — Imagine a historic district in Morningside Heights without St. John the Divine, Riverside Church or the picturesque brownstones near Morningside Park.
That's exactly what the city's Landmarks Preservation Commission is considering.
At a Landmarks meeting Monday, tensions rose when residents of Morningside Heights clashed with the Commission over the potential plan for a historic district in the area, which, for the most part, would only include the Columbia University campus.
"Most people felt that the proposal the Landmarks Commission made was too small. It was just a sliver," said Walter South, a member of the neighborhood's Community Board 9. "You miss all these institutions that are incredibly interesting."
The Commission initially proposed a historic area from West 110th to West 119th streets, from Claremont Avenue and Broadway on the east side to Riverside Drive on the west.
South has been trying to establish a historic district for the area since 1996, and said that the area should extend farther east to Morningside Park so that it can include such landmarks as the Cathedral of St. John the Divine on Amsterdam Avenue at West 112th Street.
Adding to the tensions, residents were upset that the Commission met only with Columbia University before Monday's meeting to discuss the campus property that would fall within the proposed historic district — they did not notify CB9 or any local political figures with an interest in the area's history, including Assemblyman Daniel O'Donnell.
"What they did not do, and what I suggested, is a meeting with other players in the community," South said.
"They felt they have all the expertise, they felt they did all the research. But the reality is that they should have broadened their number of participants."
Lisi de Bourbon, a spokeswoman for the Landmarks Preservation Commission, said that the meeting with Columbia was a very preliminary step for the potential creation of a historic district and added that the Commission was open to the expanded areas suggested at the meeting.
A spokesperson for Columbia University was not immediately available for comment.
http://dnainfo.com/20100922/upper-we...#ixzz10LN66ua4
Idiots.
Lisi de Bourbon is a parakeet.
That's less than a parrot.
A lot less.
Parrots are said to be intelligent.
Mini Empire State Building Tapped For Landmark Status
The Hotel Wolcott, the Mills Hotel and 500 Fifth Ave. are being considered for landmark status.
By Jill Colvin
500 Fifth Avenue, which the Landmarks Preservation Commission is hoping to designate as a landmark.
(Flickr/massmatt)
MIDTOWN — Three Midtown buildings are being eyed by the Landmarks Preservation Commission for landmark status, including a miniature Empire State Building and what was once deemed the "world's biggest hotel."
Members of Midtown Community Board 5's Landmarks Committee scrambled to weigh in on the Commission's plans, which they were notified of just two hours before their monthly scheduled meeting Tuesday evening.
The Commission is set to hold a public hearing on the designations on Oct. 26.
The first building, the 12- story Hotel Wolcott on W. 31st between Broadway and Fifth Ave, was designed by architect John H. Duncan, the man behind Grant's Tomb in Riverside Park and the Soldiers' and Sailors' Memorial Arch in Brooklyn's Grand Army Plaza, according to descriptions provided by the Commission.
Hotel Wolcott on W. 31st between Broadway
and Fifth Ave is one of three midtown buildings
the Landmarks Preservation Commission
would like to landmark. (Flickr/Otterman56)
"It's a very handsome building," chair Howard Mendes said as the committee weighed in.
The second, the 500 Fifth Avenue Building on the northwest corner of W. 42nd St. has often been described as a mini Empire State Building — and for good reason. The 59-story Art Deco Skyscraper was designed by the same architect, Shreve, Lamb and Harmon, and built at the same time.
With a plot of land measuring just 100 feet by 208 feet, the firm used all the upward space it had, and dealt with different zoning requirements by creating asymmetrical set-backs, according ot the Commission's notes.
Several committee members said they were surprised it hadn't been landmarked earlier.
The third building, the 16-story Neo-Renaissance Mills Hotel No. 3 at 485 Seventh Avenue was originally designed as a residence for more than 1,000 single men and was once described by the New York Times as the "world's biggest hotel," the Commission said.
While the committee questioned its architectual significance, the Mills was one of the first "light-court tenements" in the country and served as a prototype for future designs, the Commission said.
The committee, which has an advisory role, voted to approve all three buildings for landmark status.
http://www.dnainfo.com/20101006/midt...#ixzz11fPkdFcW
Here's the 3rd building listed at 485 Seventh Avenue (where they added some glass at street level in the last year or so -- hopefully without trashing the stone at the base):
485 Seventh -- Google Street View
the LPC strikes again
^ Good to see you here again MTG.
