Follow the Proceedings of Landmarks Designation and Review in NYC - Remotely - and Learn About Preservation Design Review and Advocacy

After reading Sewell Chan's New York Times article Preservation Commission Turns Down Proposal for Upper East Side Tower and then checking the Historic Districts Council Newsstand blog yesterday morning, I realized that the convergence and clever use of new and old media technologies -- web logs, web sites, and newspapers -- has made it possible to follow, from anywhere, New York City's landmarks designation and review process and related advocacy efforts by preservation and neighborhood groups.

While New York City is in many ways unique, the ability to follow its landmark designation and review process nonetheless presents tremendous learning opportunities for our students and anyone else interested in historic preservation in regard to preservation regulations, permit review procedures, organizing, and advocacy. I recommend it highly to my Economics of Historic Preservation students, whose case study assignments always include attending meetings of historic district commissions and planning and zoning boards. It also provides great background for Dorothy Miner's upcoming Preservation Law classes.

I must caution that I am not an expert on New York City's landmarks preservation law, its related procedures, or any of the organizations involved, and what I present here, I've learned from organizational web sites and related blog posts and newspaper articles.

The property involved in the initial case I followed is the former Parke-Bernet Gallery (980 Madison Avenue between 76th and 77th streets), which is described in Landmarks Preservation Commission public hearing documents as a "modern gallery building designed by Walker & Poor and built in 1948-50."

Two of the various organizations involved are the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission and the Historic Districts Council.

The case began sometime in late September or early October when the Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) scheduled a public hearing for October 24, 2006 to review a permit application "to alter the facades, to demolish rooftop and rear additions, construct an additions [sic] and establish a Master Plan governing the future installation of storefront infill," and to request that the [LPC] "issue a report to the City Planning Commission relating to an application for Modification of Bulk pursuant to Section 74-711 of the Zoning Resolution." The modifications, including the addition of a 30-story glass residential tower, were proposed by New York City developer Aby Rosen and his architect, Lord Norman Foster. Details about the proposal were published in Nicolai Ouroussoff's generally favorable October 10, 2006 New York Times article Injecting a Bold Shot of the New on the Upper East Side, which recognized that the proposed building would be a "challenge to a neighborhood known for an aversion to bold contemporary architecture."

The LPC is the New York City municipal agency responsible for identifying, designating, and regulating changes to the City's landmarks and historic districts. Established in 1965 in response to New Yorkers' growing concern that important physical elements of the city's history were being lost despite the fact that these buildings could be reused, the LPC's work is carried out by eleven commissioners and a full-time staff. Its web site enables anyone to read designation reports prepared by the staff and to follow the schedule of public hearings related to the designation and review process. The web site includes general background information about the agency, information about working with landmarks, landmark maps, forms and publications, a glossary, FAQs, employment opportunities, contact information, regularly posted news items, a calendar of public hearings, a permit search function, and a search engine for the site.

It should be noted that before the LPC hearing took place, the Historic Districts Council (HDC) alerted its constituency about the hearing and related issues with a post on its blog: ALERT: Help Save NYC's Historic Districts (October 16, 2006). In this post the HDC requested assistance from its readers "to help preserve the integrity of the landmarks process and save our historic districts from inappropriate development," provided background on the case, and included a sample letter requesting the LPC to reject Rosen's and Foster's proposal to construct a 30-story glass tower.

The HDC was founded by the Municipal Art Society in 1971 as a coalition of community groups from the city's designated historic districts, primarily to work on special projects and networking. In subsequent years, the number of historic districts increased from 18 to more than 80, and the coalition became an independent, nonpartisan incorporated organization with its own board of directors, executive director, and small staff. As it matured, the organization's focus also shifted to advancing historic designations and advocating for the city's historic resources. Although it is not connected to the city government, any other preservation organizations, or any individual neighborhood group, the HDC works with all of them. Its web site provides background information about the organization, its board of directors, advisors, and staff; internship and volunteer opportunities; Friends of the HDC; neighborhood partners; professional partners; and contact information. We will do a more extensive review of the HDC's web site in a future post, but several of its many other notable features include the Historic Districts Council Newsstand blog; monthly electronic bulletins distributed by email and posted on the web site; notes from recent testimony before the LPC, and District Lines newsletter, which is published three times annually.

Following its initial October 16th blog alert post, the HDC monitored the progess of the 980 Madison Avenue case in 11 additional posts, providing through "Alert," "News," and "Report" posts excellent glimpses into the twists and turns of the case, tracking and reporting on the actions of the LPC, HDC, and others, and presenting links, summaries, or the full text of articles reporting on the case in local media outlets. The series of posts included the following:

-- Wednesday, 10/25/06 -- NEWS: Press Roundup on 980 Madison Avenue Hearing which links to articles in NYC publications Gothamist, New York Magazine, New York Post, and New York Sun, and informs constituents about the hearings to date and how to contribute during the comment period.

