Context were preserved largely based on individual or group advocacy. The preservation movement in New York City dates to at least 1831, when the
New York Evening Post expressed its opposition to the demolition of a 17th-century house on Pearl Street in
Lower Manhattan. Before the LPC's creation, buildings and structures were preserved mainly through advocacy, either from individuals or from groups. Other structures such as the
Van Cortlandt House,
Morris–Jumel Mansion,
Edgar Allan Poe Cottage, and
Dyckman House were preserved as historic house museums during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Advocates also led efforts to preserve cultural sites such as
Carnegie Hall, which in the late 1950s was slated for replacement with an office tower. However, early preservation movements often focused on preserving
Colonial-style houses, while paying relatively little attention to other architectural styles or building types. There was generally little support for the preservation movement until
World War II. Others, such as
St. John's Chapel, were destroyed in spite of support for preservation. By the 1950s, there was growing support for preservation of architecturally significant structures. For example, a 1954 study found approximately two hundred structures that could potentially be preserved. At the same time, older structures, especially those constructed before
World War I, were being perceived as an impediment to development. The demolition of
Pennsylvania Station between 1963 and 1966, in spite of widespread outcry, is cited as a catalyst for the architectural preservation movement in the United States, particularly in New York City.
Creation The Mayor's Committee for the Preservation of Structures of Historic and Esthetic Importance was formed in mid-1961 by mayor
Robert F. Wagner Jr. This committee had dissolved by early 1962. Wagner formed the Landmarks Preservation Commission on April 21, 1962, with twelve unsalaried members. Soon afterward, the LPC began designating buildings as landmarks. The early version of the LPC initially held little power over enforcement, and failed to avert Pennsylvania Station's demolition. As a result, in April 1964, LPC member Geoffrey Platt drafted a New York City Landmarks Law. Outcry over the proposed destruction of the Brokaw Mansion on Manhattan's
Upper East Side, identified by the LPC as a possible landmark, inspired Wagner to send the legislation to the
New York City Council in mid-1964. The law, introduced in the City Council that October, would significantly increase the LPC's powers. The City Council cited concerns that "the City has been and is undergoing the loss and destruction of its architectural heritage at an alarming rate, especially so in the last 8-10 years". Several changes to the Landmarks Law were made by the City Council committee that was reviewing the legislation; for example, the committee removed a clause mandating a protective zone around proposed landmarks. The bill passed the City Council on April 7, 1965, and was signed into law by Wagner on April 20. was discussed during the commission's first public hearing in 1965. The first eleven commissioners to take office under the Landmarks Law were sworn in during June 1965. Platt was the first chairman, serving until 1968. The LPC's first public hearing occurred in September 1965, and the first twenty landmarks were designated the next month. The
Wyckoff House in Brooklyn was the first landmark numerically, and was designated simultaneously with structures such as the
Astor Library, the
Brooklyn Navy Yard's Commandant's House, the
Bowling Green U.S. Custom House, and six buildings at
Sailors' Snug Harbor.
Changes The LPC was headquartered in the
Mutual Reserve Building from 1967 to 1980, and in the
Old New York Evening Post Building from 1980 to 1987. The original legislation enabled the LPC to designate landmarks for eighteen months after the law became effective, followed by alternating cycles of three-year hiatuses and six-month "designating periods". In 1973, mayor
John Lindsay signed legislation that allowed the LPC to consider landmarks on a rolling basis. The bill also introduced new scenic and interior landmark designations. The first
scenic landmark was
Central Park in April 1974, while the first interior landmark was part of the neighboring
New York Public Library Main Branch in November 1974. In its first twenty-five years, the LPC designated 856 individual landmarks, 79 interior landmarks, and 9 scenic landmarks, while declaring 52 neighborhoods with more than 15,000 buildings as
historic districts. a decision was made to change the process by which buildings are declared to be landmarks due to some perceived issues with the manner by which the LPC operates By 2016, the LPC had designated 1,355 individual landmarks, 117 interior landmarks, 138 historic districts, and 10 scenic landmarks. The hearing room's Art Deco-era glass block windows are remnants of the former
Longchamps restaurant. In 1978, the
United States Supreme Court upheld the law in
Penn Central Transportation Co., et al. v. New York City, et al., stopping the
Penn Central Railroad from altering the structure and placing a large office tower above it. This success is often cited as significant due to the LPC's origins following the destruction of Pennsylvania Station, referred to by some as architectural vandalism. In 1989, the LPC designated the
Ladies' Mile Historic District. The next year marked the first time in the LPC's history that a proposed landmark, the
Guggenheim Museum (one of the youngest declared landmarks), received a unanimous vote by the LPC members. The vast majority of the LPC's actions are not unanimously supported by the LPC members or the community; a number of cases including
St. Bartholomew's Episcopal Church,
Bryant Park, and
Broadway theatres have been challenged. One of the most controversial properties was
2 Columbus Circle, which remained at the center of a discussion over its future for a number of years. Cultural landmarks, such as
Greenwich Village's
Stonewall Inn, are recognized as well not for their architecture, but rather for their location in a designated historic district. In 2015, Stonewall became the first official New York City landmark to be designated specifically based on its LGBT cultural significance. In a heatedly discussed decision on August 3, 2010, the LPC unanimously declined to grant landmark status to a building on Park Place in Manhattan, and thus did not block the construction of
Cordoba House.
