Kickstarter wins Landmarks’ approval for Brooklyn HQ

Internet fundraising company plans to renovate dilapidated building in Greenpoint. On March 20, 2012, Landmarks approved a plan by Kickstarter, the crowdsourced fundraising company, to adaptively reuse a neglected building at 58 Kent Street in Greenpoint, Brooklyn into its headquarters. 58 Kent Street is one of five buildings making up the former Eberhard Faber Pencil Company factory, which Landmarks designated as a historic district in October 2007. (See CityLand’s coverage here). The two-story … <Read More>


Landmarks approves Park Slope Historic District Extension

New Brooklyn historic district brings another 600 buildings bordering original Park Slope Historic District under Landmarks jurisdiction. On April 17, 2012, Landmarks unanimously approved the creation of the Park Slope Historic District Extension. The extension includes 600 buildings on the southwest border of the 1973-designated Park Slope Historic District. The new district is generally bounded by 7th Street to the north, 15th Street to the south, 8th Avenue to the east, and … <Read More>


Landmarks approves school’s expansion on Upper West Side

Stephen Gaynor School plans to expand and connect the Claremont Stables building on West 89th Street to its facility on West 90th Street. On March 20, 2012, Landmarks approved the Stephen Gaynor School’s proposal to build a rooftop addition on the individually landmarked Claremont Stables building at 175 West 89th Street.

The four-story, 1892 Romanesque Revival Claremont Stables building is on the north side of West 89th Street between Columbus and Amsterdam Avenues … <Read More>


HPD’s Carol Clark on Affordable Housing Development and Historic Preservation

Carol Clark, Assistant Commissioner for Land Use and Local Governmental Affairs with the New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development, serves as one of the agency’s vital ambassadors to the City Council. The Council must review HPD’s affordable housing development initiatives that involve the disposition of City-owned properties or the grant of tax exemptions. Clark arrived at HPD ten years ago with an extensive background in architecture, historic preservation, planning, and real estate … <Read More>


The AIA Guide’s Fran Leadon on Preservation, Development, and the Guide’s Future

Fran Leadon, architect and professor at City College’s Spitzer School of Architecture, coauthored the fifth edition of the American Institute of Architects Guide to New York City along with Norval White, who passed away prior to its publication in 2010. The Guide, published by Oxford University Press, is a comprehensive, and compulsively readable, handbook to the City’s architecturally significant buildings and spaces. It was created in 1968 by former Landmarks Preservation Commission Vice Chair Elliot … <Read More>


Commissioners delay vote on addition near High Line

Image: Courtesy of ma.com

Reduction  in  height  of  glass-and- steel  addition  insufficient  to  gain from the existing building. On April 12, 2011, Landmarks considered Taconic Investment Partners’ revised proposal to build an addition on top of a low-rise building at 837 Washington Street across the street from the High Line in the Gansevoort Market Historic District. Taconic first proposed adding a seven-story masonry column wrapped in a torqued glass and steel tower. Landmarks praised the … <Read More>