-- Wednesday, 11/15/06 -- ALERT: Public Comment Period for 980 Madison Avenue (the Foster Tower) Extended obviously informing constituents of the comment period extension and providing contact information for the LPC in case readers wish to submit comments.

-- Thursday, 11/16/06 -- REPORT: Observations on the LPC from September & October 2006 summarizing the cases reviewed by the LPC in those months, prefaced by the comments that "one of HDC's principal activities is the review of proposals to landmark buildings. Before every public hearing, we review the proposals with an expert panel of volunteers for appropriateness, and comment when we feel it's necessary or helpful. Nadezhda Williams, HDC's Preservation Associate, works with the Public Review Committee, drafts the testimony from their findings and represents HDC at the hearings. These are her some of her notes and observations from the past few months.For HDC's testimony on any given hearing - check out http://www.hdc.org/testimony.htm."

-- Sunday, 11/26/06 -- NEWS: Tom Wolfe on the independence of the LPC
providing the full text of author Tom Wolfe's New York Times op-ed piece The (Naked) City and the Undead.

-- Wednesday, 12/06/06 -- NEWS: From Across the Atlantic, Reverberation of 980 Madison Fight providing the full text of an article about the case from the UK's newspaper The Guardian.

-- Wednesday, 12/13/06 -- NEWS: Did you hear the one about Tom Wolfe & the Landmarks Commission? providing the full text of the New York Observer's article Preservationists Cry Wolfe; We've Got Their Number.

-- Wednesday, 12/20/06 -- ALERT: 980 Madison Avenue Public Hearing Scheduled for January 16 and ALERT: 980 Madison Avenue Hearing in the Surrogate's Court Building providing updated information about public hearings on 980 Madison Avenue.

-- Tuesday, 01/09/07 -- NEWS: The Village Voice's Take on Tom Wolfe providing the full text from the Village Voice's article Has Tom Wolfe Blown It? In the author's latest foray into combat, it's his fame he's fighting to preserve.

-- Monday, 01/15/07 -- NEWS: 980 Madison Avenue nearing the midpoint providing the full text of an article in the New York Sun.

-- Tuesday, 01/16/07 -- REPORT: 980 Madison Hearing in all its glory providing an excellent, detailed, commissioner by commissioner account of the LPC's public meeting to review the 980 Madison Avenue proposal, ending with the words "...Commissioner Tierney [LPC's Chair] then closed the hearing, instructing the applicants to re-examine their proposal and re-study it in light of the commissioners' comments. No action was taken and a date was not set for a new hearing."

-- Wednesday, 01/17/07 -- NEWS: Press Roundup on 980 Madison Proposal providing links and one-sentence summaries of press coverage of the 980 Madison Avenue hearing in the New York Times, New York Post, New York Sun, New York Observer, Village Voice, and New York Daily News.

Anyone who wants to see how the 980 Madison Avenue case finally turns out will have to watch the web sites of the LPC and HDC for dates and outcomes of future public hearings. In the meantime, the HDC's web site issued an "Alert" post yesterday notifying constituents that the Waterfront Preservation Alliance of Greenpoint & Williamsburg is collecting signatures to save the Domino Sugar Refinery. A sample letter to Mayor Bloomburg supporting the designation of Domino Sugar as a New York City landmark and a link to the organization's petition is also provided.

Those interested in following the work of the LPC will also want to be aware of a relatively new group of advocates calling themselves the Citizens Emergency Committee to Preserve Preservation (CECPP). The masthead of their blog (included in our sidebar blogroll) states "Beloved buildings, architectural treasures, cultural icons, and historic places that New Yorker's care passionately about, are being defaced and demolished -- these are the very buildings and places that should be protected by NYC's landmarks law. Last year it was the Morris Lapidus building on Union Square, last summer it was 2 Columbus Circle, last month it was St. Brigid's Church on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. What will it be tomorrow?"

Since this is already a fairly long post, we will review CECPP's blog and activities in a future post. However, anyone interested in learning more before then can read the blog to find out more about the organization's mission, the problem statement, news, reports, steering committee and membership. In addition, the blog yesterday posted an internal document from the Municipal Art Society that "...gives a thorough review of the current problems with the LPC and provides well thought out recommendations for reforming it." Although the document, entitled "New York City's Landmarks Preservation Commission: Meeting the Challenges of the 21st Century," is a marked up draft and was roughly scanned, it makes for interesting reading.