Boerum Hill Map. Image credit: LPC.

Commission rejected modifications to 288-property extension to Boerum Hill Historic District, composed of three discrete pieces. On June 26, 2018, the Landmarks preservation Commission voted to designate a 288-building extension to the existing Boerum Hill Historic District. The extension is composed of three distinct sections to the east, north and south of the existing district. The extension shares it development history and architectural character with the existing district. The first wave of residential development in the area, in the 1850s to 1870s, followed the industrialization of the South Brooklyn waterfront, and saw the construction of speculatively built rowhouses, primarily in Italianate and Greek Revival styles. Following the Civil War and the opening of the Gowanus Canal, a second wave of development in the 1880s included Second Empire houses and neo-Grec rowhouses. The area’s original denizens were largely German and Italian immigrants who worked in port-related industries. (read more…)

Image credit: LPC.

Some commissioners lamented loss of Music Room and house museum character, but acknowledged those issues were outside of Landmark’s purview, and found impact on the exterior fell within bounds of appropriateness. On June 26, 2018, the Landmarks Preservation Commission voted to award the Frick collection a certificate of appropriateness to allow for an expansion that will improve circulation, increase exhibition, education and conservation space, and create a café. The individual City landmark was built for industrialist Henry Clay Frick by Carrere & Hastings in 1914. After the deaths of Frick and his wife, the mansion at 895 Fifth Avenue, was converted into a museum based around Frick’s art collection. The conversion and expansion were overseen by architect John Russell Pope, and include the construction of a library adjoining the museum. (read more…)

AT&T Building. Image credit: LPC.

Proponents of revitalization stressed need for adaptability in redeveloping currently vacant building, others lamented destruction of lobby, and urged Landmarks to maintain oversight of entire lot. On June 19, 2018, Landmarks held a public hearing on the potential designation of the former AT&T Corporate Headquarters at 550 Madison Avenue in Midtown Manhattan. The 37-foot-tall tower was completed in 1984 and designed by Philip Johnson, recipient of a 1979 Pritzker Prize, and John Burgee. An early significant work of postmodern architecture, in the Headquarters Johnson and Burgee, rejected the unadorned glass curtain walls of International Style modernism, exemplified in New York by the Seagram Building. The building is clad in masonry and employs historicist quotations, including its famous pediment recalling design motifs in Chippendale furniture. It possesses a monumental entrance arch on Madison Avenue that is flanked by more arches that originally opened to Italian Renaissance-inspired arcades beneath the tower, and covered pedestrian space between east 55th and 56th Streets. The arcades have since been filled in. (read more…)

City and Suburban Homes Company, First Avenue Estate. Image credit: LPC.

Developer claimed that Commissioners irrationally and prejudicially analyzed hardship application, and that designation amounted to an unconstitutional taking. In 1990, Landmarks designated the City and Suburban Homes Company, First Avenue Estate an individual City landmark. The block-sized development is bounded East 64th and 65th Streets and York and First Avenues. Built between 1819 and 1915, it was constructed to provide high-quality housing to low-income New Yorkers in an alternative to crowded, poorly ventilated tenement buildings. The First Avenue Estate is one of only two full-block light court tenement complexes in the City. (read more…)

827-831 Broadway rendering. Image credit: LPC.

Revised application redesigned and lowered addition over historic facades, shifted bulk of new floor area to third, non-designated building. On May 15, 2018, Landmarks considered and approved additions to 827 and 831 Broadway, collectively designated an individual City landmark as the 827-831 Broadway Buildings. The Commission held a hearing on additions to the buildings on January 9, 2018, and considered a revised proposal on April 24, 2018. Landmarks voted to designate the buildings in October 2017, both for their 19th-century palazzo-inspired architecture, and for their 20th-century history, when they housed the homes and studios of artists associated with Abstract Expressionist movement, particularly Willem De Kooning. (read more…)

Central Harlem West 130-132nd Historic District. Image credit: LPC.

164-building potential district characterized by 19th-century residential architecture, and cultural and political history.            Landmarks held a public hearing on the potential designation of the Central Harlem West 130-132nd Historic District at its meeting on April 17, 2018. The district is composed of the block interiors on 130th, 131st, and 132nd Streets between Lenox Avenue and Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard. The district includes approximately 164 buildings, chiefly built during a brief period of development in the final decades of the 19th century. The speculative rowhouses were constructed in architectural styles appealing to the middle class of the period, primarily Neo Grec, interspersed Queen Anne, Renaissance Revival, and Romanesque Revival. Landmarks Executive Director Sarah Carroll stated that the proposed designation had come about through Landmarks’ study of properties associated with African-American history and the civil rights movement. (read more…)