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Albany,
NY – March 2021 / Newsmaker Alert / The New
York State Board for Historic Preservation has recommended adding 20
varied properties to the State and National Registers of Historic Places,
including the Manhattan apartment of a prominent African American LGBTQ
playwright, an exotically designed former New York City movie palace, and
a former New York City feminist headquarters created when women had few
places to meet outside the presence of men.
“The
nominations reflect the state’s commitment to supporting the incredible
and sometimes overlooked history forged by the diverse people of New York,”
said Erik Kulleseid,
Commissioner of the Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation.
“Securing recognition for such places will help to protect and preserve
this history so that it can be carried safe and intact into the future.”
State
and National Registers listing can assist owners in revitalizing properties,
making them eligible for various public preservation programs and services,
such as matching state grants and state and federal historic rehabilitation
tax credits.
“These
latest nominations continue the Division for Historic Preservation’s (DHP)
commitment to designating and supporting historic sites that represent
the histories of our State’s diverse population,” said Daniel
Mackay, Deputy Commissioner for Historic Preservation at State Parks.
Two
new listings in New York City were supported by Underrepresented Community
Grants from the National Park Service meant to increase listings associated
with people and communities that are inadequately represented in the state
and national registers.
In
recent years, the DHP has received four such federal grants to support
the NYC LGBTQ Historic Sites Project in New York City. There are now 11
LGBTQ register listings in New York City and Long Island, eight of which
were supported under this grant program. This has resulted in New York
leading the nation in listing of sites associated with LGBTQ history on
the State and National Register.
Since
Governor Cuomo took office in 2011, the state has approved use of rehabilitation
commercial tax credit for more than 1,000 historic properties, driving
more than $12 billion in private investment. More information is available
here.
The
State and National Registers are the official lists of buildings, structures,
districts, landscapes, objects, and sites significant in the history, architecture,
archaeology and culture of New York State and the nation. There are more
than 120,000 historic properties throughout the state listed on the National
Register of Historic Places, individually or as components of historic
districts. Property owners, municipalities, and organizations from communities
throughout the state sponsored the nominations.
Once
recommendations are approved by the Commissioner, who serves as the State
Historic Preservation Officer, the properties are listed on the New York
State Register of Historic Places and then nominated to the National Register
of Historic Places, where they are reviewed and, once approved, entered
on the National Register.
More
information, with photos of the nominations, is available on the Office
of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation website.
Capital
District
New
Lebanon District No. 8 School, Columbia County – Built in 1870, this
brick building in this rural hamlet served as a school and later as a Grange
Hall for the area farming community. The building is now used as a restaurant/brewery
and an apartment.
Church
Hill Historic District, Saratoga County – Located in the hamlet of
Crescent, the district reflects the heyday of the Erie Canal and includes
13 primarily residential structures dating from the 19th century. Sited
on the north side of the Mohawk River, the district includes a remaining
section of the Halfmoon Aqueduct, which once carried the Erie Canal across
the Mohawk. During this period, the hamlet was a canal shipping point for
ice, grain, hay, and molders’ sand produced in southern Saratoga County.
Fitzgerald
Building, Schenectady County – Built in 1913 as a business school,
the three-story brick building illustrates the American Commercial style
and was constructed with metal “cage construction,” used in skyscraper
technology. It was once home to Fitzgerald Business College, which trained
office workers for nearby General Electric and other firms, and then to
Ter Bush and Powell, a national insurance pioneer, which remained there
until 1981. In 2018, it was rehabilitated into apartments and commercial
space with the support of federal historic preservation tax credits.
Park
Mart, Albany County – Located in the Albany’s downtown, this concrete
parking garage and grocery store, completed in 1973, represents an early
use of post-tensioned concrete, a construction method where steel cables,
or “tendons,” are threaded through concrete as it is cast and then stressed
with jacks. Promoted by former longtime Albany Mayor Erastus Corning 2nd
as part of efforts to revitalize the city’s core, the parking and grocery
store structure was associated with Albany’s urban renewal programs. It
is also an important example of the work of local architect Robert Louis
Trudeau.
