History

LPC calendars six sites linked to New York City’s LGBT history for possible landmark status

Top, left to right: GAA Firehouse, James Baldwin Residence, LGBT Community Center; Bottom, left to right: Audre Lorde Residence, Women’s Liberation Center, Caffe Cino; All photos courtesy of NYC LGBT Historic Sites Project

May 14, 2019

LPC calendars six sites linked to New York City’s LGBT history for possible landmark status

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The city's Landmarks Preservation Commission voted on Tuesday to calendar six individual sites related to the history of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community in New York City. The proposed landmarks highlight both groups and individuals who have advanced the LGBT rights movement by providing structure for community and political support, as well as raising public awareness. The commission's decision to calendar the sites comes ahead of next month's 50th anniversary of the Stonewall uprising and NYC's annual Pride celebration. LPC Chair Sarah Carroll said on Tuesday a public hearing to discuss the sites will be held June 4.
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Watch New York City grow from 1609 to today with this animated video assembled from historic maps

Via The New York City Evolution Animation from Myles Zhang 

May 13, 2019

Watch New York City grow from 1609 to today with this animated video assembled from historic maps

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When it comes to the development of New York City over many, many years, we tend not to see the forest for the trees, so to speak. Here Grows New York, an animated map created by urban development buff Myles Zhang, gives us a seriously forest-eye view of how the city changes from the time the first native American tribes populated the five boroughs in 1609 to the noisy tangle of highways of 2019. Complete with cool facts and a soundtrack, the map visually animates the development of this city’s infrastructure and street grid using geo-referenced road network data, historic maps, and geological surveys, highlighting the kind of organic growth spurts that drive development over time, providing an "abstract representation of urbanism."
Watch the city grow before your eyes
The world’s first Transatlantic flight took off from the Rockaways in 1919

“They’re off!”  The NC-1, NC-3 and NC- 4 begin their journey across the Atlantic May 8th, 1919. Via the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum

May 8, 2019

The world’s first Transatlantic flight took off from the Rockaways in 1919

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Did you know that the world's first Transatlantic flight took off from the Rockaway Naval Air Station on May 8th, 1919? The plane, a US Navy Seaplane NC-4, not only departed from the Rockaways but also was assembled there. The NC-4 was one of three planes that vied to be the first across the Atlantic. The NC-1 and NC-3 started out alongside the NC-4 that day in the Rockaways. The planes set course for Plymouth England, and the NC-4 proved victorious, making landfall there on May 31, 1919, after a whopping 57 hours and 16 minutes in the air.
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First hearing for Tin Pan Alley’s possible landmark designation draws debate

Via LPC

May 1, 2019

First hearing for Tin Pan Alley’s possible landmark designation draws debate

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The Landmarks Preservation Committee heard mixed testimonies yesterday during a public hearing over the designation of five buildings on West 28th Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues known as Tin Pan Alley. The buildings in question—ranging from 47-55 West 28th Street—are notable for the significant concentration of sheet music publishers they housed during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. As music publishers continued to flock to the block, the nickname “Tin Pan Alley” was coined in 1903 to describe the sound of piano music that could be heard from every corner. Though most everyone in attendance agreed on the historical significance of these buildings, some pointed to the racist tunes that were also written there as a reason to block the landmark designation—with even the buildings’ owner, controversial developer Yair Levy, arguing against it.
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Latest MCNY exhibit explores the labor movement in New York

Picketing ILGWU members outside Macy’s department store urge shoppers not to buy Judy Bond blouses. Circa 1965. Courtesy Kheel Center for Labor-Management Documentation & Archives, Cornell University. 

April 30, 2019

Latest MCNY exhibit explores the labor movement in New York

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The Museum of the City of New York will kick off its new exhibit, "City of Workers, City of Struggle," on May 1st, a date celebrated by workers around the world as May Day. The exhibit will explore how labor movements transformed New York and made it the most unionized large city in the United States. A robust public events calendar and moonlight movie series will add more exciting dimensions to this exploration of 200 years of labor politics in New York.
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Uncovering Central Park: Looking back at the original designs for ‘New York’s greatest treasure’

All of the images in this post are included in “The Central Park: Original Designs for New York’s Greatest Treasure,” and are courtesy of the NYC Municipal Archives.

