Image from 1912 of 209 Flagg Place in Staten Island. Image Credit: LPC/Ivan Brice Architecture
Commissioners make only minor recommendations for the Stone Court mansion project and plan to conduct a site visit before the next hearing. On October 30, 2018, Landmarks Preservation Commission held a public hearing on an application for a certificate of appropriateness for a proposed restoration of the Ernest Flagg Stone Court mansion located at 209 Flagg Place in Staten Island, and for the construction of 19 one-family homes to the north and west of the mansion on the Ernest Flagg landmarked estate. The Dutch Colonial Revival style mansion was designed by Ernest Flagg and built in 1898. It was altered in 1907 with Palladian-inspired details, and several accessory buildings were constructed at this time. The mansion served as the Flagg country residence for 50 years before it became home to the St. Charles Seminary in 1947, following Flagg’s death. (more…)
Five of the seven buildings calendared for designation. Image Credit: Google Maps
The buildings feature various architectural styles and were home to garment manufacturers in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. On September 25, 2018, the Landmarks Preservation Commission unanimously voted to add seven buildings to its calendar for consideration as individual landmarks. The buildings are located at 817 Broadway, 826 Broadway, 830 Broadway, 832 Broadway, 836 Broadway, 840 Broadway, and 841 Broadway. All of the buildings are south of Union Square in Manhattan. (more…)
AT&T Building. Image credit: LPC.
Proponents of revitalization stressed need for adaptability in redeveloping currently vacant building, others lamented destruction of lobby, and urged Landmarks to maintain oversight of entire lot. On June 19, 2018, Landmarks held a public hearing on the potential designation of the former AT&T Corporate Headquarters at 550 Madison Avenue in Midtown Manhattan. The 37-foot-tall tower was completed in 1984 and designed by Philip Johnson, recipient of a 1979 Pritzker Prize, and John Burgee. An early significant work of postmodern architecture, in the Headquarters Johnson and Burgee, rejected the unadorned glass curtain walls of International Style modernism, exemplified in New York by the Seagram Building. The building is clad in masonry and employs historicist quotations, including its famous pediment recalling design motifs in Chippendale furniture. It possesses a monumental entrance arch on Madison Avenue that is flanked by more arches that originally opened to Italian Renaissance-inspired arcades beneath the tower, and covered pedestrian space between east 55th and 56th Streets. The arcades have since been filled in. (more…)
Rendering of 430 West Broadway in Manhattan.
Morris Adjmi-designed building would replace three-story commercial structure built in 1986. On June 12, 2018, Landmarks held a hearing on a proposal to construct a new building at 430 West Broadway in the SoHo-Cast Iron Historic District. The lot is currently occupied by a three-story commercial structure built in 1986 and redesigned in 1997 to plans by the firm of Greenberg Farrow. The proposal would see the demolition of the existing building, and the construction of a new design by Morris Adjmi Architects, that would rise to six stories at the streetwall, with an additional setback story. (more…)
Central Harlem West 130-132nd Historic District. Image credit: LPC.
164-building potential district characterized by 19th-century residential architecture, and cultural and political history. Landmarks held a public hearing on the potential designation of the Central Harlem West 130-132nd Historic District at its meeting on April 17, 2018. The district is composed of the block interiors on 130th, 131st, and 132nd Streets between Lenox Avenue and Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard. The district includes approximately 164 buildings, chiefly built during a brief period of development in the final decades of the 19th century. The speculative rowhouses were constructed in architectural styles appealing to the middle class of the period, primarily Neo Grec, interspersed Queen Anne, Renaissance Revival, and Romanesque Revival. Landmarks Executive Director Sarah Carroll stated that the proposed designation had come about through Landmarks’ study of properties associated with African-American history and the civil rights movement. (more…)
