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Landmarks Preservation Commission October 29, 2013, Designation List 469 LP-2540
Landmarks Preservation Commission October 29, 2013, Designation List 469 LP-2540 41 WORTH STREET BUILDING, 41 Worth Street, Manhattan. Built c. 1865; Isaac F. Duckworth, architect; Architectural Iron Works, Daniel D. Badger & Company, cast iron Landmark Site: Borough of Manhattan Tax Map Block 176, Lot 10 On June 25, 2013, the Landmarks Preservation Commission held a public hearing on the proposed designation as a Landmark of the 41 Worth Street Building and the proposed designation of the related Landmark Site (Item No. 3). The hearing had been duly advertised in accordance with the provisions of law. Three people spoke in favor of designation, including representatives of the Historic Districts Council; Victorian Society, New York; and Tribeca Trust. The president of the White Rose Artists Corporation board spoke in opposition. The Commission also received three letters in opposition to designation from members of the White Rose Artists Corporation board, including the president and vice-president. The Commission previously held a public hearing on this building on September 19, 1989 (LP-1728). Summary The five-story former store-and-loft building at 41 Worth Street was designed c. 1865 by Isaac F. Duckworth, an architect who designed several store-and-loft buildings in the Tribeca East, Tribeca South, and SoHo-Cast Iron Historic Districts. Built for Philo Laos Mills, a prominent dry goods merchant and founder of Mills & Gibb, the cast- iron facade, manufactured by Daniel D. Badger’s Architectural Iron Works, is intact above the first story. Designed in the Venetian-inspired Italianate style, the facade features tiers of single-story arcades with recessed, round-arched fenestration framed by rope moldings, molded lintels, and keystones springing from fluted columns, and spandrels cast to imitate rusticated masonry. -
Fall 2008 LECTURES MOVE to MURRAY HILL CHURCH AWARDS GIVEN at GALA
METROPOLITAN CHAPTER OF THE VICTORIAN SOCIETY IN AMERICA Fall 2008 LECTURES MOVE TO MURRAY HILL CHURCH AWARDS GIVEN AT GALA Beginning in September, because of Th e Margot Gayle gala on May 14 was the redevelopment of the Donnell Library, setting for the Annual Awards Ceremony of the the Metropolitan Chapter’s free lectures Metropolitan Chapter of the Victorian Society will be at Th e New York New Church in America. Lindsy Parrot, chair of the Awards (Swedenborgian) at 214 E. 35th St. Committee, made the presentations. in Manhattan’s Murray Hill Historic Th e evening began by recognizing Robert District between Park and Lexington C. Kaufmann with the Lifetime Achievement Avenues. Award. Kaufmann, a librarian, has devoted his Lectures will continue to be open career to preserving and caring for books on to the general public at no charge, with architecture and the fi ne and decorative arts as no reservations required. Post-lecture well as facilitating scholarly research on the receptions for members will be in a room Victorian era. For the past 25 years he has been in the church. Public transportation the reference librarian at the Th omas J. Watson options are the cross-town 34th Street Library at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. bus and the No. 6 subway to 33rd Street. He has also overseen collections at the Cooper- Classical details of the New York New Church built and expanded in the Victorian era are revealed in a 1996 sketch by Anna Rich Martinsan. Lectures for this fall are listed in this Hewitt, National Design Museum Library, Yale issue’s calendar. -
Honoring Margot Gayle: for Historic District Expansion a Centennial Celebration the Metropolitan Chapter’S Proposal to Expand That Are Landmark-Worthy Undesignated
SPRING 2008 METROPOLITAN CHAPTER OF THE VICTORIAN SOCIETY IN AMERICA SOHO RESIDENTS WELCOME PROPOSAL Honoring Margot Gayle: FOR HISTORIC DISTRICT EXPANSION A Centennial Celebration The Metropolitan Chapter’s proposal to expand that are landmark-worthy undesignated. The the SoHo-Cast Iron Historic District gained proposed expansion includes buildings on the exposure before an appreciative audience at the west side of West Broadway below Houston Annual Meeting of the SoHo Alliance at St. Street, the east side of Crosby from just south Anthony’s Church on November 27. PowerPoint of Spring Street to Howard Street and the south illustrations and take-home handouts enhanced side of Howard at its nexus with Crosby, west the presentation by members of the Preservation to Broadway. Of the 72 sites involved, nine are Committee. buildings with cast-iron fronts, and one is a vacant Melissa Baldock led off the presentation by lot. Designation, Baldock stressed, would ensure explaining that Margot Gayle, a founder of the that whatever is built on the vacant lot would be in Metropolitan Chapter and the preeminent expert keeping the architectural heritage of the district. on cast-iron architecture who was instrumental in Inappropriate signage and insensitive renovations, obtaining the initial district designation, has long she added, would be curbed. wanted the expansion. Gayle will be 100 years old Stephen Gottlieb was the next speaker, but On May 14, Margot Gayle will in May, and Baldock suggested that expansion of before he could begin, a man who identified celebrate her 100th birthday, and to honor one of the Victorian Society’s founders, the district would be an appropriate birthday gift. -
