Landmarks Research Director Mary Beth Betts on her Career, the Commission, and the Fabric of the City

New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission Director of Research Mary Beth Betts supervises a staff of 12 that is responsible for the research and writing of designation reports, the review of requests for evaluation submitted to the Commission, and the conduct of surveys to identify buildings or districts worthy of designation. She is also involved in the environmental review process for major City projects, the identification of significant historic resources, and helps to educate the … <Read More>


Con Edison Meets Hurricane Sandy’s Challenge

Every four hours around the clock, beginning Tuesday, October 30, 2012, workers from every part of Consolidated Edison’s territory reported to senior management on the status, needs and plans to restore service to Con Edison customers. The reports came in to Con Edison’s Emergency Response Center set up in the nineteenth floor auditorium at Con Edison’s headquarters at 4 Irving Place.

The first reports were sketchy assessments: what was happening and where. As the storm … <Read More>


Landmarks devotes meeting to potential designations

Landmarks provides forum for accord and controversy during numerous hearings. On June 24, 2008, Landmarks heard testimony on eight potential City landmarks, as well as one historic district extension. According to spokesperson Lisi de Bourbon, Landmarks grouped the designation hearings on one day to demonstrate certain themes and priorities like post-war architecture, public libraries, and the Commission’s recent review of architecture in the West Village.

The proposed extension of Queens’ Douglaston Historic to encompass 22 … <Read More>


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>


Landmarks approves two individual landmarks

The Morse Building, lower Manhattan; the Staten Island Savings Bank, S.I. Landmarks unanimously designated the two new individual landmarks on September 19, 2006. The crimson red and black brick terra cotta Morse Building, located at Nassau and Beekman Streets in lower Manhattan, was the city’s tallest building when constructed in 1880. Built by two nephews of Samuel Morse, the inventor of the electric telegraph, the building originally contained office space but was converted in 1980 … <Read More>


Harlem theater and Staten Island house designated

Photoplays theater built in 1914. The Claremont Theater building, located at 3320-3328 Broadway in Harlem, Manhattan, is one of the oldest structures in New York City constructed specifically for showing motion pictures, originally called “photoplays.” The 1914 theater was designed in the neo-Renaissance style and faced in white terra cotta and white glazed brick by architect Gaetano Ajello, best-known for his apartment buildings on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. The building has an unusual arrangement with … <Read More>