April 30, 2019

Uncovering Central Park: Looking back at the original designs for ‘New York’s greatest treasure’

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There are few things as beautiful as a sunset in Central Park, standing beside the reservoir at 90th Street, looking west, and watching the sun sink behind the San Remo then glitter through the trees on the park's horizon, and finally melt into the water, its colors unspooling there like ink. That view, one of so many available in the park, can be credited to the meticulous planning by Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux, whose extraordinary vision made Central Park one of the finest urban oases on earth. "The Central Park: Original Designs for New York's Greatest Treasure," a new book by Cynthia S. Brenwall, out now from the NYC Department of Records, offers a closer look at that lanning process than ever before. Using more than 250 color photos, maps, plans, elevations, and designs -- many published here for the very first time -- the book chronicles the park's creation, from conception to completion, and reveals the striking "completeness" of Olmsted and Vaux's vision. "There was literally no detail too small to be considered," Brenwall says. You'll see the earliest sketches of familiar structures, and check out plans for unbuilt amenities (including a Paleozoic Museum!) 6sqft caught up with Brenwall to find out how the book came together, hear what it was like to cull through those incredible documents and snag a few secrets of Central Park.
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Historic Village icon White Horse Tavern is now closed for renovation under new ownership

Photo by Eden, Janine and Jim via Flickr.

April 30, 2019

Historic Village icon White Horse Tavern is now closed for renovation under new ownership

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As 6sqft reported earlier this year, the building that is home to White Horse Tavern, the 140-year-old West Village bar famous for its notable literary and artist clientele, was recently purchased by Steve Croman, a notorious landlord who served prison time for tenant harassment. The tavern, which opened on Hudson Street in 1880, is also under new management; the historic bar will be run by restauranteur Eytan Sugarman, who, as Gothamist reports, was behind Midtown's Hunt and Fish Club. The latest development raises new fears: The bar has been closed, according to a sign posted on the door, for "much needed repairs and upgrades." Readers are assured, "Have no fear, we have no intention of changing any of the historical elements that make the White Horse Tavern the landmark that it is."
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Jane’s Walk Weekend offers nearly 300 free walking tours around NYC

Jane’s Walk photo courtesy of MAS

April 29, 2019

Jane’s Walk Weekend offers nearly 300 free walking tours around NYC

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Jane's Walk photo courtesy of MAS Get ready to walk! The great urbanist Jane Jacobs advocated for livable, walkable cities, and the Municipal Art Society invites you to do just that during the first weekend in May. MAS's 9th annual Jane's Walk weekend, a three-day festival of free, public, volunteer-led walking tours, kicks off Friday, May 3rd. The Jane's Walk festival is a global event honoring Jane Jacobs' legacy of urban exploration, local history, and civic engagement. This year, Jane's Walks will take place in 200 cities around the world, and New Yorkers will have nearly 300 walks to choose from!
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New ‘Then and Now’ map shows over 2,200 historic buildings in Greenwich Village
April 29, 2019

New ‘Then and Now’ map shows over 2,200 historic buildings in Greenwich Village

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To celebrate the 50th anniversary of the landmark designation of the Greenwich Village Historic District on April 29, 1969, Village Preservation has released an online map and tour of the district. The online tour shows each and every one of the over 2,200 buildings in the district as they looked in 1969 and today.
Find buildings on the interactive historic district map and more
The Lower East Side’s forgotten Lung Block: The Italian community lost to ‘slum clearance’

“A Group of ‘Lung Block’ Children,” from Ernest Poole, The Plague in Its Stronghold, Tuberculosis in the New York Tenement, 1903. Courtesy of the Department of Records

April 25, 2019

The Lower East Side’s forgotten Lung Block: The Italian community lost to ‘slum clearance’

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In 1933, a new development rose on the Lower East Side. It was Knickerbocker Village, the first federally-funded apartment complex in the United States, and one of the first developments that would later fall under the umbrella of the city’s “Slum Clearance” program. The “slum” that Knickerbocker Village replaced wasn’t just any rundown collection of buildings – it was the notorious “Lung Block” between the Brooklyn and Manhattan bridges, bounded by Cherry, Monroe, Market and Catherine Streets, which in 1903, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Ernest Poole named the most congested and disease-ridden place in the city, or, perhaps, the world. But was it? “The Lung Block: A New York City Slum and its forgotten Italian Immigrant Community,” a new exhibit opening April 25th at the NYC Department of Records curated by researchers Stefano Morello and Kerri Culhane, will revisit the neighborhood and the immigrant community that called it home. With maps, journals, photos and other artifacts, the exhibit will consider the connections between health and housing, affordability and gentrification, public health and progressive reform, and architecture and the immigrant experience.
Learn more about this community
Artists chosen for Shirley Chisholm statue in Prospect Park

Rendering by Amanda Williams and Olalekan Jeyifous.

