West Park is Calendered By LPC!

From the New York Times, City Room Blog

West Side Church on Road to Landmark Status

West Park Presbyterian ChurchLandmarks Preservation Commission
The West Park Presbyterian Church, at West 86th Street and Amsterdam Avenue, was completed in 1889.

The West Park Presbyterian Church on the Upper West Side, a Romanesque Revival edifice of red sandstone familiar to anyone who has ventured into the neighboring Barney Greengrass for bagel and lox, took a major step Tuesday toward becoming a New York City landmark.

The Landmarks Preservation Commission voted to schedule a public hearing for the church and for three other sites: the Fort Washington Presbyterian Church in Washington Heights; the Ridgewood Theater in Queens; and the former headquarters of the Brooklyn Union Gas Company in Brooklyn Heights. The body also agreed to hold a hearing on a proposal to create an Audubon Park Historic District in Washington Heights.

Because the commission is usually reluctant to schedule such hearings unless there is broad support for a landmark designation, most structures for which is a hearing is scheduled end up being designated landmarks.

The church complex, at 165 West 86th Street and Amsterdam Avenue, began as a chapel designed by Leopold Eidlitz in 1883. The congregation, which quickly outgrew the chapel, hired Henry F. Kilburn to design the main sanctuary, which includes a soaring tower that anchors the northeast corner of the intersection.

The commission’s chairman, Robert B. Tierney, said the decision to hold a hearing was “natural outgrowth” of two years of discussions “with church representatives, elected officials, concerned residents and preservation advocacy groups about extending landmark protection to this remarkable building.”

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