West-Park Designated!

"We cannot afford to let it go...it will be saved and it will be preserved."

Robert B. Tierney, Chair, Landmarks Preservation Commission, January 12, 2010.

More than twenty years of community advocacy, a public hearing last July, and then...VICTORY! By unanimous vote of the NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC), West-Park Presbyterian Church

is finally an official Landmark.

This day would never have come without the determination and steadfast support of preservationists - like YOU! - and key leadership from people like those listed below. Your continued attention and encouragement are important since the designation will go before both the City Planning Commission and the City Council in coming months. So, give yourself a hearty clap on the back and take a few moments to send enthusiastic emails of congratulations (contact info below).

The LPC's decision marks a new beginning for West-Park, a time for renewed hope and opportunity to make this building lively once more. Long live West-Park!

LANDMARK WEST! thanks:

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  Chair Robert B. Tierney and each of the Landmarks Preservation Commissioners - click here for an MP3 recording of their 1/12/10 discussion and email them at comments@lpc.nyc.gov.

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  City Council Member Gale Brewer - gale.brewer@council.nyc.ny.us.

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  Community Board 7 - info@cb7.org.

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  Friends of West-Park - friendsofwestpark@gmail.com.

Friends who wrote letters, signed petitions and came to public meetings and hearings, including (but not limited to!) Daniel J. Allen, architect; (former) City Council Member Tony Avella; Barry Bergdoll, Chief Curator of Architecture and Design, The Museum of Modern Art; The Rev. Darrell Berger, First Unitarian Universalist Church; Francoise Bollack, architect; Herbert Broderick, III, Associate Professor of Art, Lehman College; Mosette Broderick, Director, Urban Design and Architecture Studies, NYU; Lauren Jacobi, architectural historian; Robert Cane, architect; Page Cowley, architect; Former City Council Member and current Public Advocate Bill de Blasio; Andrew Scott Dolkart, James Marston Fitch Associate Professor of Historic Preservation, Columbia University; Charles DiSanto, architect; The Rev. Stephen Garmey; Historic Districts Council; Sarah Bradford Landau, former LPC Commissioner and Professor of Art History, NYU; Katherine R. McKee, conservator; Walter B. Melvin, architect; The Metropolitan Chapter of the Victorian Society in America; The Very Reverend James Parks Morton, The Interfaith Center of New York; Municipal Art Society; New York Landmarks Conservancy; Susan Nial, Esq.; Gene A. Norman, former Landmarks Preservation Commission Chair; New York State Senator Bill Perkins; The Rev. Dr. Thomas Pike, former NYC Landmarks Commissioner; Lee Harris Pomeroy, architect; Preservation League of New York State; Assemblymember Linda Rosenthal; Fred Seidler, The Fred Seidler Group; Olga Statz, JD, LLM; Robert A.M. Stern, architect; Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer; The Rev. Joseph M. Zorawick, former Rector of Christ & St. Stephen's Church (copies of their letters and more are available at www.landmarkwest.org/westpark.htm).