Rendering of the modified design for 1162 Broadway office building./Image Credit: Morris Ajemi Architects
The modified design received support from the majority of the Commissioners. On May 12, 2020, the Landmarks Preservation Commission voted to approve a Certificate of Appropriateness to construct a new 13-story office building on a vacant lot at 1162 Broadway, Manhattan. The vacant lot is located within the Madison Square North Historic District. In 2013, Landmarks originally approved the building’s construction and design for a new hotel but nothing was constructed. Morris Ajemi Architects, the building’s architectural firm, made slight modifications to the previously approved design.
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Nos. 47 – 55 West 28th Street were the home of many sheet music publishers in the 1890s and 1900s. Image Credit: NYC LPC
The designation received strong public support despite objections from the owner. On April 30, 2019, the Landmarks Preservation Commission held a public hearing to designate five buildings located at 47 – 55 West 28th Street collectively known as “Tin Pan Alley.” Landmarks calendared the five buildings on March 12, 2019. The street was the home of sheet music publishers in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s. The street received its moniker from the sound of different pianos playing from the various publishers along the block, which collectively sounded like tin pans banging together. For CityLand’s prior coverage of the Tin Pan Alley designation process, click here. (more…)
Hotel Seville
Support for individual landmark designations of Beaux-Arts Hotel and Neo-Renaissance Office Building expressed at hearing. On February 20, 2018, the Landmarks Preservation Commission held public hearings on the potential designations of Hotel Seville and the Emmet Building, both in East Midtown, in the area to the north of Madison Square. Landmarks added both buildings to its calendar in December of 2017. (more…)
One Vanderbilt. Image credit: Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates PC
Early in January 2017 the City of New York began the official public approval process for a proposal to rezone East Midtown Manhattan. The proposal was based in part on a report by the East Midtown Steering Committee co-chaired by the Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer and the District 4 Council Member Daniel Garodnick.
The new 2017 proposal is the third proposal for rezoning East Midtown. In 2013 the Bloomberg Administration proposed to rezone East Midtown, but was forced by opposition to withdraw the proposal. In 2015 the City rezoned the limited area along the Vanderbilt Corridor adjacent to Grand Central Terminal. Both the current 2017 proposal and the 2015 adopted Vanderbilt Corridor rezoning are an improvement over the Bloomberg Administration’s withdrawn proposal; a developer cannot just write a check to receive bonus floor area, but must build an improvement to the public realm. Still, both the new proposal and the Vanderbilt Corridor rezoning represent “zoning-for-dollars,” and take zoning in a wrong direction. How might we do better? (more…)
Rendering of proposed 250 Fifth Avenue additions. Image Courtesy: Platt Byard Dovell White.
Alterations to facade design win approval for setback tower to be built on existing two-story base. On December 11, 2012, the Landmarks Preservation Commission voted to approve an application by Quartz Associates LLC for a site at 250 Fifth Avenue in the Madison Square North Historic District. The plan calls for the construction of a tower that will rise to 23 stories on top of a one-story extension to the bank building facing West 28th Street. The new tower would be set back twenty feet from the existing base. A penthouse would also be built on the five-story bank building which faces the avenue. The work will serve the conversion of the property to hotel use. The applicants intend to conduct a complete restoration of the bank building.
Landmarks held a hearing on July 24, 2012 on the project. (See Cityland’s past coverage here). Architect Charles Platt, of Platt Byard Dovell White, said the building’s massing, specifically the tower’s setback, which is atypical for the historic district, was mandated by the site’s C5-2 zoning. The building was clad in precast concrete and brick bands, with asymmetrical piers emphasizing the building’s verticality.
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