The designation of the Prospect Heights Historic District is almost complete. Tomorrow the City Council’s Subcommittee on Landmarks, Public Siting and Maritime Uses will hold a hearing on the designation. With 850 buildings, the district is the largest designated in two decades. It’s also one of the city’s finest unprotected brownstone districts, with blocks of beautiful late-19th and early 20th-century residential buildings (for detailed information, read the LPC’s incredible 488-page designation report). Given the strong support of Council Member Letitia James, we expect the Council to uphold the designation, but MAS will be on hand to urge the Council to affirm the Landmarks Preservation Commission’s designation.  Read our statement here.

MAS made a video about the process of creating the historic district, featuring Councilmember Letitia James, Chair of the Landmarks Preservation Commission Robert B. Tierney, historian Francis Morrone, and Gib Veconi of Prospect Heights Neighborhood Development Council (PHNDC), and showing how we worked with PHNDC to survey the historic buildings and promote the area for designation. The result was not just the designation; the act of engaging residents in the process brought the community together and provided a new sense of neighborhood identity. Continue Reading>>

Last week, the Landmarks Preservation Commission approved the 850-building Prospect Heights Historic District, the largest district designated in two decades. MAS made a video about the process of creating the historic district, featuring Councilmember Letitia James, Chair of the Landmarks Preservation Commission Robert B. Tierney, historian Francis Morrone, and Gib Veconi of Prospect Heights Neighborhood Development Council (PHNDC), and showing how we worked with PHNDC to survey the historic buildings and promote the area for designation. The result was not just the designation, the act of engaging residents in the process brought the community together and provided a new sense of neighborhood identity. Continue Reading>>

Today the New York Times reported that Senator Charles E. Schumer has a plan to jump start work on the Moynihan Station project, by using some federal stimulus money to build a train station in the Farley Post Office to be used by Amtrak.

According to the Times, Senator Schumer is “calling for the injection of $100 million in federal stimulus funds to convert the post office building, expand the city’s transportation infrastructure and employ thousands of workers. Mr. Schumer also renewed his call for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey to take charge of the project and asked them to invest $1 billion.”

MAS President Vin Cipolla today said, “The Municipal Art Society wholeheartedly supports Senator Schumer’s plan to achieve a new Moynihan Station. By dedicating federal stimulus funds to this project we can create near-term jobs while enhancing our mass transit system for the long term. Federal funding also enables us to protect the public’s interest in this project, creating a grand work of civic architecture that that stands as an inspiring gateway to New York City. This project has a real functional purpose; it will increase capacity and improve the experience for the nearly 500,000 people who move through Penn Station every day. Continue Reading>>

Recently, we were asked the following question on our Facebook page “With all the talk about President Obama’s Economic Stimulus Package and its billions of dollars for public works projects, what’s happening with the Moynihan Station project?”

MAS remains a strong supporter of Moynihan Station. The project will increase capacity at the over-crowded (and miserable) Penn Station, which is the nation’s busiest transportation hub, with nearly half a million people passing through it every day. We don’t know whether the project will receive money from President Obama’s stimulus package, but it certainly seems to be eligible. Continue Reading>>

One of New York City’s most unusual landmarks is the Carroll Street Bridge, which spans Brooklyn’s Gowanus Canal. Built in 1888-89 (Robert Van Buren, chief engineer; George Ingram, engineer in charge), it is one of the oldest remaining bridges in New York City, and one of only gfour known “retractile” bridges in the United States (click here for more history). We were lucky enough to be in the neighborhood when the bridge was opening, offering a special opportunity to see how this rare bridge operates. As you can see in the photographs, the bridge rolls horizontally on a track in order to open to allow barges to pass.

As an official New York City landmark, the bridge is protected from inappropriate changes or demolition. However, MAS is concerned that plans for a major residential development, by Toll Brothers, adjacent to the bridge could bring increased auto traffic challenging the limits of the bridge’s structural capacity.