Gentrification Saved New York
City University of New York (CUNY) CUNY Academic Works Publications and Research John Jay College of Criminal Justice 2017 The Preservation Moment: Gentrification Saved New York Jeffrey A. Kroessler CUNY John Jay College How does access to this work benefit ou?y Let us know! More information about this work at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu/jj_pubs/163 Discover additional works at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu This work is made publicly available by the City University of New York (CUNY). Contact: [email protected] The Preservation Moment: Gentrification Saved New York! Jeffrey A. Kroessler Lloyd Sealy Library John Jay College of Criminal Justice In virtually any American city one can find evidence of how historic preservation has contributed to the character of the place and enhanced the quality of life. Preservationists point to their success in turning neighborhoods around, even reinventing urban life. The case of New York City is the story of the recovery of a troubled city. New York’s example has inspired and guided many other cities since, though the city is in many ways a unique case. By 1960, America’s older cities were in decline. Urban life, the defining experience of the first half of the Twentieth Century, was yielding to suburbanization. Older industrial cities reached their highest population in 1950, and for most of them the decline continued into the 21st century. This was true of Buffalo and Rochester, Cleveland and Cincinnati, Detroit, Philadelphia and St. Louis. In each instance the surrounding metropolitan region grew, but the urban core decayed. Grand urban monuments – train stations, department stores, office buildings, theaters, factories, even churches – were demolished or remained empty for decades.1 The loss of solid, beautiful structures was stunning; the sheer waste was shameful, but absent economic viability, not surprising. -
A Long History of a Short Block: Four Centuries of Development
A Long History of a Short Block: Four Centuries of Development Surprises on a Single Stretch of a New York City Street1 William Easterly (NYU) Laura Freschi (NYU) Steven Pennings (World Bank) February 2016 Economists usually analyze economic development at the national level, but the literature on creative destruction and misallocation suggests the importance of understanding what is happening at much smaller units. This paper does a development case study at an extreme micro level (one city block in New York City), but over a long period of time (four centuries). We find that (i) development involves many changes in production as comparative advantage evolves and (ii) most of these changes were unexpected (“surprises”). The block’s history illustrates how difficult it is for overly prescriptive planners to anticipate changes in comparative advantage and how such planning could instead stifle creative destruction. 2 I. Introduction Case studies of economic development usually emphasize stories of nations. In this paper, we undertake a drastic alternative: a case study of nearly 400 years of history of a single city block in New York City. The block we study is 486 feet of a north-south street called Greene Street between Houston and Prince Streets.2 Today it is part of the luxury residential and retail neighborhood called SoHo in downtown Manhattan (Figure 1). With a small unit like our block, we can see change initiated at the level of individual households or firms that in turn make up sectors of economic activity. We see a pattern of rapid change: new sectors replaced old ones while new households or businesses replaced their predecessors. -
Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation South Village Oral History Project
GREENWICH VILLAGE SOCIETY FOR HISTORIC PRESERVATION SOUTH VILLAGE ORAL HISTORY PROJECT Oral History Interview TOM BERNARDIN By Liza Zapol New York, NY March 23, 2015 Oral History Interview with Tom Bernardin, March, 23, 2015 Narrator(s) Tom Bernardin Birthdate 9/25/1948 Birthplace Lawrence, MA Narrator Age 66 Interviewer Liza Zapol Place of Interview Tom Bernardin’s home on 7th Ave and 14th St Date of Interview March 12, 2015, 10:30 am Duration of Interview 1 hour, 44 min Number of Sessions 1 Waiver Signed/copy given y Photographs Y Format Recorded .Wav 98 khz, 24 bit 150323-000.wav [2.15GB] Archival File Names 150323-001.wav [1.44GB] Bernardin_TomOralHistory1.mp3 [74.5 MB] MP3 File Name Bernardin_TomOralHistory2.mp3 [50.1 MB] Order in Oral Histories 11 Bernardin-i Tom Bernardin in his apartment, March 12, 2015. Photograph by Liza Zapol. Bernardin-ii Quotes from Oral History Interview with Tom Bernardin “...Then at the same time I founded a not-for-profit organization: Save America’s Clocks. That’s clocks.org. I think I incorporated in 1997, and put together grant kits, and not knowing what I was doing, all right? Margot Gayle was my Vice President, and also Marvin Schneider is my Vice President now. He’s the official New York City Clock Master, the most charming guy you’d ever meet. It’s his job—and his cohort, Forrest [Merkowitz]—to go and maintain all the city-owned clocks, to wind them. All of a sudden I’m learning all about public clocks. This is courtesy of Margot with her inspiration with the Jefferson Market clock, the library clock. -
