Today is another large Designation Day at the Landmarks Preservation Commission. The focus of today’s hearing is expanding some of the city’s existing historic districts to include worthy buildings that were excluded from the original designations. See our slide above and continue reading to learn more about the LPC’s activities today.

The Crown Heights North Phase II district will expand the original district designated in 2007 by approximately 600 buildings, protecting more of the neighborhood’s wonderful residential and institutional buildings. The SoHo-Cast Iron Historic District Extension has been on the community’s wish list for decades. The original district, designated in 1973, stops abruptly at the east side of West Broadway and the west side of Crosby Street, leaving out several wonderful cast-iron and masonry buildings. An extension to the Upper East Side Historic District Extension likewise is being considered by the LPC in order to protect many wonderful buildings on Lexington Avenue and its adjacent side streets that were excluded from its original 1981 designation. Finally, the Greenwich Village Historic District Extension II is much better known as a portion of the proposed South Village Historic District. Located south of the Greenwich Village Historic District (designated in 1969), this proposed expansion would include many Federal-style and Greek Revival rowhouses as well as richly ornamented tenement buildings that relate to the neighborhood’s immigrant heritage.

The Commission isn’t stopping there. Also on the LPC’s agenda today is the designation of the Ocean on the Park Historic District on Ocean Avenue across from Prospect Park. In addition, the LPC will be taking testimony on the designation of the Brill Building at 1619 Broadway, an integral part of the area’s Tin Pan Alley history, and will be calendaring (the first step in the designation process) four buildings: The Jamaica Saving Bank (now North Fork Bank) on Jamaica Avenue in Queens; the Grace Episcopal Church Memorial Hall in Jamaica; the Russian Orthodox Cathedral of the Holy Virgin Protection on East 2nd Street in the East Village; and the Haffen Building at 2804 Third Avenue in the Bronx.