Original Post: April 1, 2009

PAST EVENT: CLE Seminar - Legal Strategies for Landmarks: Defending Architecture, Neighborhoods, and the Public Interest in the Development-Driven City

To see the event flyer, click here.

Original Post: March 19, 2009

LANDMARK WEST! Launches Online Database:

Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Upper West Side Landmarks!
For years, Upper West Siders have been asking LANDMARK WEST! questions like...

Who was the architect of my building?
What style is it?
When was it built?
Where can I find Art-Deco architecture in our area?
How can I find out if my building is a Landmark?

Usually, LW! has the answers, but not always at our fingertips. Until now...

We are very proud to announce the official launch of the Upper West Side Landmarks Online Database!

Click here to learn more!

Original Post: March 17, 2009

Save West-Park! Save New York!

Original Post: March 5, 2009

On April 14, 2009, LANDMARK WEST hosted a seminar for real estate brokers, architects, Co-op Board members, and others interested entitled "An Architectural Toolkit to Enhance Your Skills in a Changing Economy."

For more information, follow this link.

Original Post: March 2, 2009

March 2009: nEWS FROM THE HISTORIC DISTRICTS COUNCIL
15th Annual Preservation Conference, “Communities & Cornices”

In March 2009, the Historic Districts Council is hosting a number of exciting events for our 15th Preservation Conference, Communities and Cornices. From developing relationships with elected officials to understanding and utilizing important legislation and regulations, this year’s Conference events presented a number of tools that you can use to launch successful grassroots campaigns!

For more information about this past event, visit the HDC site.

Original Post: February 20, 2009

Greening Manhattan's Waterfront: A New "Perimeter Park" for the 21st Centry

Click here for more information on this 2/25 event.

Original Post: February 19, 2009

Building New York's Garment District, 1919-1929

A Slide Lecture by Professor Andrew S. Dolkart

Director of the Historic Preservation Program at Columbia University's School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation

The Garment District is one of the most famous neighborhoods of New York City. Well known to labor historians, this area, which stretches from Sixth to Ninth Avenues between 35th and 41st Streets, is virtually unknown to historians of the city's built environment. Join LW! and Professor Dolkart, author of the award-winning Morningside Heights: A History of its Architecture and Development, for an illustrated lecture on the vernacular architecture of the Garment District, the world's largest concentration of high-rise factories. Professor Dolkart, a LW! board member, will examine the forces that resulted in the extraordinary rapidity of development of showrooms, factories, and lofts and will even link this development to that of the Upper West Side.

Wednesday, March 4, 2009 at 6:00PM

Macaulay Honors College at CUNY: 35 West 67th Street

**SPACE IS LIMITED**

Original Post: February 17, 2009

YOU Made a Landmark Difference for West-Park Church!

Thanks to you and many other concerned New Yorkers, West-Park Presbyterian Church is now one step closer to becoming an official NYC Landmark!

This morning, the Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) voted unanimously to "calendar" West-Park for a public hearing (date as yet unscheduled - we'll keep you posted) to consider its merits for landmark designation. "Calendaring" itself provides a measure of protection since the LPC would get the chance to review any planned alterations to the structure, even before official designation.

To read more, click here!

Original Post: February 13, 2009

Rumors Swirl About West-Park’s Future:
Help Urge the Landmarks Commission to Save this Building

West-Park Presbyterian Church,
“one of the architecturally most distinguished and historically most important of Manhattan’s surviving Nineteenth century churches.”
Barry Bergdoll, architectural historian, March 2004

Earlier this week, as workers removed debris from the interior of West-Park Presbyterian Church (W. 86th Street & Amsterdam Avenue), many of you responded to the call for letters/emails/phone calls to the Landmarks Preservation Commission, urging swift action to protect one of New York’s most beautiful and significant religious structures.

Keep those letters/emails/phone calls coming (see contact info. and sample letters below)!

Evidently startled by the impassioned community response, church leaders were quick to explain that the apparent demo work was clean-up after a burst pipe. Yet, the pall of demolition—whether by intent or neglect matters little—continues to hang over this beloved neighborhood landmark.

Until West-Park is an official Landmark (with a capital L)—or at least gets the public hearing it deserves—rumors about its future will continue to fly. Church leaders have made it clear that they intend to redevelop the site and demolish at least part of the historic building. Landmark designation doesn’t necessarily preclude that possibility. What a landmarks hearing does is offer a baseline promise that the magnificent exterior will be preserved for future generations.

Beyond any reasonable doubt, and as attested by the statements of New York’s most prominent architectural historians, West-Park is worthy of designation as a New York City Individual Landmark (click HERE to read copies of some recent statements—requests for West-Park to be heard date back more than two decades!). The site was determined eligible for the State and National Registers of Historic Places in 2001.
Contact the LPC today and urge them to act immediately to calendar West-Park Presbyterian for a public hearing.

Hon. Robert B. Tierney, Chair
New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission
1 Centre Street, 9th Floor
New York, New York 10007
Phone: 212-669-7888
Fax: 212-669-7955
Email: comments@lpc.nyc.gov

Also contact the City Council member who represents the West-Park neighborhood:

Hon. Gale A. Brewer
NYC Council Member
563 Columbus Avenue
New York, NY 10024
Phone: 212-873-0282
Fax: 212-873-0279
Email: brewer@council.nyc.ny.us

YOU can make the difference. Please help save this landmark!

ALERT! West-Park Presbyterian to be demolished?

West-Park Presbyterian Church needs your help!

Neighbors of the red-sandstone historic gem anchoring the northeast corner of West 86th Street and Amsterdam Avenue have recently observed workers removing pieces of West-Park’s interior. More than one worker confirmed that the building is being readied for demolition. Without landmark protection, this beloved Romanesque-style church—called “unquestionably one of the most beautiful religious structures on the Upper West Side” by Andrew S. Dolkart—could continue to be dismantled, stone by stone.

Beyond any reasonable doubt, and as attested by the statements of New York’s most prominent architectural historians, West-Park is worthy of designation as a New York City Individual Landmark (click HERE to read copies of some recent statements—requests for West-Park to be heard date back more than two decades!). The site was determined eligible for the State and National Registers of Historic Places in 2001.

LANDMARK WEST!, the Friends of West-Park and many others in our community and beyond are writing, emailing, and calling (for the 10th, 100th, 1000th time) the Landmarks Preservation Commission to stress the urgent need for landmark protection of West-Park. JOIN US! In unity (and volume), there’s strength. Here’s what you can do:

Contact the LPC today and urge them to act immediately to calendar West-Park Presbyterian for a public hearing.

Hon. Robert B. Tierney, Chair
New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission
1 Centre Street, 9th Floor
New York, New York 10007
Phone: 212-669-7888
Fax: 212-669-7955
Email: comments@lpc.nyc.gov

Also contact the City Council member who represents the West-Park neighborhood:

Hon. Gale A. Brewer
NYC Council Member
563 Columbus Avenue
New York, NY 10024
Phone: 212-873-0282
Fax: 212-873-0279
Email: brewer@council.nyc.ny.us

West-Park is down to the wire. YOU can make the difference. Please help save this landmark!