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.”