The New York Landmarks Conservancy supports two pending UWS Landmarks

Check, and Check! The New York Landmarks Conservancy has released its position on two Upper West Side items, both calendared with upcoming LPC hearing dates.

Regarding the IRT Powerhouse, which will be heard on Thursday, November 5th, the Conservancy reminds us how Stanford White's work serves as a "reminder of the great pride that cities can take in their own achievements" and further, recognizes this largely intact civic structure as "a soaring tribute to the urban experience".

As for Robert Gibson's St. Michael's Episcopal Church Complex, which will be heard on Thursday, November 12th, the Conservancy recognizes the parish as excellent stewards of their three-building complex and cites the LPC's recent history: "The commission has consulted closely with the leadership of St. Michael's on its development plans over the last decade, and has held off on designation of the church complex, pending the completion of these plans.  However, this designation has now languished for 35 years; it is time to designated this significant church complex."

We at Landmark West! couldn't agree more! 

We thank the Conservancy for its stance on these two items and its continued support of New York City landmarks- those already designated and those which are deserving.

Sister Buildings?

Left, McKim Mead and White's 1910 Power House for Penn Station,
Right, McKim Mead and White's 1904 Power House for the IRT Subway

With the IRT Powerhouse still waiting for its landmark status since first being heard by the Landmarks Preservation Commission in 1979, then again in 1990, and once more in 2009 before the LPC's attempted de-calendar in 2014, our readers are well familiar with the building's McKim Mead and White linage and overall significance.  Built in 1904, it was intended to power the IRT line, and once again will have its "day in court" when the LPC hears it amidst a batch of other structures on November 5, 2015. (If you are interested in testifying they ask that you submit content by October 29th).

After critical success with this new typology, the triumvirate were commissioned by the Penn Central Rail Road for their equivalent facility further south.  Still standing on 31st Street, the 1910 pink granite structure, a grand, but pared-down version of is terminal head-house still stands, in use, in the shadow of Charles Luckman's Madison Square Garden.  Profiled in Gothamist today, the public gets a sneak peek behind the long-neglected facade.  

As with the 59th Street Power House, this building had skyline-defining stacks and served a utilitarian function.  And as with the 59th Street Power House, which the New York State Historic Preservation Office deemed eligible for listing on the National Register of Historic Places in 1989, this structure is also National Register Eligible, and it isn't yet a NYC Landmark either, meaning it can be altered without public oversight at any time.  

The History of Preserving History: Penn Station rally, 50 years later

Protesters in front of Pennsylvania Station on Aug. 2, 1962.
Photo: Eddie Hausner/The New York Times

The architects Peter Samton and Diana Goldstein can tell you exactly where they were a half century ago, at 5 p.m. on Aug. 2, 1962: out on Seventh Avenue, tilting at windmills.

Pennsylvania Station, the McKim, Mead & White masterpiece, was doomed. They knew it. But they weren’t going to let it go down undefended. With Norval White, Jordan Gruzen, Elliott Willensky and others, they assembled an impromptu resistance brigade known as Agbany, for Action Group for Better Architecture in New York.

On that 86-degree summer evening 50 years ago, commuters were greeted by the sight of more than 100 buttoned-down and white-gloved protesters marching around the colossal colonnade at the station’s entrance.

“Save Penn Station,” their signs said, in nicely formed letters. (Architects. Of course.) “Don’t Sell Our City Short.” “Save Our Heritage.” “Action Not Apathy.”

Philip Johnson was impeccably present, in the company of the peerless Elizabeth Bliss Parkinson, a trustee of the Museum of Modern Art, who would soon be its president. There was Aline B. Saarinen, the widow of Eero Saarinen, who had been until 1959 an associate art critic at The New York Times. Agbany counted Eleanor Roosevelt, Stewart Alsop, Jane Jacobs and Norman Mailer among its supporters, along with many of the most respected names in architecture and architectural criticism ...

For the full article by David Dunlap, click here.

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The firm of McKim, Mead & White is also responsible for another monumental New York edifice: the IRT Powerhouse.  But like Penn Station before, the building's lack of protection as an Individual Landmark means it is constantly at risk of inappropriate modifications and, worse still, demolition.  Learn more at the Save the Powerhouse blog.

Old, Massive, Illustrious and Somehow Overlooked

"Its delicate Renaissance-style exterior could just as well have clothed an opera house, although the five colossal stacks gave it away." 

Photo: New York City Municipal Archives, via NY Times

Preservation groups are circling the deliciously decorated Con Ed powerhouse at 11th Avenue and 59th Street, as the 1904 structure, designed by Stanford White, nudges up for a third time to landmark designation. At the same time, a similar grand structure sits alone without fuss or bother, just working hard in elegant industrial simplicity ...

