LPC Calendars Two Brooklyn Buildings
Two Brooklyn buildings are set for a public hearing at Landmarks on March 22nd. The first is 2307 Beverly Road, the Sears Roebuck building in Ditmas Park Flatbush. According to this Forgotten NY article, the “huge Art Moderne monolith” was built in 1932 and was the first Sears retailer in NYC. Back in 2007, FNY…
Two Brooklyn buildings are set for a public hearing at Landmarks on March 22nd. The first is 2307 Beverly Road, the Sears Roebuck building in Ditmas Park Flatbush. According to this Forgotten NY article, the “huge Art Moderne monolith” was built in 1932 and was the first Sears retailer in NYC. Back in 2007, FNY wrote, “Sadly, it appears that Sears is only doing the bare minimum amount of maintenance to the store. I’m guessing that its days are numbered.” Hopefully not anymore! The other is the Public National Bank of New York Building at 47 Graham Avenue. According to the LPC, it was built in 1921-23 and designed by Eugene Schoen. “Designed in the form of a one-story temple, and clad in terra cotta or cast stone (now painted), it features rusticated columns and corner piers on both principal facades that frame rectangular and round-arched fenestration. Panels and entrance surrounds display a combination of classical and Secessionist ornament.”
Photos by Forgotten NY and Emilio Guerra
“I would call 2.2% more than a “drop in the bucket,” especially since those those 20,000 buildings are disproportionally in neighborhoods that are closer to the city center and subway lines.”
Scott;
Indeed. The article notes that 15% of the area of Manhattan south of 96th Street is now landmarked.
I would call 2.2% more than a “drop in the bucket,” especially since those those 20,000 buildings are disproportionally in neighborhoods that are closer to the city center and subway lines.
The more NYC lives in the past, the less relevant it becomes when compared to places like Houston, Dallas, and Atlanta.
Would that someone were responsible for the external aesthetics of all the new crap that’s going up all over the city these days. There are roughly (based on 2006 NYC Tax records) roughly 900,000 buildings. 20,000 is a drop in the bucket.
The Harvard economist Edward Glaeser has a great article in this month’s Atlantic magazine about urban planning:
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2011/03/how-skyscrapers-can-save-the-city/8387/1/
In this article, he notes that the LPC now has jurisdiction over 20,000 buildings. That’s right, we have given this bureauacracy jurisdiction over all external aesthtics for 20,000 structures.
Does anyone believe that this is a practical and sustainable situation?
That Sears is one of the very few buildings in Brooklyn that I feel actually warrants the label of landmark in its common usage, as being large/prominent/distinctive enough that it is a point of reference and orientation that contributes to an area’s sense of place.
I LOVE that store. Anyone know who might have a historic photo of it?
I’m glad they will landmark the Sears store. It really is one of a kind and a rare Deco building in a land of Victorian buildings. I don’t know my neighborhood boundaries that well over there, but I’d just call it Flatbush, nothing wrong with that.
The other building looks great, too.
Before most people arrived at Montero’s on Friday, there was a discussion with the bar owner about Landmarks. The area around Montero’s is landmarked and the LPC would not let the bank on the corner put in an ATM on the building. This is fairly ridiculous.
That’s most assuredly not Ditmas Park. It’s on Bedford Avenue for chrissake.