Yesterday, the Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) voted in favor of designating 3 new individual landmarks: the Museum building and the Fountain of Life and Tulip Tree Allée at the New York Botanical Garden in the Bronx; Jamaica High School in Queens; and the Rutan-Journeay residence in Tottenville, Staten Island.

In a disappointing turn of events, the Greek Revival-style Dissosway-Cole House on Arthur Kill Road in Staten Island was deemed too altered for NYC landmark status after incurring fire damage and subsequent replacement of some of the building’s original fabric. MAS had testified in favor of all four designations, stating in particular that there was enough remaining material and documentation at the Dissosway-Cole House to allow for an authentic restoration.

The commission also held public hearings on 11 designation proposals, and MAS testified in favor of all of them. We were particularly excited to support the Fillmore Place Historic District, a collection of 1850s houses that MAS, in conjunction with the Williamsburg Greenpoint Preservation Alliance, identified and proposed for designation during the Greenpoint-Wiliamsburg rezoning. Two other historic districts were considered: the Audubon Park Historic District between West 155th and West 158th Streets, and the Ocean on the Park Historic District on Ocean Avenue between Lincoln Road and Parkside Avenue across from Prospect Park.

In addition, eight individual landmark designations were also proposed: the Edith Andrews Logan Residence at 17 West 56th Street; the E. Hayward Ferry Residence at 26 W. 56th Street; the Middleton and Emilie Neilson Burrill House at 36 East 38th Street; the former Aschenbrodel Verein at 74 E. 4th Street (currently the La Mama Experimental Theatre); the Mount Olive Fire Baptized Holiness Church at 308 West 122nd Street in Harlem; the Fort Washington Presbyterian Church at 21 Wadsworth Avenue in Washington Heights; the William Ulhmer Brewery at 31 Belvidere Street in the Bushwick section of Brooklyn; and the Ridgewood Theater at 55-27 Myrtle Avenue in Queens.

Finally, the proposed Perry Avenue Historic District in the Bronx, the Paramount Hotel at 235-245 West 46th Street and a townhouse at 46 West 55th Street were “calendared,” the first step in the designation process.