What's been done to that building is unbelievable.
More about it in the Five Franklin Place thread.
Thanks for the welcome Merry.
Catching up with things I missed while traveling, I didn't know this was already discussed somewhere else.
What a handsome building that used to be. New York is being chewed away by these rats who do things like this.
Commissioner Is Removed From Landmarks Panel
By ROBIN POGREBIN
Roberta Brandes Gratz, a member of the Landmarks Preservation Commission known for taking a hard line on protecting historic buildings, has been removed from the commission after seven years. She is expected to be appointed to the mayor’s sustainability advisory board.
“I obviously have a lot of mixed feelings because I care deeply about what goes on at Landmarks,” said Ms. Gratz, whose last day was Oct. 26. “I also love the idea of working on sustainable development issues.” Both appointments, made by the mayor’s office, are nonpaying.
Asked why the commission asked Ms. Gratz to go, Elisabeth de Bourbon, a spokeswoman for the commission, said only: “She was asked to do something else.”
Ms. Gratz has often been a thorn in the side of the commission, freely speaking her mind, even if her views clashed with other commissioners, City Hall or the chairman, Robert B. Tierney.
Preservation advocates said they were sorry to see her go.
“She’s a preservationist, she’s of the preservation community, she knows these issues backwards and forwards and has always demonstrated the ability to be independent, to not take marching orders from the mayor or the chairman,” said Kate Wood, executive director of Landmark West, a nonprofit preservation group.
“With Roberta on the commission, there was at least one person who you knew would speak up,” Ms. Wood added. “The question now is, what does this mean about the direction the commission is going to go?”
But Ms. Gratz — whose latest book, “The Battle for Gotham: New York in the Shadow of Robert Moses and Jane Jacobs,” was published by Nation Books in April and who has fielded questions from City Room readers on Moses’s legacy — said she would not hesitate to weigh in on issues of concern.
“I don’t plan to disappear,” she said. “I even alerted my fellow commissioners in farewell conversations: ‘You’ll hear from me when appropriate.’”
Among those being considered for Ms. Gratz’s seat is Michael Devonshire, an architectural conservator at Jan Hird Pokorny Associates in Manhattan
http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/20...l/#more-239981
The Coolest Townhouse in Town Becoming a Landmark
By Matt Chaban
The Observer has already sung the praises of the Brutalist architect Paul Rudolph, and the Landmarks Preservation Commission is poised to follow suit, turning perhaps his greatest project into an official city landmark tomorrow.
Until Rudolph moved in in 1961, 23 Beekman Place on the Upper East Side was simply another stately townhouse. Built a century before Rudolph's arrival, the building could easily have qualified as a landmark simply for being a fine example of limestone townhouse architecture from the period. Then Rudolph showed up and began to experiment. The result is a rooftop addition of three-stories, a cantilevered mass of steel bars, concrete planes and airy windows (some of which were imfamously bricked over by an irate
neighbor a few years ago).
Rudolph's original drawings for the penthouse.
The interiors were the building's true signature, all lucite walkways without railings and other architectural shenanigans. Those were altered after the house was purchased in 2003, to the dismay of some—the owners insisted, kind of rightly, that it was a nearly inhabitable space—but now the one-of-kind exterior will be saved at least.
The commission's designation report points out that the building is not only unique for its design but also for the fact that "relatively few buildings survive that have been designed and built by architects for their own use." Still, it is for the architecture that this building is being saved, as the report makes clear:Though some neighbors on Beekman Place objected to the penthouse and the views that were lost, his was certainly a unique solution that reflected a bold and distinctive architectural philosophy. Abstract and minimal, open and closed, classical and industrial, 23 Beekman Place has a strong sculptural quality - a quality rarely found in Manhattan's residential streetscape.It will become a rather ironic landmark, as a number of commissioners joked last October, when the project was certified, that, were it proposed today, the commission would almost certainly disapprove of its construction, forbidding such an ostentatious structure atop a historic building.
http://www.observer.com/2010/real-es...oming-landmark
Historic Little Italy Buildings on Grand Street Designated as City Landmarks
The Federal-style buildings at 190 and 192 Grand St. were built in 1833 and maintain much of their original features.
By Patrick Hedlund
The buildings at 190 and 192 Grand St. in Little Italy were designated landmarks by the city this week.