April 24, 2019

Artists chosen for Shirley Chisholm statue in Prospect Park

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In New York City's five boroughs, only five out of 150 monuments of historic figures depict women. Launched last year, a program from Women.nyc called She Built NYC is attempting to narrow that gap by commissioning monuments throughout the city honoring visionary women who have helped define the city and made an impact on the world. To that end, acclaimed artists Amanda Williams and Olalekan Jeyifous have been selected to design the first of these monuments, which will honor celebrated New York congresswoman Shirley Chisholm.
More of the winning design, this way
11 landmarks of immigration in Greenwich Village

This year marks the 50th anniversary of the designation of the Greenwich Village Historic District. One of the city’s oldest and largest landmark districts, it’s a treasure trove of history, culture, and architecture. Village Preservation is spending 2019 marking this anniversary with events, lectures, and new interactive online resources. This is part of a series of posts about the Greenwich Village Historic District marking its golden anniversary.

April 18, 2019

11 landmarks of immigration in Greenwich Village

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Each year, immigrant history week is celebrated in late April, commemorating the day in 1907 when more immigrants came through Ellis Island than any other day in history. More than a few of those immigrants came through Greenwich Village, which has a long and storied history of welcoming newcomers from across the city, country, and globe. Here are just a few of the sites within the Greenwich Village Historic District where landmarks of our nation’s rich and varied immigrant history can be found, from the oldest surviving Jewish cemetery in the country to a hub of "Little Spain."
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Renovated Webster Hall will host Jay-Z, Patti Smith for official reopening concerts

Image via Wikimedia cc.

April 15, 2019

Renovated Webster Hall will host Jay-Z, Patti Smith for official reopening concerts

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The historic East Village music venue Webster Hall is scheduled to reopen on April 26, 2019 after being closed for nearly 19 months for renovations. The concert hall was first opened in 1886, making it New York's oldest still-operating venue. According to AMNewYork, the Marlin concert room, Grand Ballroom and studio space have had a complete overhaul; the venue, which was acquired by Brooklyn Sports and Entertainment and AEG Presents (parent company of The Bowery Presents) in 2017, has announced a reopening concert featuring Jay-Z performing "The B-Sides," as well as a month of notable shows that will include Patti Smith, MGMT, Built To Spill, Sharon Van Etten, Broken Social Scene, Real Estate and more.
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10 sites in New York City connected to the Titanic

The Titanic’s lifeboats at the White Star Lines Pier 54 in NYC after sinking, via Wiki Commons

April 15, 2019

10 sites in New York City connected to the Titanic

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When you hear “Titanic” you may think of icebergs, tragedy, Jack, Rose, and a two-hour fight between life and death in the North Atlantic some 375 miles off the coast of Newfoundland. You may not necessarily think of New York City. But the ship, which left Southampton, England on April 10, 1912, was bound for New York and due at Pier 59 on April 17th. After sinking during the early hours of April 15th, the Titanic would never dock in New York, but survivors of the tragedy sailed into the city aboard the Carpathia on April 20th and disembarked at Pier 54. Ultimately, New York’s connection to that fateful voyage goes well beyond its waterfront. In fact, you’ll find sites associated with the Titanic and its passengers throughout the city.
10 NYC sites associated with the Titanic
10 historic sites to discover in Mott Haven, the Bronx’s first historic district
April 11, 2019

10 historic sites to discover in Mott Haven, the Bronx’s first historic district

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This post is part of a series by the Historic Districts Council, exploring the groups selected for their Six to Celebrate program, New York’s only targeted citywide list of preservation priorities. This year marks the 50th anniversary of the first historic district designated by New York City in the Bronx. Mott Haven was designated in 1969 by the city’s Landmarks Preservation Commission for its architecture "representative of the best of the second half of the nineteenth century." Landmarks later designated the Mott Haven East Historic District and the Bertine Block Historic District, also in the neighborhood, in 1994. Designated the same year as the Greenwich Village Historic District, the Mott Haven Historic Districts Association is working to bring this historic neighborhood to the same level of local and national prominence as its Manhattan sibling. In honor of the 50th anniversary, the Association uncovered the story behind 10 historic sites in Mott Haven--from the ironworking factory that lent its name to the neighborhood to two incredibly intact stretches of rowhouses to an early piano factory.
More here
12 social change champions of Greenwich Village

This year marks the 50th anniversary of the designation of the Greenwich Village Historic District. One of the city’s oldest and largest landmark districts, it’s a treasure trove of rich history, pioneering culture, and charming architecture. Village Preservation will be spending 2019 marking this anniversary with events, lectures, and new interactive online resources, including a celebration and district-wide weekend-long “Open House” starting on Saturday, April 13 in Washington Square. Check here for updates and more details. This is part of a series of posts about the Greenwich Village Historic District marking its golden anniversary.

