On August 2, 1962 a protest took place that reverberated throughout New York City, and ignited the preservation movement throughout the city and country. The Action Group for Better Architecture (AGBANY) was formed in an effort to save McKim, Mead & White’s Pennsylvania Station from demolition. The organization’s birth is often pegged to this protest, […]
Village Preservation is always working hard to document, celebrate, and protect the historic character of our neighborhoods, including the great buildings that make Greenwich Village, NoHo and East Village such wonderful places to live, work and shop. Of course, we’re not always able to save every historic building from demolition, and some disappeared long before […]
Today is a rare day on Off the Grid as we are able to combine two of our ongoing series: Many Layers of History and Beyond the Village and Back. Unlike some of our other ‘Many Layers of History’ dates, August 31st or 8/31 does not correspond with any Village intersection. But it does correspond with […]
This is a re-posting of a piece originally written in 2011. Architect Phillip Johnson and others protesting the demolition of Pennsylvania Station We speak often of historic districts, individual landmarks and national and state register sites but, what do those terms really mean? This post will review how the designation of landmarks came to be, […]
Last night, GVSHP and our co-sponsor, New York Preservation Archive Project, hosted a panel discussion on the subject of the preservation movement following the demolition of the old Penn Station. The original Penn Station, built by the renowned architecture firm of McKim, Mead, and White in 1910, stood for over fifty years as a masterpiece […]
New Yorkers have elected a new mayor, but it’s important to note that any mayor of any city does not operate in a vacuum. A mayor selects many individuals to lead individual parts of city government. On Monday, Karen wrote about the position of Chair of the Landmarks Preservation Commission, a key post in the […]
Common lore has it that the demolition of Penn Station fifty years ago was the impetus behind the modern preservation movement in New York, but in fact, preservation efforts in Greenwich Village and elsewhere had begun long before. This coming Tuesday, April 30, GVSHP will present a conversation with scholars Franny Eberhart, Jon Ritter, and […]
On August 2, 1962, a group of concerned citizens protested in front of Pennsylvania Station, the McKim, Mead, and White Beaux Art structure in pink granite that spanned two full city blocks. The impending demolition of this historic structure was opposed by leading architects, artists, and critics, including Philip Johnson, Aline Saarinen, and Villagers Eleanor […]
Though nineteenth and early twentieth century townhouses and tenements seem to dominate the East and West Villages, the neighborhoods do house their share of Modern architecture. Mid-century creations like Silver Towers, the O’Toole Building, and the Burger-Klein building, among others, brashly distinguish themselves from the surrounding neighborhood via their materials, scale, and unique design. Some […]
We speak often of historic districts, individual landmarks and national and state register sites but, what do those terms really mean? This post will review how the designation of landmarks came to be, what a landmark is and the differences between state and local landmarks.
