The Green Opportunity in New York’s Old Buildings
October 1st, 2009
This fall, the Municipal Art Society, supported by funding from the New York Community Trust, the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Trust for Historic Preservation, will launch a major campaign to promote the positive environmental benefits of preserving and improving the efficiency of New York’s historic buildings.
Yesterday, MAS staff was interviewed on NPR about the sensitive greening of the Empire State Building, currently underway, that aims to dramatically reduce the icon’s energy consumption. Improving the efficiency of the city’s buildings is a key step in tackling the climate change crisis, and Lisa Kersavage, Senior Director of Advocacy and Policy, stated that the intention of MAS’s new campaign is to change the popular misconception that the best way to do this is to demolish old buildings and erect new green ones, saying “construction-related debris accounts for 60 percent of New York City’s waste stream.” Continue Reading>>








980 Madison Avenue was back at the Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) yesterday, but it did not yet get the go-ahead from the Commissioners. The project had been significantly redesigned after the LPC rejected the original proposal by Norman Foster to build a 30-story glass addition on top of the 1949 Parke-Bernet Galleries last year.