Central
New York
Mottville
Cemetery, Onondaga County – Located outside the village of Skaneateles,
this cemetery dates to 1819 and contains graves from the earliest citizens
of the area, including veterans of the Revolutionary War. It is marked
by funerary monuments ranging from early 19th to early 20th century styles.
Finger
Lakes
Walker-Warren
House, Monroe County – Built in 1897, this late 19th century Queen
Anne-style residence is in the village of West Henrietta outside the city
of Rochester. It served as the home of a prominent local doctor who installed
the first telephone line in the village. It was later the residence of
a prominent lawyer and remains a residence.
Mid-Hudson
Solomon
Resnick House, Westchester County – Built in 1953 as a passive solar
house, this Modern-style, single-story residence is made of steel, glass,
and concrete. It represented a marked deviation in traditional styles popular
in the area after World War II. Landscape design reflected a Japanese-influenced,
evergreen plant palette - bamboo, fern, and moss – to harmonize with the
area’s natural Fordham gneiss rock.
Larchmont
Avenue Church, Westchester County – The Neo-Gothic church was constructed
largely in 1930 by a Presbyterian congregation to reflect the growing population
of the area stemming from development of commuter rail lines to nearby
metropolitan New York City. Still in use, the church has a notable collection
of stained-glass windows designed by D’Ascenzo Studios of Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania.
New
York City
240
Broadway, Brooklyn – Located in the Williamsburg neighborhood, this
five-story, former mixed-used factory building constructed in the Italianate
style in 1892 is unusual due to its rare and distinctive cast-iron design.
Built for a wealthy German-American furrier, the building is one of only
20 cast-iron buildings that survive in Brooklyn.
Williamsburg
Houses, Brooklyn – Williamsburg Houses are 20 four-story apartment
buildings covering more than 20 acres and constructed during the Great
Depression by the New York City Housing Authority in partnership with the
federal Public Works Administration as part of President Franklin Delano
Roosevelt’s New Deal. The project was one of the earliest public housing
projects funded by the federal government and was designed by prominent
architects Richmond H. Shreve and William Lescaze. The buildings maintained
the scale of the neighborhood and provided tenants with fundamental human
amenities such as access to ample light and air. The buildings themselves
exemplify the Modern design aesthetic, characterized by their abstracted
geometric form, rows of ribbon windows, and lack of applied ornament.
Loew’s
Kameo Theater, Brooklyn – Located in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn,
the four-story building is an intact example of a 1920s neighborhood movie
palace in New York City. The exterior of the building features an ornate,
eclectic mix of classical, Mesopotamian, and Egyptian designs, while the
1,400-seat interior was done in the neoclassical Adamesque style. The theater
remained open until 1965 and was converted into a church in 1974 by the
Philadelphia Church of Universal Brotherhood, an African American Seventh-day
Adventist congregation.
Lorraine
Hansberry Residence, Manhattan – An apartment in a three-story building
at 337 Bleecker Street is nationally significant as the residence of Lorraine
Hansberry, an influential African American lesbian playwright, writer,
and activist, from 1953 to 1960. She lived there while writing the acclaimed
play A Raisin in the Sun, which is considered a milestone in African American
theater. This listing was supported by an Underrepresented Community Grant
from the National Park Service.
Women’s
Liberation Center, Manhattan – This former 19th century firehouse on
West 20th Street in the Chelsea neighborhood served as the first permanent
advocacy space for women’s and lesbian’s organizations in New York City
– as well as one of the first in the nation - when the Women’s Liberation
Center opened there in 1972. The center played a pivotal and sustaining
role in the women’s rights movement and had an early and profound importance
in the struggle for lesbian civil rights. The center closed in 1987, and
the building is now used for non-traditional job training for women and
nonbinary individuals. This listing was supported by an Underrepresented
Community Grant from the National Park Service.
