New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission

The New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission is a special group that helps protect important buildings and places in New York City. This group makes sure that special buildings, which tell the story of the city's past, are saved for everyone to enjoy. They decide which places are important enough to be called landmarks and then help take care of them.

The group was started by Mayor Robert F. Wagner Jr. in 1961, and it became even stronger in 1965 after a famous train station was torn down. Since then, the Commission has helped save many famous places, like Grand Central Terminal. By 2020, they had protected over 37,800 special places all across the city.

The Commission is made up of eleven people who make big decisions about which buildings can be called landmarks. One rule is that a building must be at least thirty years old before it can be given this special protection. This work helps keep New York City's history alive and makes many neighborhoods more attractive and special.

Role

The goal of New York City's landmarks law is to protect important buildings, structures, and objects that make up the city's unique look. The Landmarks Preservation Commission decides which places should be protected and makes rules to keep them looking special. They protect not just important buildings, but also the overall feel of neighborhoods called historic districts.

The LPC looks at places all over the five parts of New York City, from Fonthill Castle in the North Bronx to the Conference House on Staten Island. People can suggest places they think should be protected, and then the LPC visits these sites to decide which ones to study more. After public meetings where people share their thoughts, the LPC can name a place a landmark if it is at least thirty years old and gets six votes from its commissioners. The New York City Council then reviews the decision.

The New York Landmarks Preservation Foundation, started in 1980, helps the commission by putting up plaques and signs for historic places.

Staff and departments

The Landmarks Preservation Commission has 11 commissioners who help protect important buildings in New York City. Most of these commissioners are volunteers, but one is paid as the chairman. They include architects, a historian, a city planner, a real estate expert, and people from each of the city's five boroughs.

The commission also has a team of 80 full-time workers, including administrators, lawyers, architects, historians, and researchers. They work in six departments. The research department studies buildings that might be important landmarks. The preservation department checks plans to make sure landmark buildings aren't changed too much. The enforcement department looks into reports of changes that break the rules. There is also a department for archaeology, an environmental review department, and a grant program that helps owners of historic buildings.

The commission works with students and volunteers too, who help with various tasks.

Main article: National Register of Historic Places

Types

As of May 1, 2024, New York City protects more than 37,900 special buildings and places. These are spread across 150 historic areas in all five parts of the city. The protected sites include 1,460 individual buildings, 121 inside spaces of buildings, and 12 beautiful natural places.

An individual landmark is the outside of a building or structure that is at least 30 years old and has special history or beauty. An interior landmark is the inside of a building that people can visit. A scenic landmark is a park or natural area owned by the city. Historic districts are groups of buildings that all have special history and look together as a beautiful area.

History

Context

The effort to protect important buildings in New York City began as early as 1831, when a newspaper spoke out against tearing down an old house in Lower Manhattan. Before an official group was created, people and organizations worked together to save buildings like the Andrew Carnegie Mansion, Percy R. Pyne House, and Oliver D. Filley House. Other buildings, such as the Van Cortlandt House, Morris–Jumel Mansion, Edgar Allan Poe Cottage, and Dyckman House, were saved as historic museums. Efforts also helped save places like Carnegie Hall, which was almost replaced with an office building.

Support for saving buildings grew after World War II. Some important buildings, like the City Hall Post Office and Courthouse, Madison Square Presbyterian Church, and Madison Square Garden, were torn down. Others, like St. John's Chapel, were destroyed even though people wanted to save them. By the 1950s, more people wanted to protect architecturally important buildings. The loss of Pennsylvania Station between 1963 and 1966, despite many people objecting, helped start the movement to protect buildings in the United States, especially in New York City.

Creation

In mid-1961, Mayor Robert F. Wagner Jr. created a committee to protect important structures. This committee disappeared by early 1962. On April 21, 1962, Wagner created the Landmarks Preservation Commission with twelve unpaid members. Soon after, the commission began naming buildings as landmarks. That July, Wagner ordered city agencies to tell the commission about any planned changes to public property.

