After two hearings, 1930-built Horn and Hardart Automat finally designated. On January 30, 2007, Landmarks unanimously approved the designation of 2710 Broadway, one of the last remaining structures in the city to once house a Horn and Hardart Automat. Constructed in 1930 by the architectural firm E.P. Platt and Brothers, the Art-Deco style building features glazed terra cotta ornamentation of contrasting colors in stylized floral motifs that remain remarkably intact.
The building’s owner, Norma Teitler, adamantly opposed landmarking, believing it would devalue the property she held for over 20 years. In two hearings, preservationist groups called attention to the well-preserved structure and ornamentation, while community residents and others evoked the memories and cultural significance of the automats. 3 CityLand 94 (July 15, 2006). (more…)
- Located just off Times Square, the Lambs Club hosted famous actors and actresses for nearly a century. Photo:Morgan Kunz.
Four-story addition approved as part of luxury hotel conversion of Times Square landmark. Landmarks issued the permit for a four-story addition to the Lambs Club, a designated landmark located at 128 and 130 West 44thStreet between Broadway and Sixth Avenue. The addition is part of the planned conversion of the 1905 neo-Georgian building to a luxury hotel to be operated by Manhattan socialite Vikram Chatwal. Chatwal originally sought a sevenstory addition, which he reduced by three stories to address Landmarks’ concerns over visibility of the addition.
Voting to approve, Landmarks noted that the four-story addition remained only minimally visible from West 44th Street, obliquely visible from Sixth Avenue and would blend in with surrounding buildings when viewed from Bryant Park. Landmarks also emphasized that Chatwal committed to repointing 100 percent of the terra cotta joints and some of the brick work.
Landmarks designated the McKim, Mead and White designed club as an individual City landmark in 1974. Originally founded by London actors in 1868, the Lambs Club formed in 1874 in New York City and the club later counted McKim, Mead, and White as members. Past members included Mark Twain, Edwin Booth and Frank Mandel. The Lambs Club provided a billiard room, grill room, a small theater and sleeping rooms for its members at the West 44th Street location until the late 1970s. (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 still maintain original brownstone lintels and Flemish bond brickwork, despite significant alterations over the years. (more…)
The first addition to New York’s skyline by Pritzker Prize-winning architect Lord Norman Foster opened in October 2006 with a red-carpeted gala attended by Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Governor George Pataki and Senator Charles Schumer. The building, Foster’s 42-story diamond-grid steel and glass addition to the Hearst Building, an individual landmark at Eighth Avenue and West 57th Street, won the 2006 Emporis Skyscraper Award, naming it the best skyscraper constructed in the world that year.
Last month, Foster presented a new proposal to Landmarks for a slim, skyscraper addition to the five-story Parke- Bernet gallery on Madison Avenue and East 76th Street, located in a City historic district. While comparisons can be drawn to the lauded Hearst Tower, Landmarks rejected the Madison Avenue addition by a tally of nine to one. City- Land talked to Foster about New York’s permitting processes, its mutable skyline, and Landmarks’ rejection of his addition to the Upper East Side. (more…)
February calendar includes 17 projects. The New York City Industrial Development Agency, a component of the Economic Development Corporation, will hold its monthly public hearing on February 8, 2007 for 17 proposed projects including bond offerings totaling $811 million and seven straight-leases.
Included among the 17 projects is a straight-lease to NBC Universal of 1,380,000 sq.ft. of office space at 30 Rockefeller Plaza. The City would lease the property from the building’s owner and sub-lease it to NBC, exempting NBC from taxes. NBC would make payments in lieu of property taxes. IDA also proposes to exempt NBC’s purchase of equipment, furniture, and other fixtures from City and State sales and use taxes. (more…)
