Waldorf-Astoria Interior. Image Credit LPC.

Art Deco lobbies, galleries, staircase, a ballroom and their connecting spaces over three floors of iconic hotel to be considered for interior landmark status. On November 1, 2016, the Landmarks Preservation Commission added interior spaces of the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel at 301 Park Avenue to its calendar, the first formal step in the path to designation. The 1931 hotel, designed by the firm Schultze and Weaver, is already an individual City landmark, but its interiors are unprotected. The proposed designation encompasses select spaces on ground floor, first floor, and third floor, as well as the connecting spaces between them. (more…)

9 DeKalb Avenue. Project Rendering. Image Credit: JDS Development and the Chetrit Group.

Designated bank lobby will be converted to retail space, while new tower will accommodate residential use. On April 19, 2016, the Landmarks Preservation Commission voted to approve work impacting the individually designated Dime Savings Bank, as well as its lobby, an interior Landmark. The site lies at 9 Dekalb Avenue in Downtown Brooklyn, on an irregularly shaped block bounded by Dekalb and Flatbush Avenues and Fulton Street. The proposed tower will displace the Williamsburgh Savings Bank as the borough’s tallest building. The work entails the demolition of a portion of the 1930s addition, the creation of a new entrance on Flatbush Avenue, and alterations to the lobby to adapt it to retail use. The new tower will be partially sited within the landmarked lot. The plan includes extensive restoration work to the bank building. (more…)

Rendering of planned new tower as it would appear in relation to the restored Robert and Anne Dickey House from the south. Image credit: FXFowle Architects

Applicants altered design so that tower’s facade projections would less severely impose on airspace above historic house. On March 8, 2016 the Landmarks Preservation Commission approved an application by Trinity Place Holdings to develop a new tower adjoining, and internally connected with, the individually landmarked Robert and Anne Dickey House at 67 Greenwich Street in Lower Manhattan. On the tower’s south facade, cantilevered stepped projections would penetrate the airspace above the 1810 building. The project would also entail work and restoration to the landmark, which would serve as part of a school planned to be sited in the lower portion of the tower. (more…)

Architect rendering of the proposed Palace Theater changes. Image credit: PBDW Architects

Renovations will allow for better utilization of space, according to applicants, while preservationists expressed concerns about fragility of early-20th-century Baroque theater. On November 24, 2015, Landmarks approved an application to raise the Palace Theater, an interior landmark, 29 feet within its current footprint, as well as conduct restoration work and other associated renovations. The original building in which the theater stood was demolished, and a new hotel built over and around the theater in the 1990s. The 1913 Beaux-Arts landmark, located at 1562 Broadway, is currently being operated as the Helen Hayes Theater.

(more…)

From Left to Right: Paul Selver, Jerold Kayden, Meenakshi Srinivasan, Kent Barwick. Image Credit: LPC

Speakers spoke of the different priorities of City government and other stakeholders, examined preservation strategies of municipalities nationwide, and considered changes in the legal landscape that could affect landmarking. On October 26, 2015, , Meenakshi Srinivasan, Chair of the Landmarks Preservation Commission, and Jerold Kayden, Professor at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design, co-hosted an event titled “History in the Making: The New York City Landmarks Law at 50.” The event held at the New York City Bar Association consisted of multiple addresses and panels intended to provoke and challenge common assumptions and perceptions regarding historic preservation as the City’s landmarks law enters the second half of its first century. (more…)