Appellate Division Upholds Homeless Shelter Siting

Court agreed DHS met their burden under the Fair Share Criteria.  In 2012 the Department of Homeless Services opened Freedom House, a 200-family homeless shelter at 316-330 West 95th Street in Manhattan’s Upper West Side on an emergency contract.  When the emergency contract expired, then-Comptroller John C. Liu declined to register the permanent contract.  A community group, Neighborhood In The Nineties, filed an Article 78 petition to enjoin the Comptroller from registering the … <Read More>


Variance Granted for Expansion of Private School

Variance was opposed by local community board, neighborhood groups.  On July 14, 2015 the Board of Standards and Appeals voted to grant a variance to the applicant, Manhattan Country School, for enlarging its new building.  The school currently occupies a five-story townhouse on 7 East 96th Street in Manhattan’s Upper East Side and intends to relocate to a four-story building with three mezzanines on 150 West 85th Street in the Upper West Side.  The … <Read More>


Community Opposition Voiced Against Lucerne-Adjacent Development

Consensus by Commissioners that proposed sixteen-story building is too tall for site currently hosting four-story structure.  On July 22, 2014, the Landmarks Preservation Commission considered a project at 203 West 79th Street in the Upper West Side/Central Park West Historic District.  The proposal called for the demolition of the existing building at the site, where four 19th-century rowhouses were combined into one building with a contemporary facade in the 1970s.  The new building would rise … <Read More>


Proposed Two-Story Addition to UWS Building Criticized by Commissioners

Applicants testified that seven-story building was originally conceived as rising to nine stories, and that a two-story addition was approved in the 1890s. The Landmarks Preservation Commission considered an application to construct a two-story plus bulkhead addition atop the Evelyn, an apartment building at 101 West 78th Street in the Upper West Side/Central Park West Historic District, on July 23, 2013.  The 1886 seven-story Renaissance Revival apartment building stands at the corner of Columbus … <Read More>


Church Representative Opposes Designation [UPDATE: Church Designated]

See below for update.

Medieval Revival-style Catholic Church served as home for the Paulist Fathers. On June 11, 2013, the Landmarks Preservation Commission held a hearing on the potential designation of the Church of St. Paul the Apostle, at 8 Columbus Avenue in Manhattan. The church, at the corner of 60th Street, was primarily constructed during the period between 1875 and 1885. The upper parts of the church’s two imposing towers were completed … <Read More>


Replica of illegally removed balcony approved

Condo board demolished eleventh-floor balcony during facade restoration without Landmarks’ approval. On June 15, 2010, Landmarks approved a proposal to reconstruct an illegally demolished balcony on a twelve-story condominium at 105 West 72nd Street in the Upper West Side/Central Park West Historic District. The condominium board removed the eleventh-floor balcony of the building in 1992 without Landmarks’ approval. In 2004, Landmarks denied the board’s application to legalize the demolition. Four years later, the board filed … <Read More>