Жаңа Йорк қаласының ескерткіштерді сақтау комиссиясы

Agency charged with administering New York City's Landmarks Preservation Law

The New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) is the New York City agency charged with administering the city's Landmarks Preservation Law. The LPC is responsible for protecting New York City's architecturally, historically, and culturally significant buildings and sites by granting them landmark or historic district status, and regulating them after designation. It is the largest municipal preservation agency in the nation. The LPC is responsible for overseeing a range of designated landmarks in all five boroughs ranging from the Fonthill Castle in the North Bronx, built in 1852 for the actor Edwin Forrest, to the 1670s Conference House in Staten Island, where Benjamin Franklin and John Adams attended a conference aimed at ending the Revolutionary War. The LPC helps preserve the city's landmark properties by regulating changes to their significant features. The role of the LPC has evolved over time, especially with the changing real estate market in New York City. Potential landmarks are first nominated to the LPC from citizens, property owners, city government staff, or commissioners or other staff of the LPC. Subsequently, the LPC conducts a survey of properties, visiting sites to determine which structures or properties should be researched further. The selected properties will then be discussed at public hearings where support or opposition to a proposed landmark designation are recorded. According to the Landmarks Preservation Law, a building must be at least thirty years old before the LPC can declare it a landmark. Approval of a landmark designation requires six commissioners to vote in favor. Approved designations are then sent to the New York City Council, which receives reports from other city agencies including the New York City Planning Commission, and decides whether to confirm, modify, or veto the designation. Before 1990, the New York City Board of Estimate held veto power, rather than the City Council. The New York Landmarks Preservation Foundation is a not for profit organization, established in 1980 to support the Commission. They sponsor plaques, historic district signs, and street signs.

The Landmarks Preservation Commission consists of 11 commissioners, who are unpaid and serve three year terms on a part time basis. By law, the commissioners must include a minimum of six professionals: three architects, a historian, a city planner or landscape architect, and a realtor. In addition, the commissioners must include at least one resident from each of New York City's five boroughs (who may also be a professional). All of the commissioners are unpaid, except for the chairman. The research department performs research of structures and sites that have been deemed potential landmarks. The preservation department reviews and approves permit applications to structures and sites that have been deemed landmarks. The enforcement department reviews reports of alleged violations of the Landmarks Law, which includes alterations to a landmark. Archaeologists work for the center reviewing the impact of proposed subsurface projects, as well as overseeing any archaeological discoveries. The environmental review department uses data from the research and archaeology departments to collect reports for governmental agencies that require environmental review for their projects. Finally, the Historic Preservation Grant Program distributes grants to owners of landmark properties designated by the LPC or on the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP).

as of 2022, there are more than 37,800 landmark properties in New York City, most of which are located in 150 historic districts in all five boroughs. The total number of protected sites includes 1,435 individual landmarks, 121 interior landmarks, and 11 scenic landmarks. Some of these are also National Historic Landmark (NHL) sites, and many are on the NRHP. as of 2007, the vast majority of interior landmarks are also exterior landmarks or are part of a historic district. Individual landmark: The exteriors of objects or structures; the interior is not included unless designated separately. Individual landmarks must be at least 30 years old and contain "a special character or special historical or aesthetic interest or value as part of the development, heritage, or cultural characteristics of the City, state, or nation". Interior landmark: The interiors of structures, which fit the individual landmark criteria and are "customarily open or accessible to the public". Before the LPC's creation, buildings and structures were preserved mainly through advocacy, either from individuals or from groups. Other structures such as the Van Cortlandt House, Morris–Jumel Mansion, Edgar Allan Poe Cottage, and Dyckman House were preserved as historic house museums during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Advocates also led efforts to preserve cultural sites such as Carnegie Hall, which in the late 1950s was slated for replacement with an office tower. However, early preservation movements often focused on preserving Colonial style houses, while paying relatively little attention to other architectural styles or building types. There was generally little support for the preservation movement until World War II. Others, such as St. John's Chapel, were destroyed in spite of support for preservation. By the 1950s, there was growing support for preservation of architecturally significant structures. For example, a 1954 study found approximately two hundred structures that could potentially be preserved. At the same time, older structures, especially those constructed before World War I, were being perceived as an impediment to development. The demolition of Pennsylvania Station between 1963 and 1966, in spite of widespread outcry, is cited as a catalyst for the architectural preservation movement in the United States, particularly in New York City.

The Mayor's Committee for the Preservation of Structures of Historic and Esthetic Importance was formed in mid 1961 by mayor Robert F. Wagner Jr. This committee had dissolved by early 1962. Wagner formed the Landmarks Preservation Commission on April 21, 1962, with twelve unsalaried members. Soon afterward, the LPC began designating buildings as landmarks. The early version of the LPC initially held little power over enforcement, and failed to avert Pennsylvania Station's demolition. As a result, in April 1964, LPC member Geoffrey Platt drafted a New York City Landmarks Law. Outcry over the proposed destruction of the Brokaw Mansion on Manhattan's Upper East Side, identified by the LPC as a possible landmark, inspired Wagner to send the legislation to the New York City Council in mid 1964. The law, introduced in the City Council that October, would significantly increase the LPC's powers. The City Council cited concerns that "the City has been and is undergoing the loss and destruction of its architectural heritage at an alarming rate, especially so in the last 8 10 years". Several changes to the Landmarks Law were made by the City Council committee that was reviewing the legislation; for example, the committee removed a clause mandating a 121.92 m protective zone around proposed landmarks. The bill passed the City Council on April 7, 1965, and was signed into law by Wagner on April 20. The first eleven commissioners to take office under the Landmarks Law were sworn in during June 1965. Platt was the first chairman, serving until 1968. The LPC's first public hearing occurred in September 1965, and the first twenty landmarks were designated the next month. The Wyckoff House in Brooklyn was the first landmark numerically, and was designated simultaneously with structures such as the Astor Library, the Brooklyn Navy Yard's Commandant's House, the Bowling Green U. S. Custom House, and six buildings at Sailors' Snug Harbor.