The Third Church of Christ, Scientist, at 583 Park Avenue, located on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, won a legal victory against the City that is of great concern to the Municipal Art Society (click here to read a New York Times report).

With a dwindling membership and a need for funds to repair their building, the Church (designed by architects Delano and Aldrich and constructed in 1923) sought to introduce an income-generating use into their building. The church signed a lease with the catering organization Rose Group Park Avenue, who used the church space to host parties and events that could seat 800 people. Nearby residents fought the catering use because of associated noise and traffic in the residential area. The DOB, which had issued a pre-consideration determination permitting catered events at the church, on which the congregation relied, eventually sent a final determination that did not allow for the use. The DOB rightly determined that the large catering hall was not an “accessory use” to the church and thus in violation of the area’s residential zoning. Continue Reading>>

Now is your chance to tell the Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) that you support the designation of the Prospect Heights Historic District. The LPC will hold a public hearing on Tuesday, October 28, 1:30 – 3:30 p.m. at the Municipal Building. This hearing is the second step in protecting one of Brooklyn’s finest – and most endangered – historic neighborhoods.

Prospect Heights is threatened by the Atlantic Yards project, a proposal by the developer Forest City Ratner to build 16 towers and a sports arena on a 22-acre site that abuts the boundaries of the proposed historic district.

Encompassing roughly 870 properties, the proposed Prospect Heights Historic District is rich in historic architecture, with blocks of beautiful Italianate and neo-Grec rowhouses, interspersed with churches, small commercial and apartment buildings. Located just north of Prospect Park, the neighborhood has seen few changes since it was first developed in the late-19th Century. Click here to read more about the history.

MAS has worked in partnership with the Prospect Heights Neighborhood Development Corporation (PHNDC) in advocating for the designation of this neighborhood since 2006 Continue Reading>>

New York City was once the nation’s power house for manufacturing, and many of the buildings and factories that fueled that industry remain. Preserving these buildings and using them to foster green-collar industries or adapting them to new housing, cultural, and retail uses is the most sustainable action New York could take.

Tonight’s program, Recycling New York’s Industrial Past: Inspiration From Home and Abroad, will explore two approaches to preserving industrial buildings: keeping them for manufacturing uses (which also means retaining good-paying jobs) or adapting these buildings to new uses, like the ice skating rink at the former Coking Plant in Essen, Germany, above at left. Tickets are still available for the program and can be purchased by calling 212-935-2075. Continue Reading>>

MAS testified before the City Council’s Committee on Waterfronts yesterday in support of Intro. No. 809, a bill that would require the City Planning Commission to create a comprehensive waterfront plan every ten years. We believe that planning for the waterfront is of great importance to the future of the city, and that engaging communities in the planning process is critical to the success of a waterfront plan.

Intro. No. 809 offers an opportunity to balance the diversity of uses on the city’s waterfront and waterways so that our maritime industry prospers, waterfront development is appropriate and based on established priorities, maritime habitats are protected and improved, long term and irreversible environmental harm due to the effects of climate change are mitigated or prevented, and that through increased use of waterborne transportation, our carbon footprint is reduced. Continue Reading>>

The City just won a legal victory that affirms the landmark designation of City and Suburban First Avenue Estate (at First Avenue between 64th and 65th Streets), a model tenement complex built early in the 20th century as housing for the working poor. MAS has long been a supporter of its designation.

This landmarks issue has a long and political history. In 1990, the LPC designated the full block of 15 historic tenement buildings. In 1991, the now-defunct Board of Estimates, on their last night of existence, voted well after midnight to de-designate two of the fifteen buildings that make up the historic complex. That decision was widely considered a political move and a concession to a developer who wanted to build a tower at the sister complex to the north, City and Suburban York Avenue. In 2006, at the urging of MAS, community members, and Friends of the Upper East Side Historic Districts, the LPC re-designated the two buildings, making the landmark whole again. Continue Reading>>