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>
Idealistic planned suburban housing to be considered as historic district. On March 6, 2007, Landmarks voted to consider the potential designation of Sunnyside Gardens, a 600-building complex of one- and two-family homes and multi-family apartment buildings built between 1924 and 1928 in Sunnyside, Queens. Covering almost 16 blocks, only 28 percent of the site contains buildings, and much of the … <Read More>
Disputed ownership of potential landmark property lent twist to hearing. On January 30, 2007, Landmarks held designation hearings on three Federal-style row houses at 94, 94 1/2, and 96 Greenwich Street in lower Manhattan.
Constructed between 1789 and 1799, contractors built the row houses soon after the laying out of Greenwich Street. They are among the few post-Revolutionary upperclass houses left in Manhattan and among the very oldest residences south of Chambers Street. The buildings … <Read More>
Landmark status of SI lot officially revoked. On December 21, 2006, Landmarks rescinded the designation of the now vacant lot at 66 Lafayette Avenue in New Brighton, Staten Island, where the New Brighton Village Hall once stood, and after years of neglect, faced demolition.
Landmarks Chair Robert Tierney commenced the hearing with a brief recital of the hall’s history. Landmarks designated the 1871- built hall in 1965. After several failed incarnations, including a doctor’s office, … <Read More>
Clinton Hill villa-style mansion designated. With a demolition permit application pending, Landmarks designated the Italianate-style home at 70 Lefferts Place in Brooklyn’s Clinton Hill, one of the last free-standing individual homes remaining from the area’s past as a suburban enclave. Built in 1854 for the merchant James W. Elwell, the International Peace Mission Movement and its leader Father Divine, who claimed to be God incarnate, purchased the home in 1931 and lived communally in it … <Read More>
Developer invited to submit another design. Following a lengthy presentation by real estate developer Aby Rosen’s team, Landmarks indicated its clear unwillingness to approve the 26-story tower addition proposed to top the Parke-Bernet building at 980 Madison Avenue within the Upper East Side Historic District.
The project architect Lord Norman Foster started the January 16th presentation with a photograph of the original 1949 Parke-Bernet building and its appearance now, after a 1950s alteration added another … <Read More>