News from LPC
The Landmarks Preservation Commission designated on Tuesday two new landmarks – the former St. George’s Melkite Catholic Church (now Moran’s Bar and Restaurant) and the Mickey Mantle School/P.S.811M. The church at 103 Washington Street was originally constructed as a three-story house around 1812 with two stories later added in 1869. In 1925 the Melkite Catholic parish of Syrian immigrants began worshiping there, and four years later they hired Lebanese-American draftsman Harvey F. Cassab to design a new neo-Gothic façade in terra cotta. The school, one of the nearly 200 designed by C.B.J Snyder, the City’s superintendent of school buildings from 1891 to 1923, opened in 1896 and continues to serve as a school 113 years later.
Very long public hearings were held for the West Park Presbyterian Church and the IRT Powerhouse. While the owners of both buildings were opposed to designation, the vast majority of speakers testified in favor. It has been a long trip towards designation for both buildings – the church was within the originally proposed borders of the Upper West Side Historic District in the 1980s and the LPC held hearings for the Powerhouse in 1979 and 1990. The Commission also calendared Emery Roth & Sons’ 1950 Look Building. One of Manhattan’s earliest Modernist office buildings, it was originally the home of one of the most popular magazines of the era, Look Magazine. We look forward to a Public Hearing soon.
The landmarking of St. George’s Melkite Catholic Church on lower Washington Street is indeed great news. Some years back I went to the neighborhood searching for remnants of the once-teeming Syrian Quarter. All I found were this magnificent church, with its colorful terra cotta, and an old tenement two doors up the street. It’s great to know that at least a vestige of this great New York neighborhood has been acknowledged and preserved.
The landmarking of St. George’s Melkite Catholic Church on lower Washington Street is indeed great news. Some years back I went to the neighborhood searching for remnants of the once-teeming Syrian Quarter. All I found were this magnificent church, with its colorful terra cotta, and an old tenement two doors up the street. It’s great to know that at least a vestige of this great New York neighborhood has been acknowledged and preserved.