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This week the Streetscapes lens is trained on the high-rise co-op at 66 Court Street, which is usually referred to nowadays as 75 Livingston. The building, which was finished in the late ’20s, used to be called the Court-Livingston, and it was the first—and, as it turned out, only—big project architect Abraham J. Simberg undertook: “The Court Street building was a big project for a beginning architect, but Mr. Simberg developed a blocky, faceted neo-Gothic tower that is perfectly credible against the rest of the skyline. The owners began missing tax and mortgage payments in early 1929, however, and by 1932 the building had gone into receivership, according to a 1939 article in The New York Times. And Mr. Simberg? It is unfortunate that just after his big break the stock market crashed. Through the 1930s, he did a series of modest alterations, like many major architects.”
Portrait of a Building as a Young High-Rise [NY Times] GMAP


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