Click here to read the full article by Christopher Gray, in which he looks both at the West Side's IRT Powerhouse and, across the island, at an East River contemporary.

LW's First-Ever Bicycling Tour!

Guest post by LW! Intern Ali K.

LW's Sarah S. and Guide Josef Szende
at Columbus Circle

What better way to celebrate Bike Month and welcome the summer weather than with a bike tour? This past Saturday, LANDMARK WEST! cruised the Upper West Side with bicycle enthusiast Josef Szende, exploring historic railway, subway and greenway sites and structures.

Beginning at the McKim, Mead and White IRT Powerhouse, we rolled through Riverside Park and along the Hudson River Railroad to 96th Street IRT Substation. From here, we enjoyed Central Park, the currently car-free haven for cyclists, jogger and leisurely wanderers. Along the way, Szende shared his knowledge of the recent updates to cycling infrastructure in the Upper West Side, making it easier and safer for everyone to enjoy our beautiful parks, streetscapes and historic architecture!

Szende discussing the development of the Route 9A Reconstruction Project,
making Manhattan's west side accessible to cyclists and pedestrians. 

Josef Szende earned his master's degree in urban planning (with a focus on transportation) at Columbia University's Graduate School of Architecture, Planning & Preservation and his B.A. in geography from the University of Toronto. He is currently the Executive Director of the Atlantic Avenue Business Improvement District, and is also an avid Transportation Alternatives volunteer. 

Learning about the Hudson River Railroad, hidden behind the background's stone structure

Stay tuned for upcoming events and tours with LANDMARK WEST! over the summer on our blog, website and Twitter.

History on Wheels: RSVP for first ever LW! bike tour!

A Bicycling Tour of Historic Railway, Subway & Greenway Sites and Structures on the Upper West Side 

Saturday, May 12, 2012 at 3 p.m.

$15, $10 for LW! and American Planning Association Members 

Click here to RSVP or email landmarkwest@landmarkwest.org

Josef Szende

From railway to subway to greenway, the Upper West Side is the keeper of key infrastructural components that help New Yorkers stay in motion. Join transportation planner and Upper West Sider Josef Szende for a tour of sites and structures that are part of the history of the Hudson River Railroad and the IRT subway.  Also learn about the history of some of New York City's most advanced bicycling infrastructure, including the Hudson River Greenway and the Columbus Avenue bike lane.

Josef Szende earned his master's degree in urban planning (with a focus on transportation) at Columbia University's Graduate School of Architecture, Planning & Preservation and his B.A. in geography from the University of Toronto.  He is currently the Executive Director of the Atlantic Avenue Business Improvement District, and is also an avid Transportation Alternatives volunteer.  

Bicycle tour will be approximately 10 miles in length and will in part take place in NYC streets.  Bicycle rentals will be available prior to the tour.  For more information, please call us at 212-496-8110 or email us at landmarkwest@landmarkwest.org.  

(Lead image is 2012 US Bicycling Forever Stamps)

Scenes from a Slide Lecture: From up in the air down to our blog

From "New York from the Air", by John Tauranac, a view of Central Park.

Yesterday, LW! gathered with friends and neighbors as John Tauranac shared with us a view of New York rarely seen by the average individual: New York from the air.  Images from Mr. Tauranac's book of the same name (photographed by Yann Arthus-Bertrand) raised us up off the sidewalks and into the sky, if only for the evening.  What a treat, to see our city from this new perspective!

Architectural historian Tony Robins welcomed our guests to the Macaulay Honors College (our generous hosts for the evening) and introduced John Tauranac, first, by way of his leadership in designing the 1979 New York City subway map.  As Mr. Robins mused:

"... that brings us to tonight’s talk, and John’s current venture.  Having largely exhausted the possibilities of charting the city’s pathways below ground with his subway maps, and at street level with his bus and block-by-block maps, John had only one way to grow: Upwards.  And so tonight we will sit back while John guides us on an aerial expedition floating above the tops of skyscrapers, as illustrated in his wonderful book, 'New York from the Air.'”

To read Tony Robins' full introduction, click here

And with that, we were airborne!  Throughout the slide lecture, we tweeted some of our favorite images.  Head to our feed now to check them out; a selection are shared here, too.  For copies of "New York from the Air", visit John Tauranac's website.

At the intersection of Court and Livington Streets in Brooklyn, Art Deco stonework
enlivens an apartment building.

Getting closer to our Upper West Side neighborhood, the Symphony House apartment building.

