Technical Assistance
Lotos Club Advised on Window Replacement Process
The private Lotos Club is housed in a Beaux-Arts mansion located at 5 East 66th Street, which was originally built for Margaret Vanderbilt Shepard and designed by Richard Howland Hunt in 1898. It is a five-story residence with steep Mansard roof, rusticated limestone base, and ornate ironwork. The building, which has been home to the club since 1946, is in generally excellent condition with the exception of the windows, which have deteriorated past the point of further repair and that the club wishes to replace with new matching sash. The windows are monumental and are of an unusual type. They appear to be French casements but in reality are single-hung sash that lift up into overhead wall pockets. The Conservancy’s Technical Services Center (TSC) consulted with the club and the window manufacturer and obtained Landmarks Commission permits for the replacement of the windows with new matching sash.
Restoration Priorities Established for the Old Guard
The Old Guard, at 307 West 91st Street, is the headquarters for a military veterans association founded in 1832. It is a handsome, limestone-fronted townhouse designed in 1896 by notable Manhattan architect Clarence True, and is part of a row of seven matching, though not identical, houses. The front façade is topped by a mansard roof with two enormous dormers. The roof was originally covered in red tile but is now covered in asphalt shingles. The house is in generally good condition, but has suffered some deterioration due to deferred maintenance. The roof and parapets in particular are in poor condition and require attention. The condition of the roof has resulted in some leaks in both the front and rear rooms. The TSC has toured the building, inside and out, and has prepared an Existing Conditions Report that details the building’s physical problems as well as establishes priorities for restoration and repair.
From Floor to Ceiling, Original Details Restored in “Aalto Room”
The Kaufmann Conference Center, in the Institute of International Education at 809 United Nations Plaza, was designed by Alvar Aalto and completed in 1964. The Kaufman Center is one of only four surviving works in America by Aalto. It was commissioned by Edgar Kaufmann Jr., whose family owned the Frank Lloyd Wright masterpiece Fallingwater. During the design process, Aalto closely collaborated with his wife, the architect Alissa Aalto, who personally selected the room’s textiles.
The Conservancy became involved with this remarkable space in 2002, when TSC was engaged as a preservation consultant for the first phase of the center’s restoration. This phase included the woodwork, ceiling, and new draperies custom-woven to match Alissa Aalto’s specifications.
Further restoration, which continues today, entails the re-creation of the original carpeting. Alissa Aalto gave specific instructions regarding the carpet, and although descriptions survive in archived correspondence, samples do not. Laura Kamras, the deputy consul general from the Finnish Consulate, provided valuable research assistance by contacting the Alvar Aalto Archives in Helsinki. The archive supplied several sharp historic images of the rooms, along with copies of floorplans indicating the carpet’s layout.
The carpet was produced in 1964 by Spinning Wheel Rugs, in North Carolina, which was recently acquired by Mountain Rugs, also of North Carolina. TSC staff members have been working with Judy Morgan of Mountain Rugs. Using the drapery fabric and photos, Ms. Morgan produced several rug samples.
Once installed, the reproduced carpet will help to present once again the Aaltos’ original intent for this unique space.
Prospect Cemetery Revitalization Initiative
Conservancy Celebrates Opening of Prospect Cemetery’s Restored Chapel of the Sisters
The New York Landmarks Conservancy participated in a ribbon-cutting on Tuesday, September 23, 2008, at one of our longest-running projects: the restoration of the Chapel of the Sisters at Prospect Cemetery in Jamaica, Queens.
Thanks to staff work by Karen Ansis, James Mahoney, and Ann Friedman, as well as key partners, this once derelict chapel has been beautifully restored. It will now be a concert and meeting space for York College.
The chapel was built in 1857 by Nicholas Ludlum in memory of his three daughters, all of whom died young. Prospect Cemetery is a City landmark and the oldest cemetery in Queens, with headstones dating to the mid-1700s. It was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 2002.
The Greater Jamaica Development Corporation, Queens Borough President Helen Marshall, New York City Parks and Recreation Department, State Office of Historic Preservation, and Cate Ludlam, a descendent of Nicholas Ludlum, all deserve great credit for restoring and bringing new life to this architectural gem, as do project architects Cutsogeorge Tooman and Allen.
We are pleased to announce that the Chapel of the Sisters restoration received an Excellence in Historic Preservation Award 2009 from the Preservation League of New York State.
The Conservancy is continuing to work with our partners to ensure that the next phase of work—clearing the overgrowth from the entire four-acre cemetery and landscaping work—will be accomplished.
Read more about the Chapel of the Sisters renovation project in the Autumn 2008 issue of our newsletter.
Sacred Sites Program
St. Saviour’s Rescued
The New York Landmarks Conservancy participated this spring in the 11th-hour rescue of the former St. Saviour’s Church in Maspeth, Queens. Designed by John Upjohn and constructed in 1847, the site of this Carpenter Gothic church had been purchased for redevelopment, and the adjacent rectory and surrounding trees and vegetation were razed pending imminent demolition. With funding from Queens Borough President Helen M. Marshall, preservation advocate Christabel Gough, the Conservancy, and the Juniper Park Civic Association, St. Saviour’s was carefully dismantled and stored for re-erection at nearby All Faiths Cemetery. The Conservancy recruited and funded the services of master carpenter Russell Powell of Island Housewrights and preservation architect Kaitsen Woo to guide and document the project, as each building element was labeled and keyed to detailed drawings.
Religious Heritage Survey Progresses to Queens
This summer, three accomplished student interns (an architect, a candidate for master’s degrees in historic preservation and planning, and an archeology scholar fluent in Hebrew and Arabic) completed the Conservancy’s Queens-based survey of 103 Roman Catholic parishes, as well as 105 synagogues and former synagogues, all built before 1970. In total, the survey team visited and photographed 150 churches and synagogues. (A prior group of interns visited 30 Queens churches and synagogues last spring, and many of these required return visits to access interiors). The team also identified and researched an additional 93 churches and synagogues using online sources, but determined that they were all either too recent or too altered to be eligible for National Register listing, and did not warrant a field survey.
As in Brooklyn, the Queens survey identified dozens of Roman Catholic churches, built between 1893 and the 1950s, that were substantially intact, historically and architecturally significant, and potentially eligible for listing on the National Register. Perhaps the most architecturally interesting buildings are a handful of Art Deco churches built in the 1930s and 1940s by New York architects McGill & Hamlin and Henry V. Murphy.
The survey established the 1920s as the decade of greatest expansion for Catholic churches in both Queens and Brooklyn. This was a decade of explosive growth and construction in the outer boroughs, as economic prosperity inspired second-generation immigrants to build new homes and establish new houses of worship outside of Manhattan. The survey also highlighted a major difference between the two boroughs’ Jewish communities: while the 1920s saw enormous synagogue growth in Brooklyn (78 synagogues constructed in that decade survive today), the period of greatest synagogue construction in Queens was the 1950s, followed closely by the 1960s (35 and 28, respectively).
While the survey identified one or two architecturally significant and intact Queens synagogues from the mid-20th century, Queens’ relatively late synagogue growth—and major alterations to many of the buildings—means that only about 10 of the 105 Queens synagogues surveyed appear eligible for National Register listing. However, these include several important buildings with congregations enthusiastic to pursue National Register nomination, including the Free Synagogue of Flushing.
