Proposed development site of 26-32 Jackson Avenue next to the Queensboro Bridge approach ramps. Image Credit: Google Maps
Community members voiced concerns about infrastructure and affordability for the proposed addition of almost 500 units. On September 17, 2018, the City Council Subcommittee on Zoning and Franchises heard an application by the Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) and the Department of Citywide Administrative Services (DCAS) for a proposed two-building mixed-use, mixed-income project on Jackson Avenue in Long Island City, Queens. The developers, Lions Group NYC, and Fetner Properties, also applied for special permits to modify building setback requirements and to create a parking garage. (read more…)
Graffiti has become much more than spray-painted tags and quickly disappearing pieces on train cars and underpasses. In some quarters it is now high art. Highly prized are works by Shepard Fairey, the artist behind the “Hope” poster Fairey made for Barack Obama’s presidential campaign, Jean-Michel Basquiat, who began as a graffiti artist and whose works today command huge prices, and Banksy, whose street works are carefully preserved. These dramatic changes in the nature and importance of graffiti have created major shifts in and problems for artists and intellectual property law, as well as for property owners. The tensions are very evident in the most recent judicial opinions in the dispute between artists who used to paint at 5Pointz in Long Island City in Queens and the developers who destroyed the highly decorated buildings for construction of two large apartment buildings which are now under construction. (read more…)
The Manhattan Bank Building in Long Island City, Queens. Image credit: LPC
Building was known as “Queens’ first skyscraper”. On May 12, 2015 the Landmarks Preservation Commission voted unanimously to designate the former Bank of Manhattan Company’s Long Island City branch building at 29-27 Queens Plaza North as an individual City landmark. Also known as the Queens Clock Tower, the building was designed by architect Morrell Smith, a Queens native, and first opened in 1927. The proposed landmarking first received a public hearing on April 21, 2015.
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The Manhattan Bank Building in Long Island City, Queens. Image credit: LPC
Property owners have agreed to restrictive declaration that would limit the development adjacent lots to heights of historic buildings, to preserve towers visible facades and clock faces. On April 21, 2015, the Landmarks Preservation Commission held a hearing on the potential designation Bank of Manhattan Company Long Island City Branch Building at 29-27 Queens Plaza North as a potential individual City landmark. The building, completed in 1927 to designs by architect Morrell Smith has three designed facades clad in tan brick in a Neo-Gothic style. A clock tower with a crenellated roof rises to 14 stories, and possesses four glass clock faces with roman numerals. The Queens-born Smith designed several prominent buildings in the borough, including the individually landmarked Jamaica Savings Bank. Smith was awarded a prize from the Queens Chamber of Commerce for the best business building of 1927 for the branch tower.
At the time of its construction, the tower was flanked by two older building that have since been demolished. The sites are currently vacant. The landmark site would only comprise the footprint of the original 1927 construction, not that of additions built in the 1930s.
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