Margot Gayle
Margot Gayle An Oral History Interview Conducted for the GVSHP Preservation Archives by Laura Hansen New York, New York July 23, 1996 ABSTRACT In the 1950s and 1960s, Margot Gayle (born 1908) led the grassroots effort to save the landmark Jefferson Market Courthouse building in Greenwich Village and transform it into a library. Gayle begins this interview by discussing the origins of that effort—the formation of the Village Neighborhood Committee and its activities in the late 1950s to reactivate the courthouse’s clock. That successful effort was prompted by rumors that the city was planning to sell the 1877 courthouse, a move which likely would have led to its demolition. Gayle describes the Village Neighborhood Committee’s strategy to save the building by first lobbying the City and raising funds to restart the highly visible and long-frozen clock in the building’s prominent Gothic-inspired tower. With the clock operating, the focus of the committee’s activities then shifted to lobbying for the preservation of the courthouse building itself. Gayle speaks about the work behind this effort, describing typical meetings of the committee to save the courthouse. She discusses the development of strategies to reach local media outlets and raise public awareness of the preservation campaign. In addition, she talks about key influences, such as Alan Burnham (then with the Municipal Art Society) and Harold Birns (then Housing Commissioner in New York City). Other individuals mentioned in this part of the interview include Ruth and Philip Wittenberg, Stanley Tankel, Robert Weinberg, and Anthony Dapolito. With the courthouse saved from demolition by the mid 1960s, the committee turned its attention to identifying an appropriate use for the structure. -
INDIVIDUAL INTERVIEW the Reminiscences of Margot Gayle
INDIVIDUAL INTERVIEW The Reminiscences of Margot Gayle © 1984, New York Preservation Archive Project PREFACE The following oral history is the result of a recorded interview with Margot Gayle conducted by Interviewer Anthony C. Wood on April 26th, 1984. This interview is part of the New York Preservation Archive Projects’ collection of individual oral histories. The reader is asked to bear in mind that s/he is reading a verbatim transcript of the spoken word, rather than written prose. The views expressed in this oral history interview do not necessarily reflect the views of the New York Preservation Archive Project. In this 1984 interview conducted by NYPAP founder Anthony C. Wood, longtime preservationist Margot Gayle details her role in several preservation campaigns. A political activist and Greenwich Village resident, Gayle was a key organizer in the campaigns to restart the clock on the Jefferson Market Courthouse and save the building for reuse as a library, which helped set the stage for the passage of the landmarks law in 1965. Gayle went on to found the Victorian Society of America and the Friends of Cast Iron Architecture, which successfully advocated for the designation of a historic district in Soho. She also became involved in advocacy for other public clocks throughout the city. Transcriptionist: Unknown Session: 1 Interviewee: Margot Gayle Location: Unknown Interviewer: Anthony C. Wood Date: April 26, 1984 Q: What I want to do is: I talk to people and then I type up a transcript of what was said, which I then send back to you. Gayle: I see, so I can edit a little bit. -
Fall-Winter 2008
the ANTHEMION, newsletter of the Winter 2008-2009 GREENWICH VILLAGE SOCIETY FOR HISTORIC PRESERVATION NYU’s Expansion Plans While certainly preferable to NYU’s original around the I.M. Pei-designed Silver Towers on plan, GVSHP still felt strongly that the new Bleecker Street. GVSHP had pushed to get Challenged scheme violated NYU’s pledges regarding this complex (primarily owned by NYU) and Silver Towers Landmarked, the South Village and re-use before demoli- its Picasso sculpture landmarked since 2003, But Demo Plans for Playhouse Advance tion, and would result in the loss of one of and NYU had recently ‘agreed’ to support the most historically significant buildings in designation, but then revealed it wanted per- Early this year, NYU announced with much New York City. In fact, as a result of GVSHP’s mission to build on the protected landscaping. fanfare its agreement with local community documentation of the entire building’s critical GVSHP and others vociferously opposed this groups and elected officials to a new set plan, and on November 18th the City land- history as a cornerstone of Village culture of “planning principles” to govern its future de- marked the complex, citing the significance and life, the entire Provincetown Playhouse velopment as part of its “Plan 2031.” GVSHP of the open space as part of the design, hope- and Apartments were declared eligible for the was one of those local groups, and we fought fully putting this scheme to rest forever. hard to ensure that prominent amongst the State and National Register of Historic Places. Nevertheless, after a vote of approval by the priorities would be re-using existing buildings GVSHP continues to analyze and respond to Community Board, NYU moved ahead with its rather than tearing them down, and seek- NYU’s 2031 plan, including publishing op-eds demolition plans. -