LITTLE ITALY — The city designated a pair of low-rise Grand Street buildings that are among the oldest in Manhattan as landmarks this week.
The Federal-style houses at 190 and 192 Grand St., between Mott and Mulberry streets, were constructed around 1833 by former New York Lieutenant Governor Stephen Van Rensselaer as part of a row of five contiguous, single-family properties.
The Piemonte Ravioli Company has occupied the ground-floor storefront of 190 Grand St. since 1930, while Florio's Restaurant has occupied the storefront at 192 Grand St. since the 1960s.
The three-story buildings maintain much of their original architectural features, including red brick laid in the Flemish bond pattern, molded brownstone lintels on the third story, and a pitched roof with segmental dormers.
"Both of these houses are rare examples of the Federal period that have survived the past 180 years with very few changes, even as their surroundings changed dramatically," said Robert B. Tierney, chairman of the city Landmarks Preservation Commission, in a statement.
The properties are among 20 Federal-style houses that have been designated city landmarks since 2003.
http://www.dnainfo.com/20101117/lowe...#ixzz15dPyXWdZ
Plans For West End Avenue Historic District Criticized by Realtor Group
The Real Estate Board of New York said a proposed West End Avenue historic district would halt development.
By Leslie Albrecht
UPPER WEST SIDE — A plan to create a historic district that could include more than 700 buildings along West End Avenue has drawn criticism from the real estate industry.
The proposed historic district, which would run from West 70th Street to West 109th Street along West End Avenue and Riverside Drive, cleared an important hurdle last week when the Landmarks Preservation Commission voted to hold hearings on the district.
That's a key step in the approval process for such districts. The West End Preservation Society, the group pushing for the historic district, said it was "delighted" by the LPC vote.
But the Real Estate Board of New York, the state's largest real estate trade association, issued a statement criticizing the LPC. The real estate group argued the historic district would "impede development, which is vital for our city’s physical and economic growth," REBNY President Steven Spinola said in the statement.
The REBNY said the Upper West Side was already home to nine historic districts and several landmarked buildings, and that the proposed West End Avenue historic district would make "virtually the entire neighborhood" a historic district.
Too many historic districts would lead to "the loss of needed new housing and commercial development, job creation and tax revenue for basic services and the innovative architecture that has helped to make New York a truly global city," Spinola said.
Creating the historic district would make it more difficult to change the outside of buildings in the neighborhood.
But the West End Preservation Society's spokeswoman Josette Amato said that wouldn't mean a halt to development.
"What we're looking to do is preserve the character of the area," Amato said. "That may mean you'll have to rethink your design if you want to develop a building. You may have to think not just in terms of what you want, but how it will affect the entire neighborhood."
The Landmarks Preservation Commission is expected to start holding hearings on the proposed West End Avenue historic district in early 2011, Amato said.
http://www.dnainfo.com/20101122/uppe...#ixzz166fqs8Nd
Smoke & mirrors, Plenty of other WS areas to mow down.But the Real Estate Board of New York, the state's largest real estate trade association, issued a statement criticizing the LPC. The real estate group argued the historic district would "impede development, which is vital for our city’s physical and economic growth," REBNY President Steven Spinola said in the statement.
People like to throw the "global city" term around a little too much. NY's been a global city for hundreds of years. Wonder what he's really getting at?
Too many historic districts would lead to "the loss of needed new housing and commercial development, job creation and tax revenue for basic services and the innovative architecture that has helped to make New York a truly global city," Spinola said.
DoBro Fights Landmark District
DOWNTOWN BROOKLYN—The Borough Hall Skyscraper Historic District, which aims to slap landmark status on 20 tall buildings in the Downtown Brooklyn area, was a hot topic at a Landmarks Commission Preservation hearing today. Several residents of 75 Livingston Street urged the LPC to exclude the failure of a building because of the economic burden that landmarking would create. A pair of 75 Livingston residents also spoke out in favor of landmarking.
The president of Brooklyn Law School also questioned the Brooklyn Heights Association's inclusion of 184 Joralemon Street (one of the school's dorms) in the district, because the group panned the school's two Robert A.M. Stern buildings back when they were constructed. The LPC didn't vote. [CurbedWire Staff]
http://ny.curbed.com/archives/2010/1..._preserved.php
http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/20...n/#more-255881
Last edited by Merry; December 15th, 2010 at 05:07 AM.
Posting Permissions
Bookmarks