Landmarks votes eight designations in one day

Designations include Lord & Taylor store and Eberhard Faber Pencil Co. complex. On October 30, 2007, Landmarks voted unanimously to designate seven individual buildings and one new historic district.

In Manhattan, Landmarks designated the Lord & Taylor flagship store in Midtown, the Manhattan House in the Upper East Side, and two federal-era rowhouses in the Lower East Side. The Lord & Taylor store dates back to 1914 and is an example of the Italian Renaissance … <Read More>


Piano factory designated after new owner purchased

Landmarks unanimously designated the 1886 piano factory. On February 27, 2007, Landmarks voted to designate the Sohmer Piano Factory in Long Island City, Queens as an individual landmark. The architectural firm of Berger and Baylies designed the factory as well as many of the warehouses and lofts in Tribeca historic districts.

Though not as well known as the nearby Steinway Piano Factory in Astoria, Sohmer was a significant manufacturer in the late nineteenth and early … <Read More>


Controversial Madison Avenue tower gets hearing

Rendering of the high-rise residential tower proposed at 980 Madison Avenue in the Upper East Side Historic District. mage: LPC.

Public hearing held on 26-story, Norman Foster-designed addition to Madison Ave. building. On October 24, 2006, Landmarks held the first public hearing on the controversial proposal of Aby Rosen and RFR Holdings LLC to add a 26-story addition to the existing five-story building at 980 Madison between East 76th and East 77th Streets in Manhattan’s … <Read More>


Landmarks nixes two storefront signs

A West Side drugstore and an East Side Dunkin Donuts refused sign approvals. Bernard Weiser, owner of Thomas Drugs located at 179 Columbus Avenue on the Upper West Side, Manhattan, installed without permits an illuminated storefront sign, neon lights, and a fixed awning over the entrance. The store, located in a neo-Grec style flats building, displayed two grandfathered neon signs in the windows that read “Drugs.”

On March 17, 2004, Landmarks issued NOVs to Weiser … <Read More>


Pergola Permitted; Planters Denied

Owner, without a permit, had installed a row of planters and pergola on mansard roof. 34 West 74th Street is located in the Central Park West Historic District and the Central Park West-West 73rd-74th Street Historic District. The structure is one of a row of eighteen Georgian Revival style rowhouses with Beaux-Arts style elements, designed by Percy Griffin and built in 1902. In 2002, after the Landmarks Preservation Commission issued a notice of violation … <Read More>