Landmarks Commission designates two late 19th Century buidlings on 14th Street

The Landmarks Preservation Commission voted unanimously today to designate two late 19th Century commercial buildings on 14th Street as landmarks.

One is the former Baumann Bros. store that is now part of the New School for Social Research at 22-26 East 14th Street.

In its September 16, 2008 testimony before the commission in favor of the proposed designation of the Baumann Brothers Furniture and Carpets Store, the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation noted that its architects, David and John Jardine, "created a building that is at once prototypical and extraordinary," adding that "the store stands out in the ways in which its design playfully draws from late 19th Century architectural trends." "It features inventive, and at times opulent, ornamentation which combines elements from neo-Classical, neo-Grec, and Queen Anne styles. Included in this unusual array of ornaments are sunflower motifs and striking bas-reliefs, which combine to create, as stated in the AIA Guide to New York City, 'a rich embroidery of cast iron.' At the same time, the building maintains a vibrancy, boldness, and depth seen only in the finest examples of cast-iron architecture."

The society's statement hailed the building as a "striking statement in cast-iron and an important homage to the heyday of 14th Street."

The building was completed in 1881 and for several years housed McCrory's, a well-known store, and a few years later would be occupied by one of the city's largest F. W. Woolworth stores. In 1999, it was taken over for use by Parsons Institute of the New School for Social Research, which is based on 12th Street between Fifth Avenue and the Avenue of the Americans and which is contemplating an expansion of the low-rise former retail building on the southeast corner of 14th Street and Fifth Avenue.

Robert Tierney, the commission's chairman, described the building as "obviously significant."

The other 14th Street commercial building that was designated a landmark today is the steel-frame structure 144 West 14th Street, shown above, that was designed by Brunner & Tryon in 1896. The architectural firm also designed the New York Public Baths on East 23rd Street and Congregation Shearith Israel on Central Park West.

In its October 28, 2008 testimony in support of its designation, the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation noted that the industrial building was "one of a series of impressive loft structures built by the firm," adding that it was "constructed when manufacturing facilities on 14th Street played a crucial role in maintaining the retail epicenter around Ladies' Mile and Union Square."

"In its early years, 144 West 14th Street housed a notable collection of tenants, including the textile firm Deering, Milliken & Co., Macy's, fine art collector Frederick Hill Meserve, and Epiphone, a leading manufacturer of stringed instruments and creator of the first solid-body electric guitar, which was invented in the building." Mr. Tierney remarked that Les Paul fashioned his famous solid-body guitar in this building in 1941.

The building was restored in 2002 by Ehrenkrantz Eckstut & Kuhn Architects for use by Pratt Institute as its Manhattan campus.

"These buildings convey the grandeur and aspirations of Gilded Age New York. With recent restorations and now with landmark designation, we can rest assured that these monuments of our past will survive for future generations of New Yorkers to appreciate," said GVSHP executive director Andrew Berman.

Silver Towers complex south of Washington Square Park designated a landmark

The New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission voted unanimously this afternoon to designate Silver Towers complex, designed by James Ingo Freed of I. M. Pei & Associates and formerly known as University Village and its 36-foot-high 1968 plaza sculpture, "Portrait of Sylvette," by Carl Nesjar, a Norwegian sculptor based on a 1954 maquette by Pablo Picasso, as a landmark.

Silver Towers is the first post-war urban renewal superblock development in New York City to be landmarked. While such urban renewal projects rarely receive high marks for design, Silver Towers is considered a watershed design for one of the late 20th century's most respected and influential architects. The design won awards from the American Institute of Architects and the City Club, was dubbed "one of ten buildings that climax an era" by Fortune Magazine, and was cited as a basis for which Pei received the 1983 Pritzker Prize - the most prestigious award for architects - for his body of work up to that time.

The designation was first proposed by the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation in 2003. The project consists of three 30-story residential towers north of Houston Street and east of West Broadway. New York University owns the land under the five-acre complex that includes a cooperative residential building, a building to house faculty and a moderate-income housing building.

Last June, the university unveiled a modified expansion plan that called for added a 40-story tower to the site, as shown in the illustration here, although it said it supported the designation of the three existing towers. According to the society, the commission's designation report "acknowledges the importance of the open space as integral to the design, thus making their required approval of construction of a tower in this area by the LPC in the future highly unlikely."

NYU also wants to build more buildings in the adjacent superblock containing Washington Square Village. Both are among the finest examples of "tower-in-a-park" urban planning in the United States. Washington Square Village consists of two very long and handsome slab apartment buildings with colorful facades and sculptural roof elements designed by Paul Lester Weiner in association with S. J. Kessler & Sons in 1960.

