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Ten to save: Endangered NYC

By Rolando Pujol | amNewYork Managing Editor

December 18, 2006

The soaring real estate market has placed significant parts of New York's urban heritage at risk. Many of those threatened buildings define neighborhoods -- churches, old corner drug stores and pubs, prominent corner buildings simply sitting on all-too-valuable land, crumbling 19th-century masterpieces just waiting for a rescue plan.

Preservationists are astonished by the breadth of the losses, and troubled by the fate of other worthy buildings. "The thing about New York is that you can still see the layers , and the layers of history are important. You can't wipe them out just because it's another prime development time," said Peg Breen, president of the New York Landmarks Conservancy, which recently assembled its own online compendium of endangered buildings throughout the city.

What follows is a list of institutions many preservationists have identified as significant -- some are derelict, and others are still in use but have been denied landmark protection. It's possible that many of these will never meet the wrecking ball.

Indeed, some have enthusiastic supporters who care deeply for them. But what so often imperils a building isn't a demolition crew, but lack of money and the ravages of time while a solution is sought. This overview is a mere sampling of the preservationist dramas playing out on countless city blocks.

1.) Houses of worship: The city's august houses of worship are suddenly a vanishing breed. Undermined by a range of factors, the churches are now seen as ripe for the picking by developers. The battles to save St. Brigid's in the East Village and St. Thomas the Apostle in Harlem have garnered headlines, but numerous other churches across the city are quietly facing similar struggles, such as the striking First Baptist Church in the City of New York on the Upper West Side. "Aside from losing beautiful buildings and an important part of our history, it's going to change the face of neighborhoods," Breen said. [St. Thomas: Address: 260 W. 118th St. Built: 1907; St. Brigid's: Address: Avenue B and East 8th Street, Built: Late 1840s; First Baptist Church of the City of New York Address: West 79th Street and Broadway, Built: 1894]

2.) Two former Jamaica Savings Bank locations in Queens: One is an architectural treasure of Jamaica, a beaux arts building forlornly awaiting a second act in a now flourishing neighborhood. The other is a modernist building of the late 1960s on Queens Boulevard in Elmhurst, seemingly poised to take flight in the tradition of TWA Terminal at Kennedy Airport. Both share more than a name: Their landmark designations were denied (twice in the case of the older building), responding to concerns voiced by the owners. [Jamaica building: Address: 161-02 Jamaica Ave. Built: 1898; Elmhurst building (now a branch of North Fork): 89-01 Queens Boulevard, Completed: 1968 ]

3.) Public schools: Just as old banks and houses of worship are vulnerable, so too are schools that were built as inspirations to the immigrant children who were educated in them decades ago. One in particular, P.S. 31 in the Bronx, has long drawn the attention of the Landmarks Conservancy. Community hopes to reuse the building were dashed after a city funding cut. The building was designed by the noted school architect C.B.J. Snyder. "He built beautiful school buildings full of light and air and beauty to show the burgeoning immigrant children coming in that education was important and they were important." [Address: 425 Grand Concourse Completed: 1897]

4.) Mount Morris Bank building: It is a mere shell now, its floors collapsed and its roofline dotted with small trees. But its surviving facade denotes its lost grandeur, and the potential it still holds. Sitting beside the Metro-North tracks at 125th Street and Park Avenue, it is an unworthy gateway in its present condition to resurgent Harlem, Breen says. Plans have long been afoot to revive this Harlem gem. [Completed: 1883]

5.) The 104th Street Automat building: Horn and Hardart Automats were once an inescapable part of city's dining landscape, a precursor to today's fast-food chains. But unlike those chain restaurants, some of the Automats were housed in grand buildings, including the branch at 104th Street and Broadway. Landmarks West!, which tried unsuccessfully to save the nonlandmarked facade of 2 Columbus Circle, is championing an effort to give this compact, Art Deco classic landmark protection. Its owner argues designation would be an economic burden. [Address: 2710-2714 Broadway, Completed: 1930]

6.) 1964-65 World's Fair complex: These long-neglected icons of the World's Fair -- formerly called the New York State Pavilion -- stand in Flushing Meadows Corona Park. It's impossible to think of Queens -- or a drive on the LIE -- without them. Its World Fair cousin, the Unisphere, gleams as the postcard centerpiece of the park, but the complex itself, designed by Philip Johnson and Richard Foster, has become a forlorn relic of 1960s optimism, awaiting a new use as New Yorkers worry about its continued decline.

7.) The Graving Dock, Red Hook: It's one the last docks of its kind in the city, and until recently a working tie to Brooklyn's rapidly vanishing waterfront heritage. The dock is slated to become a parking lot for a new IKEA, but the Municipal Art Society is suing to save it and has offered the company alternative plans. The disappearance of the dry dock is but a symptom of broader threats on the waterfront. "There should be a mix of old and new, it shouldn't be just a grand row of towers wiping out old buildings," Breen said. [ Completed: Civil War-era, Address: 1 Beard St.]

8.) Treasures of Roosevelt Island: The Landmarks Conservancy identified two buildings on the island, once a bastion for hospitals until it was residentially developed in the 1970s. On Main Street stands the Blackwell House, a farmhouse dating to 1796, and at the southern tip of the island rest the haunting ruins of a smallpox hospital designed by James Renwick, the architect of St. Patrick's Cathedral. After a period of decline, more than $1 million in work is now under way to restore the Blackwell House, the Roosevelt Island Historical Society said Monday. There are also plans being developed to stabilize the hospital ruins and convert the area into a vibrant park, part of a $12 million effort, the society said. [Farmhouse, Address: 500 Main St., Completed: 1796; Smallpox Hospital, Built, 1854-1856]

9.) Superior Inks Factory: This building, with its grand smokestack, was the last factory left on the Greenwich Village waterfront. But a concerted effort to save it failed. As the factory disappears into history, residents take comfort in knowing that their efforts, led by the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation, will mean the factory's condo replacement will be smaller than had been proposed. Its loss is emblematic of the relentless development pressures in the West Village and other waterfront areas. [Address: 70 Bethune St., Completed: 1919]

10.) Neon New York: A joke about the Pan Am (now Met-Life) Building went something like, "Can't they tear down the building but keep the sign?" A variant on that sentiment lingers when small shops and restaurants go out business, victims of development and high rent: "If we're going to lose the building, can't we somehow keep the sign?" The past year-and-half alone saw the loss of Howard Johnson's iconic orange-and-turquoise neon sign in Times Square and the irreplaceable McHale's neon a few blocks away. Among the dwindling number of survivors is the neon of the P&G Bar on the Upper West Side (73rd Street and Amsterdam Avenue), which may fade once the cafe's lease is up. Neon signs, along with hand-painted letters and plastic signs of decades past, are important urban survivors. "They're not landmarked, but they're part of the city's ghosts," Breen said.

11.) Your turn: Tell us what city buildings or places you are concerned about. Feel free to include photos or links to other Web sites. We'll publish the most interesting entries here and in the paper.