The National Society of Colonial Dames in the State of New York Headquarters at 215 East 71st Street in Manhattan. Image Credit: LPC.

Although the original landmarking proposal also included an application to designate the Headquarter’s interiors, the Colonial Dames Society withdrew their support for that application. On June 11, 2019, the Landmarks Preservation Commission voted to designate the Headquarters of the National Society of Colonial Dames in the State of New York as an individual landmark. The four-story Headquarters building is located at 215 East 71^st Street in Manhattan, between 2^nd and 3^rd Avenues. The National Society of Colonial Dames in the State of New York commissioned Richard Henry Dana Jr. to design the building in 1928 to serve as the Society’s headquarters and a house museum displaying colonial residential architecture and interior design. Dana, a specialist in colonial revival architecture, designed the Headquarters in the Georgian Revival style, using as inspiration a variety of colonial homes along the eastern seaboard, with the 1750 Colonel John McEver House as his primary reference. (more…)

AT&T Building. Image credit: LPC.

Designation will include that owners intend to demolish, but report will focus on the significance of the main tower. On July 31, 2018, Landmarks voted to designate the former AT&T Headquarters Building, at 550 Madison Avenue, an individual City landmark. The 37-story-tall, granite-clad tower was designed by Philip Johnson and John Burgee, and completed in 1983. An early major work of postmodern architecture, the tower rejected the unadorned glass curtain walls of the International Style, and reintroduced masonry cladding and ornament, in a playful pastiche of quotation. The pinkish Stony Creek granite recalled the City’s Beaux Arts architecture, while at the base a monumental central entrance arch is flanked by Renaissance-inspired flat arches that originally opened to twin arcade beneath the tower. The iconic pediment topping the building, with its circular opening, recalls sources such as Chippendale furniture and a 15th-century Florentine chapel. (more…)