90-94 Maiden Lane Building and the Proposed Designation of the Related Landmark Site (Item No
landmarks Preservation Conunission August 1, 1989; Designation List 219 LP-1648 90-94 MAIDEN IANE IUIIDlliG, Borough of Manhattan. Built c. 1810-1830; new facades and internal alterations 1870-71; design attributed to Charles Wright for Michael Grosz & Son iron founders; iron elements cast by the Architectural Ironworks of New York. landmark Site: Borough of Manhattan Tax Map Block 42, lot 36. On Januai:y 19, 1988, the landmarks Preservation Conunission held a public hearing on the proposed designation as a landmark of the 90-94 Maiden Lane Building and the proposed designation of the related landmark Site (Item No. 1). 'Ihe hearing had been duly advertised in accordance with the provisions of law. Nineteen witnesses spoke in favor of the designation. One witness spoke in opposition to designation. A representative of the ovmers indicated that they had not taken a position regarding designation at the time of the hearing. 'Ihe Conunission has received many letters and other expressions of support in favor of this designation. DFSCRIPrION AND ANALYSIS Surrnnary 'Ihe small, elegant cast-iron-fronted rnansarded building at 90-94 Maiden Lane is the only rema.ining example in the Financial District of the many Second Empire style corranercial buildings constructed in dovmtovm Manhattan during the post-Civil War era. 'Ihe southernmost cast-iron building in Manhattan, it is one of the rare survivors of this type between Fulton Street and the Battery. long associated with the Roosevelt family (which had a store at 94 Maiden Lane by 1786), the present building incorporates a mercantile building erected for James Roosevelt around 1810. -
From Gritty to Chic: the Transformation of New York City’S Soho, 1962-1976
From Gritty to Chic: The Transformation of New York City’s SoHo, 1962-1976 By STEPHEN PETRUS Urban renewal, deindustrialization, and gentrification gave new textures to New York City’s SoHo from the early 1960s to the mid-1970s. Individual and collective decisions stopped, slowed, or expedited these processes, and transformed an industrial district into an exuberant neighborhood. Stephen Petrus is a doctoral candidate in history at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. His dissertation is on the politics and culture of Greenwich Village from 1955 to 1965. This is the story of a district transformed. In the early 1960s, New York City’s South Houston was a gritty industrial area. Bounded by Houston Street to the north, Canal Street to the south, West Broadway to the west, and Lafayette Street to the east, South Houston encompassed forty-three blocks in Lower Manhattan. Its small factories and warehouses teemed with operative and unskilled workers, mostly Puerto Ricans and African Americans. Trucks crammed the narrow streets, transporting materials against a backdrop of dingy buildings. At night and on the weekend, the place became desolate and quiet, in stark contrast to the vitality of the Italian communities to the east and west, and Greenwich Village to the north. Pejoratively nicknamed “Hell’s Hundred Acres,” due to the high incidence of accidental fires, the district was considered by the city’s power brokers to be decaying and therefore a prime location for urban renewal. By the mid-1970s all this had changed. No longer known as South Houston, SoHo had become one of the world’s art centers. -
District Lines Autumn 2007
D I S T R I C T LINES news and views of the historic districts council autumn 2007 vol. XXI no. 2 You Can Ignore the Landmarks Law but not the Law of gravItY Chumley’s Collapsed in april. The bar turned out that a former employee of the drawings. ... All structural work, includ- and restaurant was a former speakeasy in Department of Buildings had expedited ing excavation, on a landmarked property an 1831 building at 86 Bedford Street in the the permits for an uninsured contractor must meet the Building Code and be ap- Greenwich Village Historic District, and by using the name of a bona fide contrac- proved by DOB.” it was legendary. It had attracted famous tor who was not associated with the work Mechanisms to ensure stability are in literary patrons ever since it opened in in any way. Two years later the former place among DOB regulations, but they 1926; that was part of its cachet. But so DOB employee was arrested and accused are often ignored, it seems, with impunity. was the fact that it didn’t have a sign on of forging documents. Work is done without permits, and unless the door—you had to be in the know to Within historic districts, it would DOB is notified, it cannot follow up. Even find it. seem the Landmarks Preservation Com- legal work is rarely inspected, so there can Last spring the owner undertook al- mission would have some sway, and that be no assurance that it conforms with the terations without a building permit, work when an application for alteration to an permit.