April 5, 2019

12 social change champions of Greenwich Village

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Few places on Earth have attracted more or a broader array of activists and agitators for social change than Greenwich Village. And much of that activity took place right in the heart of the neighborhood in the Greenwich Village Historic District, where that rich history has been preserved through landmark designation for the past half-century. Here are just a few of the many who lived within its bounds and toiled to make the world a better or more just place.
See the full list
Developer can close historic Tribeca clock tower to the public to make way for penthouse, court rules

Images of the 108 Leonard’s newly restored facade courtesy of Hundred Stories PR

April 1, 2019

Developer can close historic Tribeca clock tower to the public to make way for penthouse, court rules

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Update 4/1/19: The New York State Court of Appeals on Thursday ruled against a group of preservationists who sued to stop developers from turning a historic clock tower into a penthouse. According to the judge, the LPC does not have the authority to give access to the building and the agency's plan to make the 19th-century clock run electronically is reasonable. Developers had big plans for the luxury condominiums they were creating at the block-long former site of the New York Life Insurance Company at 346 Broadway (also known as 108 Leonard Street) since purchasing it from the city in 2014. The new residential project would hold 140 units starting at $1.5 million, capped by a stunning penthouse that would be priced at over $20 million. The one snag in this golden opportunity: The building's iconic Clock Tower–sometimes called New York's 'Big Ben,' which sits atop the building and was designated an interior landmark in 1987. The clock must be wound by hand, a process which requires access through, as the New York Times reports, the future penthouse. A case against the developers' plan and a subsequent appeal were both won by the opponents, saying the LPC couldn't unwind the clock's landmark status–but an appeal in the state's highest court, the Court of Appeals, is still pending.
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The city is selling historic artifacts and photos from NYC’s bygone era of baseball

Babe Ruth shakes the hand of actor Gary Cooper (playing Lou Gehrig) during the filming of the movie “Pride of the Yankees” in 1942. The scene is a recreation of “Gehrig Appreciation Day” on July 4, 1939 when Gehrig retired due to his diagnosis with ALS; Via NYC Municipal Archives

March 29, 2019

The city is selling historic artifacts and photos from NYC’s bygone era of baseball

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To celebrate the start of the baseball season this week, the city's Department of Records & Information Services released a series of artifacts and historic photos for sale. From architectural drawings of Brooklyn's Ebbets Field to photos of Babe Ruth at the 1936 World Series, the images provide a look back at our national pastime's origin in New York City.
How to buy them
From campus strikes to student government, Harlem’s City College is home to many firsts

Shepard Hall at the City College of New York via Wikimedia

March 29, 2019

From campus strikes to student government, Harlem’s City College is home to many firsts

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Now that “Operation Varsity Blues” has shown afresh the ways in which the nation’s elite can buy admission into prestigious universities, it may be instructive to consider the history City College, the flagship of the CUNY system, and the first free institution of higher education in the nation. Founded as The Free Academy of the City of New York in 1847, City College has long nurtured brilliant students from all walks of life as the “The Harvard of the Proletariat,” and served as an engine of upward mobility for New Yorkers and other strivers from around the world. As the home of the first student government in the nation, the first student-led strike, and the first degree-granting evening program, City boasts a legacy of equity and equality that reflects the best ideals of the city it serves.
Get the full history
Photos capture the historic glamour of the Waldorf Astoria before its renovation
March 28, 2019

Photos capture the historic glamour of the Waldorf Astoria before its renovation

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To the dismay of many New Yorkers, the Waldorf Astoria closed its doors in 2017 for a huge renovation project that will ultimately create larger hotel rooms and add a new set of luxury condos. After the plans were announced, the Landmarks Preservation Commission designated the hotel's first three floors as an interior landmark, meaning the new owners will need to preserve the 1931 Art Deco spaces. But after a four-year hiatus (the hotel will reopen in 2021) and a completely new vibe, it's not clear if those interiors will have the same glamorous, old-school New York vibe that they were once famous for. Luckily, photographers James and Karla Murray captured the Waldorf in all its glory before it closed its doors. Ahead, take a tour of the old Waldorf, from its iconic, two-ton lobby clock to the three-tiered grand ballroom.
Take the tour
East Harlem, St. Luke’s Hospital, and Sunset Park co-ops may get state historic designation

