Landmarks designates 1856 Staten Island home

Staten Island’s Wyeth House built in 1856. Photo: LPC.

Home of former Assemblyman and opera singer designated. Landmarks designated the brick and stone Italianate villa located at 190 Meisner Avenue in Lighthouse Hill, Staten Island as both architecturally and historically significant on May 15, 2007. Built in 1856 for Nathaniel J. Wyeth, a prominent lawyer and Assemblyman, the home retains its octagonal cupola, molded caps and two chimneys. In 1925, opera star Graham Marr purchased … <Read More>


Development of Staten Island Farm Colony offered

EDC seeks proposals for a post-secondary school to occupy 98-acre site containing designated buildings. On February 28, 2007, the New York City Economic Development Corporation issued a request for proposals for a site formerly used as the City’s Farm Colony.

Starting in the 1850s, the City provided housing to indigent New Yorkers in exchange for their labor on the Farm Colony. The facility expanded several times, but by the 1940s its use began to decline. … <Read More>


City Planning action affects 1,000 acres in Staten island

 

Prince’s Bay Rezoning locator map used with permission of the New York City Department of City Planning. All rights reserved.

Council Member Lanza and City Planning push forward Prince’s Bay down-zoning. On October 11, 2006, the Planning Commission approved a proposal to down-zone an 172-acre portion of Prince’s Bay, Staten Island and to adopt text amendments to restrict future development on an additional 830 acres. Council Member Andrew Lanza withdrew his original rezoning application … <Read More>


Harlem theater and Staten Island house designated

Photoplays theater built in 1914. The Claremont Theater building, located at 3320-3328 Broadway in Harlem, Manhattan, is one of the oldest structures in New York City constructed specifically for showing motion pictures, originally called “photoplays.” The 1914 theater was designed in the neo-Renaissance style and faced in white terra cotta and white glazed brick by architect Gaetano Ajello, best-known for his apartment buildings on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. The building has an unusual arrangement with … <Read More>


Council approved Staten Island commercial districts

Staten Island Commercial Rezonings. Used with permission of the New York City Department of City Planning. All rights reserved.

Amendment restricts residential- only development in commercial districts. The City Council rezoned three areas of Staten Island and approved a text amendment to insure lower density commercial development in portions of the borough. The three areas rezoned are located along Castleton Avenue, New Dorp Lane, and Arthur Kill Road.

The Planning Department initiated the rezoning proposals … <Read More>


Two Staten Island neighborhoods down-zoned

Bay Terrace and Oakwood down-zoned to prohibit semidetached homes. On November 16, 2005, the City Council approved zoning map amendments to rezone 48 blocks of Bay Terrace and Oakwood, Staten Island.

Council Member Andrew J. Lanza initiated the Bay Terrace proposal in response to concerns about over-development in Staten Island. The proposal called for the rezoning of an area bounded by Amboy Road, Buffalo Avenue, Durant Avenue, and Bay Terrace. Under the proposal, 27 blocks … <Read More>