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LW! e-newsletter
January 12, 2010


A Landmark at Last!



West-Park
More than twenty years of community advocacy, a public hearing last July, and then...VICTORY!  By unanimous vote of the NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC),
West-Park Presbyterian Church
is finally an official Landmark.

This day would never have come without the determination and steadfast support of preservationists - like YOU!  - and key leadership from people like those listed below.  Your continued attention and
IN THIS ISSUE
West-Park Designated!
Save the Date for Service
Lincoln Center Celebrates 50 Years
Get Preservation Certified!
DONATE TODAY
Network for Good

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encouragement are important since the designation will go before both the City Planning Commission and the City Council in coming months.  So, give yourself a hearty clap on the back and take a few moments to send enthusiastic emails of congratulations (contact info below).

The LPC's decision marks a new beginning for West-Park, a time for renewed hope and opportunity to make this building lively once more.  Long live West-Park!

LANDMARK WEST! thanks:
  • Friends who wrote letters, signed petitions and came to public meetings and hearings, including (but not limited to!) Daniel J. Allen, architect; (former) City Council Member Tony Avella; Barry Bergdoll, Chief Curator of Architecture and Design, The Museum of Modern Art; The Rev. Darrell Berger, First Unitarian Universalist Church; Francoise Bollack, architect; Herbert Broderick, III, Associate Professor of Art, Lehman College; Mosette Broderick, Director, Urban Design and Architecture Studies, NYU; Lauren Jacobi, architectural historian; Robert Cane, architect; Page Cowley, architect; Former City Council Member and current Public Advocate Bill de Blasio; Andrew Scott Dolkart, James Marston Fitch Associate Professor of Historic Preservation, Columbia University; Charles DiSanto, architect; The Rev. Stephen Garmey; Historic Districts Council; Sarah Bradford Landau, former LPC Commissioner and Professor of Art History, NYU; Katherine R. McKee, conservator; Walter B. Melvin, architect; The Metropolitan Chapter of the Victorian Society in America; The Very Reverend James Parks Morton, The Interfaith Center of New York; Municipal Art Society; New York Landmarks Conservancy; Susan Nial, Esq.; Gene A. Norman, former Landmarks Preservation Commission Chair; The Rev. Dr. Thomas Pike, former NYC Landmarks Commissioner; Lee Harris Pomeroy, architect; Preservation League of New York State; Assemblymember Linda Rosenthal; Fred Seidler, The Fred Seidler Group; Olga Statz, JD, LLM; Robert A.M. Stern, architect; Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer; The Rev. Joseph M. Zorawick, former Rector of Christ & St. Stephen's Church (copies of their letters and more are available at www.landmarkwest.org/westpark.htm).
Recognize the architectural detail in the LW! email header?  The bounding arches can be found high atop the bell tower of West-Park Presbyterian Church.  Header image photo credit: John Sills 2009.


Save the Date
National Day of Service
Monday, January 18, 2010

No one knows better than LANDMARK WEST! the importance of volunteerism in our communities.  We thrive because of the selfless giving of time, the volunteering donation of professional expertise and the spirited donation of goods.

JOIN US on the National Day of Service 2010 as we provide opportunities for volunteers.  Have a spare hour?  Available for the afternoon?  That's all it takes to make a tremendous impact on the place we call home: the Upper West Side.

To find out more ...
CALL US: (212) 496-8110
EMAIL US:landmarkwest@landmarkwest.org

You don't have to wait for the National Day of Service to lend a hand.  Visit our LW! Volunteer webpage to learn how you can make a difference all year long.


5 DAYS LEFT: Lincoln Center Exhibition
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Lincoln Center: Celebrating 50 Years,
the first exhibition to focus exclusively on the evolution and influence of America's first performing arts center, features an extensive collection of historic and contemporary objects including photographs, ephemera, correspondence, costumes, set pieces, props, and video recordings. Curated by Thomas Mellins, Upper West Sider and co-author of the book New York 1960, the free exhibition is presented at the Donald and Mary Oenslager Gallery of The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts  Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center (accessible from the Plaza level of Lincoln Center, just north of the Metropolitan Opera) in collaboration with Lincoln Center, and closes on January 16, 2010. (Click here too read the New York Times review and see a slide show of images from the show.)

From its inception in the mid-1950s, Lincoln Center has been a powerful symbol of New York's core substance and style. Its scale, its architecture and urbanism, its concentration of talent culled from the realms of government, philanthropy, academia, architecture, art, and a broad spectrum of the performing arts, all powerfully embody main currents that run throughout New York City's history and collective character. Lincoln Center: Celebrating 50 Years shows the complex and symbiotic relationship between Lincoln Center and New York City over the course of a half century and the key role Lincoln Center has played in New York's development as an international cultural capital.

Pictured above:Aaron Copland and Leonard Bernstein before the opening of Philharmonic Hall, now Avery Fisher Hall.  Photo Courtesy of the New York Philharmonic
Text adapted from the New York Public Library.


In 2000, the Lincoln Center campus was determined eligible for the State and National Registers of Historic Places, in recognition of its outstanding architectural, historical and cultural significance.  LANDMARK WEST! submitted the nomination report.


Certify Your Love of Landmarks!
FacebookMechanics' Institute Historic Preservation Certificate Program


"Like a sample box of Godiva Chocolates, the Historic Preservation certificate program, available through the venerable Mechanics' Institute, is an exciting opportunity to survey and savor the many facets of Historic Preservation that will propel our culture and lifestyles forward."
~~ HP Program graduate


The Mechanics' Institute is now accepting new applicants for its Historic Preservation program. The tuition-free certificate program, launched in 2006, is comprised of eight courses that cover a wide range of preservation topics. 
Classes meet on Tuesdays and Thursdays, from 5:00pm to 7:00pm, and 7:00pm to 9:00pm for thirteen (13) weeks. The spring semester begins January 26.

For more information, click on the link above or visit www.mechanicsinstitute.org.