North
Country
Westport
Historic District, Essex County – Located on the western shore of Lake
Champlain on Northwest Bay, this small town’s architecture reflects its
history as an important shipping point for lumber starting in the 1820s
and later as a seasonal tourist destination after the arrival of the railroad
in the 1870s. The multi-block district contains more than 300 residential,
commercial, religious, and civic buildings, and nearly 30 sites, objects,
and structures.
Stone
Buildings of Jefferson County – This county, at the confluence of the
St. Lawrence River with Lake Ontario, contains more than 100 historic native
limestone and sandstone buildings from the 19th century, with the earliest
structures reflecting French settlement of the region, which was followed
by English, Dutch and German arrivals. “The Stone Houses of Jefferson County
Multiple Property Documentation Form” serves as framework for current and
future listings of this distinctive construction type.
Samuel
F. Ballard House, Jefferson County – Built in 1825 in the hamlet of
Talcott Corners, this limestone residence was the centerpiece of a 30-acre
farm. The property remained a significant farm in the region until the
1960s.
Southern
Tier
Kimble-Nellé
House, Cattaraugus County – Constructed irca 1875 in Gowanda, this
Second Empire-style brick house was the home of Polish-born dancer, set
designer, choreographer, director, and artist Anthony Z. Nellé (born
Zdislaw Antoni Nellé; 1894-1977). Nellé led a long and prolific
career staging more than 100 classical ballets, 200 ballets tableaux, 160
jazz dance numbers, 28 opera ballets, 250 operettas, and 180 dance numbers
for revues, cabarets, and films. Though classically trained in ballet,
Nellé was most known for his extravagant staging, which included
art deco, art moderne, and surrealist designs with large troupes of dancers.
Western
New York
The
Buffalo Club, Erie County – Founded in 1867, this social club was highly
influential in the development of the city of Buffalo in the aftermath
of the Civil War, and counted significant political, industrial, and civic
leaders among its members, including former U.S. Presidents Millard Fillmore
and Grover Cleveland. The club served as the unofficial seat of the federal
government after the 1901 assassination of President William McKinley at
the Pan-American Exposition in the city, when Vice President Theodore Roosevelt
and the Cabinet used club offices to conduct affairs of state.
Harrison
Radiator Corporation Company, Niagara County – Established in the city
of Lockport in 1910, this business by the 1930s was the world’s largest
manufacturer of automobile radiator and heat transfer equipment. During
World War II, the plant developed and manufactured engine turbochargers
that enabled high-altitude aerial bombing. During the early years of the
space program, the company created heat exchangers for astronaut spacesuits
used for manned space flights. The factory operated until 1995 and is now
used for various commercial and office purposes.
John
Kam Company Malt House and Kiln House, Erie County – Built in 1901,
the brick buildings are rare examples of the cutting-edge pneumatic malting
and kiln processes for the brewing of German-style beer. The company was
one of the largest malt producers in the U.S.in the 19th and early 20th
centuries and is significant in Buffalo’s long beer brewing history associated
with immigrants from Germany and central Europe.
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New
York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation oversees
more than 250 individual parks, historic sites, recreational trails and
boat launches, which were visited by a record 77 million people in 2019.
A recent university study found that spending by State Parks and its visitors
supports $5 billion in output and sales, 54,000 private-sector jobs and
more than $2.8 billion in additional state GDP. For more information on
any of these recreation areas, call 518-474-0456 or visit NYS
Parks website, connect with us on Facebook,
or follow on Instagram
and Twitter. The free New
York State Parks Explorer mobile app is available for iOS and Android devices.
To download, visit: Google
Play Store, NY State Parks Explorer App or Apple
Store, NY State Parks Explorer App.
Source
Document
Media:
Albany:
518-474-8418
New
York City: 212-681-4640
Press.Office@exec.ny.gov |