At first, the commission had little power to stop buildings from being changed. This changed in April 1964 when a commission member drafted a law to protect landmarks. After concerns about losing more buildings, Wagner sent the law to the New York City Council in mid-1964. The law passed the City Council on April 7, 1965, and Wagner signed it on April 20.

The first eleven commissioners took office in June 1965. The commission’s first public meeting was in September 1965, and the first twenty landmarks were named the next month. The Wyckoff House in Brooklyn was the first landmark. The first landmark district, the Brooklyn Heights Historic District, was named in November 1965. In its first year, the commission named 37 landmarks and the Brooklyn Heights Historic District.

Changes

The commission worked from the Mutual Reserve Building from 1967 to 1980, and then from the Old New York Evening Post Building from 1980 to 1987. The original law allowed the commission to name landmarks for eighteen months after the law started, followed by periods of three years with no naming and six months of naming. In 1973, Mayor John Lindsay signed a law allowing the commission to consider landmarks regularly. The law also added new types of landmarks, such as scenic and interior landmarks. The first scenic landmark was Central Park in April 1974, and the first interior landmark was part of the New York Public Library Main Branch in November 1974.

In its first twenty-five years, the commission named 856 individual landmarks, 79 interior landmarks, and 9 scenic landmarks, and declared 52 neighborhoods with over 15,000 buildings as historic districts. By 1990, the commission was praised for helping preserve New York City’s character. This success was partly because people in the city generally accepted the commission.

Under Mayor Michael Bloomberg from 2002 to 2023, the commission named about 26 landmarks each year. Under Mayor Bill de Blasio from 2014 to 2021, this number dropped to about 16 per year. By 2016, the commission had named 1,355 individual landmarks, 117 interior landmarks, 138 historic districts, and 10 scenic landmarks. Under Mayor Eric Adams from 2022 to 2025, the commission named about 10 landmarks each year. In 2025, the commission moved to new offices at 253 Broadway in the Home Life Building, a landmark built in 1892. The hearing room’s glass block windows are from the former Longchamps restaurant.

Prominent landmarking decisions

One famous decision was to protect Grand Central Terminal with help from Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. In 1978, the United States Supreme Court stopped the Penn Central Railroad from changing the building and building a large office tower on top. This was important because it happened after the loss of Pennsylvania Station, which some called a mistake.

In 1989, the commission named the Ladies' Mile Historic District. In 1990, the Guggenheim Museum was named a landmark, and it was the first time a new landmark was named by everyone on the commission agreeing. Many of the commission’s decisions are not agreed on by everyone, such as for St. Bartholomew's Episcopal Church, Bryant Park, and Broadway theatres. One of the most talked-about buildings was 2 Columbus Circle, which was discussed for many years.

Cultural landmarks, like the Stonewall Inn in Greenwich Village, are recognized for their history, not just their architecture. In 2015, Stonewall became the first landmark named for its importance to LGBT history.

In a widely discussed decision on August 3, 2010, the commission decided not to name a building on Park Place in Manhattan as a landmark. Because of this, a new building called Cordoba House could be built there.

Theater District landmarks

In the 1980s, there was a big debate about protecting theaters in the Theater District. The commission wanted to name about 50 theaters as landmarks in 1982 after the Helen Hayes and Morosco theaters were destroyed. A group advised the mayor allowed the commission to consider theaters for both their history and their design. Some theater owners objected, so designers offered to help create guidelines for naming theaters. Theaters were named in alphabetical order, with the Neil Simon, Ambassador, and Virginia (now August Wilson) theaters named in August 1985. The plan to name more theaters was delayed until guidelines were created in December 1985. These guidelines allowed theater owners to change their theaters for shows without always asking the commission.