As soon as the Beresford Apartments flicked up onto the screen, our thoughts turned to
2011's inaugural Landmark Feast, for which the handsome building served as inspiring backdrop.

As we tweeted last night, we "cannot escape McKim Meade & White!".  Architects of
Low Library on Columbia University's campus were also the masters behind
the landmark-in-waiting IRT Powerhouse. 
Learn more about efforts to save the IRT Powerhouse here.

Powerhouse News, via Save the Powerhouse blog

Seven to Save cocktail party
Monday, April 23, 2012 / 6PM to 8PM
The River Club, 447 East 52nd Street

Click here to purchase your tickets

In one week, the Preservation League of New York State will reveal its entire Seven to Save list of endangered sites for 2012-2013. This includes Manhattan's monumental former IRT Powerhouse, located on Eleventh Avenue at 59th Street in Manhattan! Join with preservationists from across the city and the state as we salute these heritage sites and kick-off efforts to secure their futures.

From inside the historic River Club, enjoy views of the James Renwick, Jr.-designed "Hospital Ruin" from 1856 (a Seven to Save selected site!) and the adjacent 2012 Louis Kahn-designed Four Freedoms Park, now under construction at Roosevelt Island. The evening's program will include:

                  6PM to 8PM: Cocktail Reception
                         6:30PM: Presentation of Seven to Save
                                      Remarks by honored guest Ambassador William vanden Heuvel,
                                      Chairman, Franklin D. Roosevelt Four Freedoms Park, LLC

We hope to see you there! To read the League's announcement of the former IRT Powerhouse's listing among the Seven to Save, click here.

IRT Powerhouse, designed by architects McKim Mead & White, 1904.
11th Avenue at 59th Street.  Photo courtesy Tom Rinaldi.

 

Visit the "Save the IRT Powerhouse" blog

for action steps and more...

Stanford White: The original "starchitect"

This week marks New York Magazine's 2nd Annual Yesteryear Issue.  Many in the LW! office are already regular NY Mag readers, but an issue focused primarily on history, with glimpses of architecture to boot?  Count us in!

via New York Magazine

The subject of the magazine this week is scandal, New York City style.  And wouldn't you know it, the 1906 death of architect Stanford White, of the illustrious firm McKim, Mead & White, is among those scandals documented (read more here!).

via National Park Service

Though his high-profile personal life and death were the focus of what newspaper baron William Randolph Hearst's publications dubbed the "Trial of the Century", Stanford White's professional legacy is no less astounding.

According to NY Mag's Lee Siegel, "Stanford White just about single-handedly invented the American facade."  One such facade was that of the former IRT Powerhouse, an Upper West Side "landmark in waiting" on West 59th Street at Eleventh Avenue.  This monument to Beaux-Arts style architecture was recently named to the Preservation League of New York State's "Seven to Save" list of endangered places.

After you've sated your appetite for scandal with the magazine article, learn more about Stanford White's firm's masterful IRT Powerhouse on the Save the Powerhouse blog.  

To dig deeper into the history of the firm, we recommend the book Triumvirate: McKim Mead & White - Art, Architecture, Scandal, and Class in America's Gilded Age by Mosette Broderick, architectural historian and Director of the Urban Design and Architecture Studies program at New York University.

Love Your Landmark #12 - IRT Powerhouse

IRT/ConEd Powerhouse

840 12th Avenue at 59th Street

It's hard to not feel awestruck by the IRT/ConEd Powerhouse. The scale, the architecture, the history- it's tremendous!

Love,

Kate Wood

Landmark West! Executive Director

P.S. Not close enough to see the Powerhouse in person? Not a problem! Take a virtual tour of the Powerhouse and see what Kate is talking about for yourself!

Community Board verdict on Riverside South

In a session that continued on into the wee hours last night, Community Board 7 adopted a resolution calling on developer Extell to modify its proposal to build "Riverside Center," the last piece of the Riverside South megadevelopment. 

What does CB7 urge be incorporated?  A public school, traffic controls and a quality streetscape that enhances options for preserve the former IRT Powerhouse on West 59th Street, to name just a few key elements.

For more information on the IRT Powerhouse, visit the LW! Wish List!

For more details on the discussion, check out these news sources:
West Side Spirit: "Community Board Rejects Riverside Center Plan"
DNAInfo.com: "Community Board Issues List of Demands for Riverside Center"
The New York Observer: "Community Board Approves Its Disapproval of Riverside Center"
Curbed.com: "Riverside Center Gets Official Community Board Thumbs Down"

Photo: NYObserver.com.