125th Street rezoning moves forward

Angry local opposition jeered and escorted out by security. After a public review that included over 170 meetings with local residents, the Planning Commission voted to approve the Department of City Planning’s proposal to rezone the 125th Street corridor, which includes 124th and 126th Street.

Once a prestigious epicenter of African American culture, the 125th Street corridor has suffered from a lack of public and private investment since the 1960s. In recent years, however, renewed … <Read More>


Dispute over synagogue’s condo development

Congregation Shearith Israel seeks a variance from BSA to construct a nine-story, mixed-use building in the Central Park West Historic District. Image: Platt Byard Dovell White Architects LLP.

Neighbors claim congregation’s program needs could be accommodated by an as-of-right building. The Congregation Shearith Israel Synagogue, a City landmark located at 8 West 70th Street within the Central Park West Historic District, sought a variance from lot coverage, yard, height and setback zoning regulations in order … <Read More>


To attorney Paul Selver, the Market Matters Most

When asked to recall projects throughout his 35-year career, land use attorney Paul Selver’s discussion becomes a vivid narrative of how the economy translates into New York City’s physical changes. Selver sees 1977 as the point when developers started looking ahead for the first time; the 1981 to 1988 development boom coincided with the economy’s exuberance and ended with the stock market crash. To Selver, his current projects, like a six-block rezoning in Coney Island, … <Read More>


Architect Lord Norman Foster Talks About His Addition to Madison Avenue

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 … <Read More>


Controversial Madison Avenue tower gets hearing

Rendering of the high-rise residential tower proposed at 980 Madison Avenue in the Upper East Side Historic District. mage: LPC.

Public hearing held on 26-story, Norman Foster-designed addition to Madison Ave. building. On October 24, 2006, Landmarks held the first public hearing on the controversial proposal of Aby Rosen and RFR Holdings LLC to add a 26-story addition to the existing five-story building at 980 Madison between East 76th and East 77th Streets in Manhattan’s … <Read More>


Harlem theater and Staten Island house designated

Photoplays theater built in 1914. The Claremont Theater building, located at 3320-3328 Broadway in Harlem, Manhattan, is one of the oldest structures in New York City constructed specifically for showing motion pictures, originally called “photoplays.” The 1914 theater was designed in the neo-Renaissance style and faced in white terra cotta and white glazed brick by architect Gaetano Ajello, best-known for his apartment buildings on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. The building has an unusual arrangement with … <Read More>