Image Credit: LPC.

Modernist structure last item designated of the buildings identified in Landmarks’ East Midtown Initiative. On December 6, 2016, the Landmarks Perseveration Commission voted to designate the former Citicorp Center and St. Peter’s Church, at 601 Lexington Avenue, an individual City landmark. The complex comprises of a 59-story office tower, a smaller office and retail building, and a church, as well as a public plaza and open-air concourse. Completed in 1978 to designs by Hugh Stubbins & Associates, in collaboration with Emery Roth & Sons, the modernist complex is best known for its tower’s roof, cut off at a 45-degree angle. (more…)

United Nations Hotel. Image Credit: LPC

Some speakers testified that landmarked space should be expanded to connect bar and lobby as one designated interior. At its meeting on November 22, 2016, the Landmarks Preservation Commission heard testimony on the potential designation of two interior spaces on the first floor of the United Nations Hotel at 1 United Nations Plaza in East Midtown. The interiors under consideration are the Ambassador Grill and the Hotel Lobby, built as part of a hotel and office complex by the United Nations Development Corporation. Both designed by the firm Kevin Roche Dinkeloo Associates. The grill was completed in 1976, and the Lobby in 1983. Landmarks voted to add the interiors to its calendar on September 20, 2016. (more…)

City Officials Break Ground at One Vanderbilt. Image Credit: Office of the Mayor

City Officials and developer broke ground on the new One Vanderbilt office building and $220 million transit upgrade of Grand Central. On October 18, 2016, Mayor Bill de Blasio, Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer, Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney and Council Member Dan Garodnick joined the developer SL Green for the on-site groundbreaking ceremony. The new office tower will reach 1,401 feet and cover the city block west of Grand Central. The tower is expected to achieve LEED gold certification and contain 1.7 million-square-feet of office space across 58 floors. The One Vanderbilt project met resistance at the Community level but was ultimately approved by City Planning and the City Council with additional concessions by the developer. See CityLand’s previous coverage here and here. (more…)

The Thomas-Lamb designed Loew’s 175th Street Theater in Washington Heights was prioritized for designation. Image credit: LPC

Some items will be removed from calendar due to political reality that designations will not be ratified by Council; others are found to be adequately protected so as to not require prioritization; others to lack significance that would merit immediate designation. On February 23, 2016, Landmarks made determinations on the disposition of 95 items added to Landmarks’ calendar before 2010, but never subjected to a vote on designation. In 2015 the commission had announced an initiative to clear the calendar of the backlogged items. Landmarks held a series of public hearings to give the public an opportunity to testify on the items, some of which had languished on Landmarks’ calendar for decades. At the meeting on February 23, 2016 commissioners voted to keep 30 items on the calendar for a vote on designation during 2016. The remaining 65 items will be decalendared. Landmarks’ determinations on all 95 items are listed in the associated chart.

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Architect’s rendering of One Vanderbilt Place and Grand Central Terminal. Image credit: Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates

Owner of Grand Central Terminal claims violation of property rights, seeks $1 billion in damages.  On September 28, 2015, Andrew Penson—the owner of Grand Central Terminal in the Midtown East neighborhood of Manhattan—initiated a lawsuit against New York City for allegedly unlawfully taking Grand Central’s air rights from him for the benefit of SL Green Realty Corporation without just compensation, which is a violation of the Fifth Amendment of the United States Constitution.  The complaint was filed with the United States District Court in Manhattan and seeks $1.13 billion in damages.

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