Theater District landmarks A major dispute arose over the preservation of theaters in the
Theater District during the 1980s. The LPC considered protecting close to 50
legitimate theaters as individual city landmarks in 1982, following the destruction of the
Helen Hayes and
Morosco theaters. An advisory panel under mayor Koch voted to allow the LPC consider theaters not only on their historical significance but also on their architectural merits. In response to objections from some of the major theatrical operators, several dozen scenic and lighting designers offered to work on the LPC for creating guidelines for potential landmarks. Theaters were landmarked in alphabetical order; the first theaters to be designated under the 1982 plan were the
Neil Simon,
Ambassador, and
Virginia (now August Wilson) in August 1985. The landmark plan was then deferred temporarily until some landmark guidelines were enacted; the guidelines, implemented in December 1985, allowed operators to modify theaters for productions without having to consult the LPC. Landmark designations of theaters increased significantly in 1987, starting with the
Palace in mid-1987. Ultimately, 28 additional theaters were designated as landmarks, of which 27 were
Broadway theaters. The
New York City Board of Estimate ratified these designations in March 1988. Of these, both the interior and exterior of 19 theaters were protected, while only the interiors of seven theaters (including the Lyceum, whose exterior was already protected) and the exteriors of two theaters were approved.
The Shubert Organization, the
Nederlander Organization, and
Jujamcyn Theaters collectively sued the LPC in June 1988 to overturn the landmark designations of 22 theaters on the merit that the designations severely limited the extent to which the theaters could be modified. The
New York Supreme Court upheld the LPC's designations of these theaters the next year. The three theatrical operators challenged the ruling with the U.S. Supreme Court, which refused to hear the lawsuit in 1992, thus upholding the designations.
South Street Seaport and "New Market Building" An LPC-designated historic district for the
South Street Seaport has been active since 1977 and was extended on July 11, 1989. After the
Fulton Fish Market relocated to the Bronx in 2005, community members, with leadership from organizer Robert Lavalva, developed the "New Amsterdam Market", a regular gathering with vendors selling regional and "sustainable" foodstuffs outside the old Fish Market buildings. The group's chartered organization planned eventually to attempt to reconstitute the "New Market Building", a 1939 structure with an
Art Deco façade and that was owned by the city, into a permanent food market. However, a real estate company,
the Howard Hughes Corporation, possessed a lease for large parts of the Seaport area and desired to redevelop it, generating fears among locals that the New Market Building would be altered or destroyed. A group of community activists formed the "Save Our Seaport Coalition" to advocate that the New Market Building be incorporated into the historic district set by the Landmarks Preservation Commission, in addition to calling for the protection of public space in the neighborhood and for support for the seaport's museum. This group included the
Historic Districts Council, the "Save Our Seaport" community group, the New Amsterdam Market, and the Metropolitan Waterfront Alliance. The "Save Our Seaport" group specifically argued that New Market Building was culturally important for its maintenance of the historic fish market for 66 years, and that it offers a "fine example of WPA Moderne municipal architecture (an increasingly rare form throughout the nation)." They had encouraged others to write letters to the LPC to support formal designation or district protection.
Little Syria and Washington Street After the
September 11 attacks in 2001, New York City tour guide Joseph Svehlak and other local historians became concerned that government-encouraged development in
Downtown Manhattan would lead to the disappearance of the last physical heritage of the once "low-rise"
Lower West Side of Manhattan. Also known as "Little Syria" in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the area between
Battery Park and the
World Trade Center site, east of
West Street and west of
Broadway, had been a residential area for the shipping elite of New York in the early 19th century, and turned into a substantial neighborhood of ethnic immigration in the mid-19th century. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, centered on
Washington Street, the area became well known as
Little Syria, hosting immigrants from today's
Lebanon,
Syria, and
Palestine, as well those of many other ethnic groups including Greeks, Armenians, Irish, Slovaks, and Czechs. Due to eminent domain actions associated with the construction of the
Brooklyn–Battery Tunnel and the
World Trade Center, in addition to significant highrise construction in the 1920s and 30s, only a small number of low-rise historic buildings from the earlier eras remain. In 2003, Svehlak wrote a manifesto arguing for the landmark designation of "a trilogy" of three contiguous buildings on Washington Street, the thoroughfare that was most closely associated with "Little Syria". These consisted of the
Downtown Community House – which hosted the Bowling Green Association to serve the neighborhood's immigrants –
109 Washington Street (an 1885 tenement), and the terra-cotta
St. George's Syrian Catholic Church. After years of advocacy, in January 2009, the LPC held a hearing about the landmark designation of the Melkite church, which did succeed. However, under Chairman Robert Tierney, the LPC had declined to hold hearings on the Downtown Community House or 109 Washington Street. Community and preservation groups — including the "Friends of the Lower West Side" and the "Save Washington Street" group led by
St. Francis College student Carl "Antoun" Houck — have continued, especially, to advocate for a hearing on the
Downtown Community House, arguing that its history demonstrates the multi-ethnic heritage of the neighborhood, and that its
Colonial Revival architecture intentionally links the immigrants to the foundations of the country, and that preserving the three buildings together would tell a coherent story of an overlooked, but important ethnic neighborhood.
Manhattan Community Board 1 and City Councilperson
Margaret Chin have also advocated for the LPC to hold a hearing on the
Downtown Community House. According to
the Wall Street Journal, however, the LPC argues that "the buildings lack the necessary architectural and historical significance and that better examples of the settlement house movement and tenements exist in other parts of the city." The activists have said they hope that the LPC under the new mayor will be more receptive to preservation in the neighborhood. ==Former landmarks==