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CERTIFICATE OF APPROPRIATENESS TESTIMONY LPC-24-08573 CERTIFICATE OF APPROPRIATENESS A Utilitarian style factory building built in 1885. Application is to establish a master plan governing the future installation of windows. HDC feels this window master plan does not provide enough information for us to judge its appropriateness. Action: approved. |
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LPC-24-08616 CERTIFICATE OF APPROPRIATENESS A Renaissance Revival style rowhouse designed by Axel S. Hedman and built c. 1910. Application is to reconstruct the stoop and balustrade. Architect: Hanson Architecture HDC asks that the applicants please reconstruct the stoop and balustrade in kind, rather than replacing stone with stucco. Action: approved. |
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LPC-25-01542 CERTIFICATE OF APPROPRIATENESS A neo-Federal style rowhouse designed by Slee & Bryson and built in 1916-17. Application is to legalize the construction of a retaining wall without Landmarks Preservation Commission permit(s). HDC feels that a retaining wall could be appropriate here, but we believe brick would be more appropriate than cast stone. Action: denied. |
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LPC-24-11663 CERTIFICATE OF APPROPRIATENESS A Colonial Revival style house designed by Harold Paddon and built in 1925. Application is to legalize construction of an addition and site work in non-compliance with Certificate of Appropriateness 19-18783. While this unapproved work might be appropriate, HDC is concerned that the application does not sufficiently show the approved plans in order for us to evaluate the difference. We do not understand how LPC staff has enough documentation to be able to review this item and bring it to a public hearing. We note with concern the increase of legalization applications in the Douglaston Historic District and what we feel are incomplete applications being brought to a hearing with the details left to the staff to work out afterward. This is not how the public process should work. Action: approved with modifications. |
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LPC-25-02527 CERTIFICATE OF APPROPRIATENESS An Italianate style rowhouse with Greek Revival style details built in 1851. Application is to modify the rear façade. HDC agrees with the applicant that the rear wall of this building needs to be reconstructed, but we find the proposed pattern of fenestration to be inconsistent with the district, and therefore inappropriate. Action: approved. |
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LPC-25-01988 ADVISORY REPORT A picturesque public park designed in 1873, with design revisions made in 1887, by Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux, with architectural site features designed by Jacob Wrey Mould, Julius Munckwitz, Calvert Vaux, and Montgomery A. Kellogg. Application is to modify staircase cheek walls. Architect: Laura Drawbaugh RLA, NYC Parks According to the Commission’s designation report, Samuel B. Parsons, Jr. then Parks Superintendent, said: “The scheme of rock work in Morningside Park was a very elaborate and difficult one to work out. Probably no landscape architect who ever lived had a finer sense of the right adjustment of rocks in a park than did Mr. Vaux. His method of fitting rocks to rocks and adding to or changing the rocky topography of a territory was remarkable. … Morningside Park became the most conspicuous example of the use of rocks placed to look like nature that probably has ever been built.” The staircase at 122nd Street was once an example of this extraordinary work. Its reconstruction in the mid-20th century using small, rectangular cut stones severely degraded the character of the staircase. It makes no sense to rebuild it to look as it does now by installing a thin stone veneer on concrete. Instead, the design should include a careful recreation of original staircases, using irregular boulders and/or larger rustic blocks of stone to hide the necessary concrete retaining wall. Examples of such original treatments in the park are given in the applicant’s presentation. Replacement of handrails at the three staircases is included in the project. It appears their placement and design are being reviewed at staff level. However, we think aspects of this work are inappropriate. We think the commissioners need to review this part of the proposal. The provision of handrails at both outside edges of each of the three staircases requires that these railings be carefully designed and detailed to have the least effect on the rustic character of the stair edges and retaining walls and the landscapes beyond. The simple, square-sectioned railings shown in the proposal will have the opposite effect because of their sharp contrast with the soft, rounded, irregular nature of the stonework and plantings. The railings need not be elaborate, but they must be stylistically compatible. As much consideration needs to be given to the design of handrails as the original designers gave to all the details in their parks. Every feature must work to support the character of the historic landscape in which it sits, whether rustic, picturesque, or formal. The handrails on these three staircases must be harmonious in design and detail with the rustic stairs and the picturesque landscapes beyond. Action: positive report. |
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