The LPC was headquartered in the Mutual Reserve Building from 1967 to 1980, and in the Old New York Evening Post Building from 1980 to 1987. The original legislation enabled the LPC to designate landmarks for eighteen months after the law became effective, followed by alternating cycles of three year hiatuses and six month "designating periods". In 1973, mayor John Lindsay signed legislation that allowed the LPC to consider landmarks on a rolling basis. The bill also introduced new scenic and interior landmark designations. The first scenic landmark was Bryant Park, while the first interior landmark was part of the neighboring New York Public Library Main Branch; both were designated in November 1974. In its first twenty five years, the LPC designated 856 individual landmarks, 79 interior landmarks, and 9 scenic landmarks, while declaring 52 neighborhoods with more than 15,000 buildings as historic districts. a decision was made to change the process by which buildings are declared to be landmarks due to some perceived issues with the manner by which the LPC operates In 1978, the United States Supreme Court upheld the law in Penn Central Transportation Co., et al. v. New York City, et al., stopping the Penn Central Railroad from altering the structure and placing a large office tower above it. This success is often cited as significant due to the LPC's origins following the destruction of Pennsylvania Station, referred to by some as architectural vandalism. In 1989, the LPC designated the Ladies' Mile Historic District. The next year marked the first time in the LPC's history that a proposed landmark, the Guggenheim Museum (one of the youngest declared landmarks), received a unanimous vote by the LPC members. The vast majority of the LPC's actions are not unanimously supported by the LPC members or the community; a number of cases including St. Bartholomew's Episcopal Church, Bryant Park, and Broadway theatres have been challenged. One of the most controversial properties was 2 Columbus Circle, which remained at the center of a discussion over its future for a number of years. Cultural landmarks, such as Greenwich Village's Stonewall Inn, are recognized as well not for their architecture, but rather for their location in a designated historic district. In a heatedly discussed decision on August 3, 2010, the LPC unanimously declined to grant landmark status to a building on Park Place in Manhattan, and thus did not block the construction of Cordoba House.

A major dispute arose over the preservation of theaters in the Theater District during the 1980s. The LPC considered protecting close to 50 legitimate theaters as individual city landmarks in 1982, following the destruction of the Helen Hayes and Morosco theaters. An advisory panel under mayor Koch voted to allow the LPC consider theaters not only on their historical significance but also on their architectural merits. In response to objections from some of the major theatrical operators, several dozen scenic and lighting designers offered to work on the LPC for creating guidelines for potential landmarks. Theaters were landmarked in alphabetical order; the first theaters to be designated under the 1982 plan were the Neil Simon, Ambassador, and Virginia (now August Wilson) in August 1985. The landmark plan was then deferred temporarily until some landmark guidelines were enacted; the guidelines, implemented in December 1985, allowed operators to modify theaters for productions without having to consult the LPC. Landmark designations of theaters increased significantly in 1987, starting with the Palace in mid 1987. Ultimately, 28 additional theaters were designated as landmarks, of which 27 were Broadway theaters. The New York City Board of Estimate ratified these designations in March 1988. Of these, both the interior and exterior of 19 theaters were protected, while only the interiors of seven theaters (including the Lyceum, whose exterior was already protected) and the exteriors of two theaters were approved. The Shubert Organization, the Nederlander Organization, and Jujamcyn Theaters collectively sued the LPC in June 1988 to overturn the landmark designations of 22 theaters on the merit that the designations severely limited the extent to which the theaters could be modified. The New York Supreme Court upheld the LPC's designations of these theaters the next year. The three theatrical operators challenged the ruling with the U. S. Supreme Court, which refused to hear the lawsuit in 1992, thus upholding the designations.

An LPC designated historic district for the South Street Seaport has been active since 1977 and was extended on July 11, 1989. After the Fulton Fish Market relocated to the Bronx in 2005, community members, with leadership from organizer Robert Lavalva, developed the "New Amsterdam Market", a regular gathering with vendors selling regional and "sustainable" foodstuffs outside the old Fish Market buildings. The group's chartered organization planned eventually to attempt to reconstitute the "New Market Building", a 1939 structure with an Art Deco façade and that was owned by the city, into a permanent food market. However, a real estate company, the Howard Hughes Corporation, possessed a lease for large parts of the Seaport area and desired to redevelop it, generating fears among locals that the New Market Building would be altered or destroyed. A group of community activists formed the "Save Our Seaport Coalition" to advocate that the New Market Building be incorporated into the historic district set by the Landmarks Preservation Commission, in addition to calling for the protection of public space in the neighborhood and for support for the seaport's museum. This group included the Historic Districts Council, the "Save Our Seaport" community group, the New Amsterdam Market, and the Metropolitan Waterfront Alliance. The "Save Our Seaport" group specifically argued that New Market Building was culturally important for its maintenance of the historic fish market for 66 years, and that it offers a "fine example of WPA Moderne municipal architecture (an increasingly rare form throughout the nation)." They had encouraged others to write letters to the LPC to support formal designation or district protection.