The number of theaters named as landmarks grew in 1987, starting with the Palace in mid-1987. In all, 28 more theaters were named landmarks, with 27 of them being Broadway theaters. The New York City Board of Estimate approved these names in March 1988. For 19 theaters, both the inside and outside were protected. For seven theaters, only the inside was protected, and for two theaters, only the outside was protected. Some theater owners said the landmark names made it harder for them, even though the mayor talked to them. Three theater companies sued the commission in June 1988 to stop the names, saying the names stopped them from changing their theaters. The New York Supreme Court supported the commission’s names the next year. The three companies took the case to the U.S. Supreme Court, which decided not to hear it in 1992. This meant the names stayed.

South Street Seaport and "New Market Building

See also: Fulton Fish Market

The commission has protected the South Street Seaport historic district since 1977, and it was made larger on July 11, 1989. After the Fulton Fish Market moved to the Bronx in 2005, community members created the "New Amsterdam Market", where vendors sell food outside the old Fish Market buildings. The group wanted to turn the New Market Building, a 1939 building with an Art Deco style, into a permanent food market. However, a real estate company, the Howard Hughes Corporation, has a lease for parts of the Seaport area and wants to redevelop it. This made locals worry the New Market Building could be changed or destroyed. The company offered a smaller food market as part of their plans, but market organizers were not satisfied, believing it was not guaranteed or big enough and would not protect the historic building.

A group of community activists created the "Save Our Seaport Coalition" to ask for the New Market Building to be included in the historic district. They also wanted to protect public space in the neighborhood and support the seaport’s museum. The 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 said the New Market Building was important because it was used as a fish market for 66 years and is a good example of WPA Moderne architecture. They asked others to write to the commission to support naming it a landmark or adding it to the district. However, in 2013, the commission decided not to hold a meeting to consider naming it a landmark or making the district larger. Community Board 1 wants to protect and reuse the New Market Building, and the Municipal Art Society said it has both architectural and cultural importance as the last place the historic fish market operated.

Little Syria and Washington Street

See also: Downtown Community House, 109 Washington Street, and St. George's Syrian Catholic Church

After the September 11 attacks in 2001, New York City tour guide Joseph Svehlak and other local historians worried that development in Downtown Manhattan would remove the last reminders of the old “low-rise” Lower West Side of Manhattan. Known as “Little Syria” in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the area between Battery Park and the World Trade Center site, east of West Street and west of Broadway, was once a place for shipping leaders. It later became a neighborhood for many immigrants from today’s Lebanon, Syria, and Palestine, as well as Greeks, Armenians, Irish, Slovaks, and Czechs. Due to building the Brooklyn–Battery Tunnel and the World Trade Center, plus tall buildings built in the 1920s and 30s, only a few old low-rise buildings remain.

In 2003, Svehlak wrote a paper asking for three buildings on Washington Street to be named landmarks. These were the Downtown Community House, 109 Washington Street (an 1885 building where people lived), and St. George's Syrian Catholic Church. After many years of asking, in January 2009, the commission held a meeting about naming the church a landmark, and it was successful. However, under Chairman Robert Tierney, the commission decided not to hold meetings about the Downtown Community House or 109 Washington Street.

Community and preservation groups — including the “Friends of the Lower West Side” and the “Save Washington Street” group led by St. Francis College student Carl "Antoun" Houck — have kept asking for a meeting about the Downtown Community House. They say its history shows the neighborhood’s many cultures, and its Colonial Revival style links immigrants to the country’s beginnings. Preserving these three buildings together would tell the story of an important but often forgotten neighborhood. Groups like national Arab-American organizations, Manhattan Community Board 1, and City Councilperson Margaret Chin have also asked the commission to hold a meeting about the Downtown Community House. However, the Wall Street Journal reported that the commission says these buildings are not important enough, and there are better examples of settlement houses and buildings where people lived elsewhere in the city. The activists hope the new mayor’s commission will be more willing to protect this neighborhood.

Former landmarks

Sometimes, a building that was protected by the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission lost its protected status. This could happen if the New York City Council voted to remove it, or if it was removed before 1990 by the New York City Board of Estimate. Some buildings were also removed from protection because they were torn down, either because they were neglected or to make way for new development.