Proposal for Whitney Museum block considered

Landmarks requested developer consider reducing proposal impacting buildings adjacent to the Whitney Museum. On October 18, 2011, Landmarks considered Daniel E. Straus’s proposal to alter and redevelop eight buildings adjacent to the Whitney Museum along Madison Avenue and East 74th Street in the Upper East Side Historic District. The site includes six rowhouses at 933 to 943 Madison Avenue and two townhouses at 31 and 33 East 74th Street. Straus purchased the buildings from the … <Read More>


Council refused to landmark Bowery rowhouse

135 Bowery. Image: CityLand

Owner of Federal-style building plans to redevelop site with sevenstory office building. On September 21, 2011, the City Council rejected Landmarks’ June 2011 designation of the Hardenbrook-Somarindyck House at 135 Bowery in Manhattan’s Lower East Side. The three-and-ahalf story Federal-style rowhouse was built circa 1817 and is owned by First American International Bank. Pursuant to the Charter the Council may modify or disapprove a landmark designation.

The bank purchased 135 Bowery … <Read More>


The AIA Guide’s Fran Leadon on Preservation, Development, and the Guide’s Future

Fran Leadon, architect and professor at City College’s Spitzer School of Architecture, coauthored the fifth edition of the American Institute of Architects Guide to New York City along with Norval White, who passed away prior to its publication in 2010. The Guide, published by Oxford University Press, is a comprehensive, and compulsively readable, handbook to the City’s architecturally significant buildings and spaces. It was created in 1968 by former Landmarks Preservation Commission Vice Chair Elliot … <Read More>


Six-story building on Lafayette Street proposed

Apartment building would replace 1930s one-story garage. On August 9, 2011, Landmarks considered a proposal to replace a one-story garage with a six-story apartment building on a corner lot at 372 Lafayette Street in the NoHo Historic District. Landmarks in 2005 approved the demolition of the 1930s garage building and the construction of a six-story building on the site. The project was never developed and the property changed ownership.

The new project, designed by … <Read More>


Bowery bank designated

Citizens Saving Bank at 58 Bowery. Image: LPC.

Beaux-Arts style building stands across from entrance to the Manhattan Bridge. On August 9, 2011, Landmarks designated the Citizens Savings Bank at 58 Bowery in Manhattan as an individual City landmark. Architect Clarence W. Brazer designed the domed, granite-clad bank in 1922. The monumental Beaux-Arts style building sits on a square lot at the corner of Canal Street, across from the Manhattan Bridge. The building rises to … <Read More>


Townhouse Approved for Brooklyn Heights Vacant Lot

Neighbors objected to the size and materials of proposed one-family townhouse. On August 2, 2011, Landmarks approved Louis Greco’s revised proposal to build a new townhouse on a vacant lot at 27 Cranberry Street in the Brooklyn Heights Historic District. The vacant lot is on the north side of Cranberry Street between Hicks and Willow Streets. The block is characterized by three- and four-story rowhouses developed in the late 1800s.

On June 7, 2011, Greco’s … <Read More>