Image via New York State Board for Historic Preservation

March 25, 2019

East Harlem, St. Luke’s Hospital, and Sunset Park co-ops may get state historic designation

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The New York State Board for Historic Preservation has recommended adding 17 properties to the State and National Registers of Historic Places today, sites that represent New York's rich history from Long Island through the Finger Lakes. In New York City, four nominees made the cut: the Alku and Alku Toinen buildings in Brooklyn, East Harlem Historic District, George Washington Hotel in Gramercy, and St. Luke's Hospital in Morningside Heights. Once the recommendations are approved by the state historic preservation officer, the properties are listed on the New York State Register of Historic Places and then nominated to the National Register of Historic Places, where they are reviewed and, once approved, entered on the National Register.
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Did you know NYC’s only surviving cycling track is in Flushing?

1964 US Olympic Trials at Kissena Velodrome. From page 47 of “30 years of progress, 1934-1964 : Department of Parks : 300th anniversary of the City of New York : New York World’s Fair.” (1964). Via Internet Archive Book Images on Flickr

March 22, 2019

Did you know NYC’s only surviving cycling track is in Flushing?

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From the late 1890s through the 1920s, tens of thousands of New Yorkers turned out to witness the high drama of competitive bicycle speed racing. In New York, there were Velodromes (cycling tracks) at Coney Island, in the Bronx, and even at the original Madison Square Garden, where grueling six-day races called “Madisons” pushed riders to their limits. The sport fell prey to the Depression, and today there are just 26 Velodromes in the United States, including one in New York City, the Kissena Velodrome in Flushing’s Kissena Park, known to Velodrome enthusiasts as “the Track of Dreams.”
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13 places in Greenwich Village where the course of history was changed

This year marks the 50th anniversary of the designation of the Greenwich Village Historic District.  One of the city’s oldest and largest landmark districts, it’s a treasure trove of rich history, pioneering culture, and charming architecture. Village Preservation will be spending 2019 marking this anniversary with events, lectures, and new interactive online resources, including a celebration and district-wide weekend-long “Open House” starting on Saturday, April 13 in Washington Square.  Check here for updates and more details. This is part of a series of posts about the Greenwich Village Historic District marking its golden anniversary.

March 21, 2019

13 places in Greenwich Village where the course of history was changed

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It’s not that often you can pinpoint a time and place and say the course of history was forever changed as a result of it. It’s even less common for such a thing to happen over and over again in one small neighborhood. But from its earliest days, Greenwich Village is where history has been made, much of it within the Greenwich Village Historic District, which lies at its heart. Here are a baker’s dozen of such events located within those one hundred blocks, from the first free black settlement in North America and the birth of the modern LGBT rights movement to the first museum dedicated to contemporary American art and the publication of "The Autobiography of Malcolm X."
All the history right this way
Walt Whitman’s New York City: 10 sites where the poet left his mark

Walt Whitman (1881) courtesy of Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution

March 20, 2019

Walt Whitman’s New York City: 10 sites where the poet left his mark

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In his famous 1856 Poem, “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry,” Walt Whitman writes to future New Yorkers, “I am with you, you men and women of a generation, or ever so many generations hence, just as you feel when you look on the river and the sky, so I felt,…I too lived, Brooklyn of ample hills was mine, I too walk’d the streets of Manhattan Island.” Whitman, who so deeply captured the experience of living in this city, left his mark not only on Brooklyn and Manhattan, but also on the world as the father of free verse poetry, and one of America’s greatest artists. Since this year marks Whitman’s 200th birthday, we're joining the ongoing celebration of his life and work by returning to the streets he walked, following in his footstep to 10 sites across New York associated with the poet.
Walk With Whitman
The sordid, surreal, and spectacular history of Coney Island’s Elephant Hotel

“Elephant Bazar Coney Island,” NYPL Wallach Division Picture Collection via NYPL Digital Collections

March 19, 2019

The sordid, surreal, and spectacular history of Coney Island’s Elephant Hotel

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When Coney Island burst on the scene in the 1880s as “the People’s Playground,” becoming the last word in bawdy beachfront pleasure, every attraction was larger than life. But no attraction was as large as the “Elephantine Colossus,” a 12-story, 31-room, elephant-shaped hotel, stationed at Surf Avenue and West 12th Street. The elephant was a tin-clad wooden structure rising 150 feet high, and it was unlike any other elephant in the world: The animal’s forelegs featured a tobacco shop, its left lung was home to a museum, and visitors to the “cheek room” could look out of the elephant eyes to the ocean beyond.
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