Andrew Berman, executive director of the society, issued a statement after the commission made the designation, in which he said that the complex "is an icon of 20th Century design we fought very hard to preserve," adding that "Plans to build additional towers on the complex could have ruined the design, and we are deeply gratified that today's vote helps ensure that will never happen."

The three designated towers at 505 LaGuardia Place and 100 and 110 Bleecker Street were built in 1967 and are named after Julius Silver, a philanthropist. The Silver Towers used reinforced concrete as did two prior important residential complexes designed by the Pei firm: Society Hill Towers in Philadelphia in 1963 and Kips Bay Plaza in Midtown East in Manhattan in 1964.

At the commission's June 24, 2008 hearing on the proposed designation, Lynne P. Brown, senior vice president of University Relations and Public Affairs, told the commission that the university supports the designation of the towers, but added that "outside the Landmark site is NYU's Coles athletic facility, built in 1980, and the site of the Morton-Williams grocery store, which NYU acquired in 2000 with the stated intention of eventually developing a new building on that site." She added, however, that "the design team has recommended...that we not build on the Morton-William site but instead construct a 4th tower on the northwest corner...."

Commissioner Stephen Bryns said that the Silver Towers complex was "a very, very fine complex" notable for its deeply recessed windows and Commissioner Roberta Brandes Gratz remarked that they "never should have been built but at least we got something good in return."

Turtle Bay Gardens house with glass blocks on 49th Street designated a landmark

The Landmarks Preservation Commission designated as landmarks today the Morris B. Sanders Studio and Apartment building at 219 East 49th Street in Turtle Bay Gardens and the annex of the Guardian Life Insurance Company of America at 105 East 17th Street and 108 East 18th Street.

The Turtle Bay townhouse was erected, from scratch, in 1935 and was notable for its modernity and use of blue bricks and glass blocks. It followed by one year William Lescaze's famous glassblock townhouse around the corner at 211 East 38th Street in the same famous complex with its huge communal garden. Mr. Lescaze's house, however, was an alteration as opposed to entirely new construction.

In their great book, "New York 1930, Architecture and Humanism between The First Two World Wars," Robert A. M. Stern, Gregory Gilmartin and Thomas Mellins noted that "William Lescaze's aggressively antitraditional, International Style design for his townhouse...exploded like a bombshell, sweeping aside virtually all inherited conceptions of the townhouse type as a principal instrument of the civicism of the Metropolitan Era."

"The Lescaze townhouse was not a modest tinkering with a brownstone, but a full-fledged reconstruction. Designed while Lescaze was in partnership with George Howe, it housed the firm's New York office as well as living accommodations for the Lescaze family. Most important, it was New York's preeminent example of the International style. Situated on the western fringe of Dean & Bottomley's Turtle Bay Gardens, Lescaze employed a strategy in some ways typical of all brownstone renovations, eliminating the stoop and pulling the facade forward to the building line. But its blazing whiteness, the machinelike planarity of its detail, and the innovative use of glass block - especially dazzling when the house interiors were lit up at night - made it a remarkably distinct icon for the new antihistoricist aesthetic," the authors continued.

The second and fourth floors of the Sanders's building, shown here, have indented balconies and Commissioner Libby Ryan remarked that "it is a miracle that no one filled in its voids,"" adding that the building has long been one of her "favorites."

The commission also designed the understated but elegant, mid-block and through-block annex of the Guardian life Insurance Company of America at 105 East 17th Street and 108 East 18th Street that was designed by Skidmore Owings & Merrill in 1963. The four-story structure is distinguished by its silvery anodized aluminum facades with large windows, an aesthetic that had recently been used by the Pepsi-Cola Building at 500 Park Avenue. The insurance company moved to Lower Manhattan in 1999 and its complex, which includes the Renaissance Revival office building on the northeast corner of 17th Street and Park Avenue South that was designed in 1911 by D'Oench & Yost, was sold to the Related Companies.

Commissioner Fred Blank said the annex was "a great example of the International Style" and Commissioner Margery Perlmutter said it was "deserving of all accolades."

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey released today a new rendering of the plan by Rpgers Stirk Harbour + Partners for an office tower above the north wing of the Port Authority Bus Terminal at 42nd Street and Eighth Avenue.

The tower will be developed by Vornado Realty Trust and Lawrence Ruben Company.

Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners is headed by Richard Rogers who designed the famous high-tech Centre Pompidou, or Beaubourg, in Paris with Renzo Piano, the gleaming Lloyd's of London tower in London, and the Ching Fu Group headquarters in Taiwan.

He had been designated to design a new eastern facade for the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center on the West Side of Manhattan and his other projects include Las Areas, the conversion of a bull ring in Barcelona to a circular leisure and entertainment complex and the 175 Greenwich Street skyscraper at Ground Zero in Lower Manhattan.

