128 East 13th Street. The Landmarks Preservation Commission held an emergency hearing today to in order to hear testimony from the public regarding the former Van Tassel and Kearney horse auction house at 126-128 East 13th Street. A developer's dream. Built in 1904, the building served as an auction house for well-heeled New Yorkers including Read More
Proposed boundaries for the Crown Heights North historic district. On Sept. 19, the Landmarks Preservation Commission will be considering the designation of a Crown Heights North historic district. Tucked between Eastern Parkway on the south and Atlantic Avenue on the north, this neighborhood is smack-dab in the middle of Brooklyn's Caribbean-immigrant enclave. It's also got Read More
The Villager (you have to wait till tomorrow for the article to go online) reports today that the Landmarks Preservation Commission's Tuesday hearing was once again a face-off between supporters and opponents of developer Gregg Singer and his plan to convert the old P.S. 64, on East Ninth Street near Tompkins Square Park, to Read More
On Tuesday, the Landmarks Preservation Commission designated three city properties as landmarks. The first, shown here, is the Loew's Paradise Theater interior, at 2405-2419 Grand Concourse, in the Bronx. The John Eberson-design building was completed in September of 1929; it was one of five so-called "wonder" theaters, which served large population centers outside of Manhattan. Read More
Diane von Furstenberg According to this week's Villager (article not yet online), Diane von Furstenberg forgot to go before Community Board 2 in her quest to combine and renovate two buildings--at 444 and 446 West 14th Street--before she went before the Landmarks Preservation Commission this past Tuesday. While community boards serve in a strictly Read More
122 Greenwich Avenue. On Tuesday, the Landmarks Preservation Commission declined to make a decision regarding 122 Greenwich Avenue, at Eighth Avenue and 13th Street in the Village. According to City Realty and other attendees, there was much back and forth, with some residents--and the New York Landmarks Conservancy and the NYC Chapter of the Read More
The Sheraton Russell, at the corner of 37th Street and Park Avenue, is slated to close next month in preparation for demolition so that SJP Properties, of Parsippany, N.J., can develop a 21-story condominium at the site. But Assembly member Dick Gottfried, the Historic Districts Council and Community Board 6 are trying to get a Read More
The Washington Square Methodist Church, at 135-139 West Fourth Street just down the street from the park, will be getting a major renovation in order to convert it to a residential building. Talk about sweet digs: This Romanesque Revival church was designed by Charles Hadden and built in 1860, has some great stained-glass windows in Read More
The Landmarks Preservation Commission designated the Austin, Nichols & Co. Warehouse at 184 Kent Avenue in Williamsburg a landmark yesterday. The building sits smack on the East River, making it a distinctive part of the Brooklyn skyline when viewed from Manhattan. The six-story building, built in 1915 and designed by Cass Gilbert, was used to Read More
A new 114,319-square-foot, eight-story residential development on the corner of at 253 Atlantic Avenue (corner of Boerum Place) got the green light from the Board of Standards and Appeals last week. Currently the site of a Mobil gas station, the 64-unit development will finally fill in the squalid gap between downtown Brooklyn and Cobble Hill/Carroll Read More
City Council member Bill Perkins has taken the 2 Columbus Circle fray to the legislative chamber by introducing a bill that would require the Landmarks Preservation Commission to hold public hearings on alterations to any building the City Council thinks it should hold hearings about. All the council needs to do is get a majority Read More
According to a source who was there, Bank of America's new plan for the renovation of 670 Sixth Avenue at 21st Street was greeted with enthusiasm this past Tuesday at the Landmarks Preservation Commission hearing. Problem was, the L.P.C. didn't have a quorum: no quorum, no vote. In June, the BoA got approval from Community Read More
Sherida E. Paulson, former chair of the Landmarks Preservation Commission (2001-03), wrote an Op Ed in July 30's New York Times on the fate of 2 Columbus Circle, the vaguely Moorish-looking monolith designed by Edward Durrell Stone which is in danger of having its facade ripped off and replaced by a modernistic response to the Read More
(Left: The Andrews Coffee shop, as it is now. Right: Apple's rendering of its plan to replace the building with its newest New York store.) With the vaguely retro-chic Andrews Coffee Shop at Fifth Avenue between 18th and 19th Streets now shuttered, Apple Computers' plan to build a store on the site is running into Read More
Landmark West (which is hereby on notice that we're not using the exclamation point that is a part of their name! the people have spoken!) is holding a "people's hearing" this Thursday, starting at 1 p.m. at the General Society for Mechanics and Tradesmen Library (20 West 44th Street, between Fifth and Sixth avenues). Read More
