Booth House
Landmarks’ designations of two residential buildings on City Island rejected due to objections of local council member. On March 12, 2018, the City Council’s Subcommittee on Landmarks, Public Siting & Maritime Uses voted against upholding the individual landmark designations of two residential buildings on City Island in the Bronx. The buildings are the Samuel H. and Mary T. Booth House at 30 Centre Street, and the Captain John H. Stafford House, at 95 Pell Place. Both houses were unanimously designated by the Landmarks Preservation Commission on November 28, 2017. (more…)
Dime Savings Bank of Williamsburgh
Bank’s construction quickly followed opening of Williamsburg Bridge; grand Classical facade composed of limestone and granite communicated stability and civic pride. Landmarks held a hearing on the potential designation of the Dime Savings Bank of Williamsburgh on February 6, 2018. The bank stands at 209 Havemeyer Street in Brooklyn’s Williamsburg neighborhood. The building was constructed in 1908 and designed by the firm of Helmle and Huberty. A 1925 addition continued the original design, and more than doubled the bank’s footprint. (more…)
Jeffrey A. Kroessler
The Landmarks Preservation Commission has calendared the AT&T Building at 550 Madison Avenue for a public hearing. As well it should. Designed by Philip Johnson and John Burgee, the skyscraper with a distinctive Chippendale top was the first post-modern addition to the skyline when completed in 1984. It is as emblematic of its time as the Woolworth Building (Cass Gilbert, 1913) and the Chrysler Building (William Van Allen, 1930). (more…)
Old Saint James Episcopal Church at 86-02 Broadway in the Elmhurst section of Queens. Image credit: LPC
No objections to designation raised at hearing; concerns about closeness of potential development on undesignated portion of lot to church building raised by Commissioners. On August 8, 2017, Landmarks held a hearing on the potential designation of the Old Saint James Episcopal Church at 86-02 Broadway in the Elmhurst section of Queens. Landmarks added the 1736 building to its calendar at its June 27, 2017, meeting. The building is the second oldest surviving religious structure in the City, predated only by the 1694 Friends Meeting House in Flushing, an individual City landmark. The western portion of the lot on which the church sits is paved and used as a parking lot, and would not be included in the designation. (more…)
New York Public Library Reading Room. Image Credit: NYPL.
UPDATE: Landmarks voted to designate the interior at its meeting August 8, 2017. Commissioner Adi Shamir-Baron spoke of the “rare condition of two block’s worth of interior space,” with 50-foor ceilings. She said the interiors remind us of the meaning of civic space, as a place that “honors and elevates the spirit of the individual and the collective.”
Chair Meenakshi Srinivasan stated that designation as an imperative step in Landmarks’ mission, that would preserve and protect an important part of one of the “City’s finest public civic institutions.” She thanked the New York Public Library’s leadership for their stewardship of the space.
Commissioners voted unanimously to designate the individual landmark.
Original article below:
If designated, reading and catalog rooms would join New York Public Library Building exterior, and Main Lobby and other interiors, as City landmarks. On June 6, 2016, Landmarks voted to add the Main Reading and Catalog Room of the at 476 Fifth Avenue in Midtown Manhattan to its calendar, officially commencing the process for designation as a potential interior City landmark. The exterior of the building, as well as the Main Lobby, third floor central hall, and two staircases, are individual and interior landmarks already. The firm of Carrere & Hastings won an architectural competition to design the Library in 1897, with a Beaux-Arts plan. The library opened to the public in 1911.
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