The new rendering is similar to one that had been previously published except that its exosekeleton of angled braces is much less pronounced, and the main setback office tower will be in three rather than four sections and there appears to be only one rather than 2 two-stage escalators that cascade from the existing room of the terminal to 42nd Street.

In addition, the existing room now appears to be covered with grass and the cross-bracing of the base appears to have changed from dark green to blue.

The tower will be just to the east of the "Green Giant," Raymond Hood's famous Art Deco skyscraper for the McGraw-Hill Company before it relocated to the Avenue of the Americas.

The new tower will be directly across Eighth Avenue from a new skyscraper still under construction by SJP Properties that slants outward as it rises on the block just to the north of the recently completed New York Times tower at 41st Street and Eighth Avenue that has been designed by Mr. Piano and Fox & Fowle.

The proposed air rights development would add about 1.3 million square feet of office space over the terminal's north wing and include the renovation of about 55,000 square feet of retail space inside the terminal as well as an enhanced pedestrian and bus passenger circulation system.

The authority's board authorized negotiations 20X Square Associates LLC, a joint venture of Vornado Realty Trust and Lawrence Ruben Co. The companies had been designated in 2000 as developers of the air rights but plans "stalled in 2003," according to a press release from the authority.

The bus terminal opened in 1950 and is the busiest bus passenger facility in the world handling 7,000 buses daily.

The roof of the terminal is now used for parking.

The Port Authority chose the Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners design over a 47-story tower designed by Pelli Clarke Pelli and a 48-story tower designed by Kohn Pedersen Fox.

The three designs were unveiled last July.

As part of the overall redevelopment project, the authority would build 18 new bus gates and upgrade existing gates, allowing as many as 70 more buses an hour to be accommodated during peak commuting periods, and would build new escalators to serve the gates, and would renovate and create about 40,000 square feet of retail space within the bus terminal.

Upper West Side groups want more bicycle lanes and broadened sidewalks

A plan to radically change the streetscapes of the Upper West Side will be presented tonight at P.S. 87 by the Upper West Side Streets Renaissance Campaign that has been supported by Community Board 7, the Coalition for a Livable West Side, Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer, Council Member Gale Brewer, Assembly Member Linda Rosenthal, Transportation Alternatives, Nelson/Nygaard Consulting Associates and NYC Streets Renaissance among others.

The proposal calls for reducing street lanes for automobiles, creating street lanes for bicycles and expanding sidewalks not only at intersections but also occasionally at mid-block.

The campaign has produced a 51-page study that is available at www.tranalt.org/newsroom/releases/2787 that maintains that "people living on high traffic volume streets have fewer friends and acquaintances than those living on quiet streets" and that "seniors and children are often left stranded indoors, isolated from the rest of the neighborhood."

"No one should fear for their life on a trip to the grocery store, or while taking their kids to school. Yet on the Upper West Side, over 5,000 pedestrians and cyclists were injured or killed between 1995 and 2005 in collision with cars," the report maintained, adding that "the 10 percent of UWS residents who commute by car enjoy 228 times more street space per capita than those who walk."

The proposal calls for a taming "dangerous intersections" and implementing "calming measures such as chicanes, parking swaps, and speed regulation on afflicted residential streets to safeguard their residents." "The pedestrian-friendly character of our neighborhoods distinguishes New York from other American cities an is one of our most important assets. Ye for the last fifty yeas, city streets have been manage less for the benefit of neighborhoods they serve and more for the traffic passing through. Although most of its residents travel by foot, transit or bicycle, New York City's streets prioritize drivers."

The campaign began November 7, 2007 with an exhibit and a talk by Jan Gehl, a planner involved in the 30-year pedestrianization of Copenhagen, followed by meetings and a talk by Donald Shoup, a leader in parking policy and street management. In January, a design workshop was hosted by Michael Kin, a street design expert. Three on-line surveys were held and then last May two design workshops were held, one on a "bike network" and the other on redesigning typical streets.

The report found that 54 percent of Upper West Side residents commute by subway, 9 percent by bus, 12 percent by walking, 5 percent by taxi, 1 percent by bicycle ad 10 percent by driving.

On Broadway, the plan would create "green" bike lanes on both sides of the avenue's median and would create angled parking on the side-streets and add bicycle parking on every block. Furthermore, curbs would be extended at intersections and in some cases also at mid-block to provide more space for people to navigate the street...and shorten the crossing distance for pedestrians and create sitting and bike parking areas. The curb extensions can also provide "bus bulbs" that obviate the need for buses to swing in and out of travel lanes. On one-way avenues, the plan proposes "protected bicycle facilities that line the street that does not have bus stops and would be protected by bollards and planters." In some locations, the plan calls for "extending the median tip further into the intersection" to "slow motorists down, providing an extra buffer for crossing pedestrians while visually interrupting the straight-line thoroughfare feel of the street and focusing drivers' attention."