ALERT: LPC schedules City & Suburban First Avenue Estates to be considered
From Friends of the Upper East Side Historic Districts:
This afternoon, the Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) announced that they will be calendaring a public hearing for the City and Suburban Homes Company, First Avenue Estates (E. 64th Street to East 65th Street between First and York Avenues) Via letters, meetings and a postcard campaign, FRIENDS has been asking the Landmarks Preservation Commission to restore the original boundaries of this individual landmark for many years.
City and Suburban Homes Company’s First Avenue Estate, built between 1898 and 1915, is the oldest extant project of the most successful of the privately financed, limited-dividend companies that attempted to address the housing problems of the nation’s working poor at the turn of the century. The 15-building complex is one of only two full city block developments of light-court tenements in the country.
Most of FRIENDS’ members remember the triumphal battle to save City and Suburban’s York Avenue Estate (E. 78th St. to 79th St. between York Avenue and the FDR Drive). It was a long, arduous battle won by determined supporters led by the Coalition to Save City and Suburban Homes. The LPC had voted to designate the First Avenue Estate in its entirety on April 24, 1990. On August 16, 1990 the Board of Estimate, with a politically charged agenda the size of a phone book, held its final executive session. At the meeting the Board voted to delete from the designation two of the buildings that the LPC had included; 429 East 64th and 430 East 65th Street. They made a similar decision for four of the buildings at the York Avenue Estate, which were later reinstated. The decision was widely recognized as a political concession to a powerful developer and in no way based on the architectural or historical merits of the buildings. Unlike the York Avenue Estate, however, the First Avenue Estate never had its original designation reinstated until now. FRIENDS is grateful to the Commission to fix what was a political and anti-preservation decision made by a now defunct agency.
Once a hearing date is announced, we will let you know. Your support will be needed more then ever!
Visit our website at www.friends-ues.org for more information.
Show your support by thanking Chair Robert Tierney for calendaring this worthy building.
LPC Chair Robert B. Tierney
[email protected]
Phone: 212-669-7888
Fax: 212-669-7955
1 Centre Street
New York, NY 10007