In the Spirit of Jackie-O: Designate the West End Extensions!

If Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis could do it, so can you. Please SIGN LW's PETITION to the Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) Chair Tierney and ask for the designation of the extensions to Manhattan's West End Historic Districts (HDs). Here's why.

In 1985, when LANDMARK WEST! was founded to advocate for long overdue protection of our neighborhood's architectural heritage, the Upper West Side only had 337 designated landmarks. By 2010, the Upper West Side claimed 72 Individual Landmarks, 3 Scenic Landmarks, 7 Interior Landmarks and 9 Historic Districts, for a total of nearly 2,700 landmarks designated by the LPC. That's something like a 1,000% increase since 1985!

 

Well, hold onto your hat...approximately 194 new landmarks have been added to the West Side's noble roster when the Riverside/West End HD Extension I was designated on June 26, 2012. Take a moment to join us in relishing the pure pleasure of a job well done. Our smiles get even wider when we look back at the above prescient letter from Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis to the LPC, dated April 30, 1987. She wrote, "Your designation of [the Riverside-West End HD] will provide future generations of New Yorkers the opportunity to enjoy the beauty of this remarkably intact piece of our past, just as we enjoy it today."    

 Please, do enjoy it, but then do more. Sustain it. Don't take your neighborhood for granted-historic district Extension II & West End Collegiate Extension have been heard but NOT designated by the LPC.There is strength in numbers. Tell the LPC to "Vote Yes on Manhattan's West End HDs." 

Designation is just the first step. Help us be the vigilant stewards our neighborhood still needs and deserves. Big or small, your contribution matters. Give online or call LW! at 212-496-8110 to make a financial pledge.

 

 

 

Andy Warhol (American 1928-1987), Nine Jackies, 1964. Acrylic and silkscreen on canvas, 65 x 53 x 2 in. overall. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of Halston, 1983.

From the LW! Archives...1987 Letter from Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Supporting the Original Riverside/West End Historic District

In 1985, when LANDMARK WEST! was founded to advocate for more widespread protection of our neighborhood's architectural heritage, the Upper West Side only had 337 designated landmarks.

With the recent Riverside-West End HD Extension I designation, approximately 194 new landmarks have been added to the West Side's noble roster.Take a moment to join us in relishing the pure pleasure of a job well done. Our smiles get even wider when we look back at this prescient letter from Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis to the LPC, dated April 30, 1987.

She wrote: “Your designation of [the Riverside-West End HD] will provide future generations of New Yorkers the opportunity to enjoy the beauty of this remarkably intact piece of our past, just as we enjoy it today.”

The district was officially designated two years later, on December 19th, 1989. Don’t take your neighborhood for granted--extensions II & III have been heard but NOT designated. Email LPC Chair Tierney at comments@lpc.nyc.gov and tell him, “I support the designation of the Riverside-West End Extensions II & III.” Sign your name--email it soon--today, if possible. Send a copy to landmarkwest@landmarkwest.org.

It's a Twofer! World Trade Center and Grand Central Lecture and Book Signing

1978 image of the World Trade Center by Balthazar Korab. Korab was one of the leading architectural photographers in the period after World War II. He died at the age of 86 and his life was remembered in the New York Times obituaries on January 27th, 2013. 

The World Trade Center 

Illustrated Lecture and Book Signing

with West-Sider Anthony W. Robins

Wednesday, February 20th, 2013 at 6:00PM

Macaulay Honors College at CUNY

35 West 67th Street

From David W. Dunlap's 12/3/2012 New York Times review of The World Trade Center: "Mr. Robins's collection evokes this same [upbeat] spirit and adds a rich dimension to trade center history."

Originally published in 1987 while the Twin Towers still stood--brash and controversial, a new symbol of the city and the country--Robins's book offered the first serious consideration of the planning and design of the World Trade Center.  A decade after the disaster, a new World Trade Center is rising on the site. It is only natural, then, that we will find ourselves thinking about what life was like in the original Center. This new edition of the book--expanded to include copies of some of the documents upon which the text was based--is offered as a memory of the World Trade Center as it once was. 

Space is Limited. Reservations Required! 

$20 for "Steward" members, $25 for non-members 

2-for-1 Admission for "Partners" and above members

It's a twofer*! Robins will return in March 2013 for an illustrated slide lecture celebrating the arrival of his new book, the hot-off-the-press Grand Central Terminal: 100 Years of a New York Landmark. Attend two slide lectures for the price of one! For more information about the World Trade Center and Grand Central Terminal books and about Anthony W. Robins, visit 

his website.

To inquire about your membership status and/or to purchase tickets email landmarkwest@landmarkwest.org, or call 212-496-8110

*A coupon offering two items, especially tickets for a play, for the price of one.