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Cities Service Building and First-Lobby Named Landmarks

The New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission today voted unanimously to landmark the exterior and first-floor lobby of the Cities Service Building, the 66-story Art Deco tower at 70 Pine St. that most recently served as the headquarters of American International Group, a financial services company and insurer.

The 952-foot setback skyscraper, crowned by a tiered glass lanter and stainless steel spire, is considered one of one of the most recognizable buildings on Manhattans skyline.

Completed in 1932, the building was constructed by Henry L. Doherty, the founder of the Cities Service Company, an energy holding company that was chartered in 1910 and renamed Citgo in 1965. Doherty constructed the tower to enlarge the companys existing offices in two adjacent, but separate buildings on Wall and Pine streets, both of which have been demolished/

Many Art Deco skyscrapers were built in New York City in the late 1920s and 1930s, but few from this era can boast the lavish interiors, intricate metalwork, and visibility of this building, said Commission Chairman Robert B. Tierney.

When it was completed, the Cities Service Building was the third tallest structure in the world, behind the Chrysler and Empire State buildings. The tower is located on a trapezoidal lot bounded by Cedar, Pine and Pearl Streets, and was designed by the architecture firm of Clinton & Russell, Holton & George, which specialized in office buildings and apartment houses, including Graham Court, the Apthorp Apartments and the Beaver and Broad Exchange buildings, all New York City landmarks. James Stewart & Company, which built City Center, the U.S. Courthouse on Foley Square and the New York Central Building, was the general contractor.

Doherty took the unusual step of financing the new tower through a stock offering, rather than a mortgage, and incorporated other innovations into the project such as a series of escalators that linked the buildings lower floors, double-deck elevators and private terraces enclosed by steel railings coated with aluminum lacquer.

The exterior of 70 Pine St. is clad in white brick, light gray Indiana limestone, and speckled rose and black granite. The Pine and Cedar Street sides each have a pair of monumental arched entrances that are framed with limestone reliefs with repeating images of the Cities Service logo _ a triangle set within a trefoil _ and elaborate aluminum ornamentation, such as stepped pyramids that echo the buildings spire and butterflies pecking at sunflowers.

In addition, each of the eastern entrance portals on Pine and Cedar streets display a 14-foot-high limestone model of the building, which is otherwise impossible to see in its entirety from the street (see photo at left).

The aluminum decorative details found on the exterior of 70 Pine St. re-appear in the buildings main first-floor lobby, now the Citys 112th interior landmark. An interior landmark is a space that not only meets the requirements for landmark status under the Citys landmarks law, but must also be customarily open to the public, which means it was originally intended for use by the public. The lobby of the Woolworth Building, the Grand Central Terminal Concourse, and numerous Broadway theaters are examples of interior landmarks.

The Cities Service Buildings first-floor lobby, consisting of marble walls, floors and staircases, as well as molded plaster ceilings, was designed by Clinton & Russell, Holton & George, and the architecture firm responsible for the exterior. “The lobby is not only a superb example of the Art Deco style, its one of the most stunning office building lobbies in New York City, said Chairman Tierney. Other remarkable features of the lobby include cast glass lighting fixtures, a ceiling decorated with a pattern that suggests light waves and aluminum figurative panels covering the elevator doors, which were designed by Rene P. Chambellan, a celebrated architectural sculptor. 

The elevator door surrounds topped by a triangular glass indicator in the shape of the Cities Service logo, and the panels depict a woman holding an oil lamp and a man with what appears to be an electric turbine.

Aside from Cities Service, other noteworthy tenants have included the investment firm Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Beane and McGoverns, a 25,000-square-foot athletic facility that occupied the seventh floor and included handball and squash courts and a gymnasium. It was owned by Artie McGovern, a former boxer and trainer whose clients included Babe Ruth, and reportedly drew 1,000 visitors a day.

Cities Service Company eventually became one of the largest corporations in the United States, controlling approximately 150 energy firms throughout North America. The building served as its headquarters until 1972, and was sold in 1976 to AIG, which refurbished the exterior and lobby in the 1990s. The building was sold in August 2009 to Sahn Eagle LLC, a real estate developer.

The Landmarks Preservation Commission is the mayoral agency responsible for protecting and preserving New York Citys architecturally, historically and culturally significant buildings and sites. Since its creation in 1965, LPC has granted landmark status to more than 27,000 buildings, including 1,287 individual landmarks, 112 interior landmarks, 10 scenic landmarks, 102 historic districts and 16 historic district extensions in all five boroughs. Under the Citys landmarks law, considered among the most powerful in the nation, the Commission must be comprised of at least three architects, a historian, a realtor, a planner or landscape architect, as well as a representative of each borough.

Contact: Elisabeth de Bourbon/ 212-669-7938

Engineers Club Building, 32 West 40th Street, between Fifth and Sixth avenues

The 12-story, Renaissance Revival-style building, designed by the architecture firm of Whitfield & King, was constructed in 1907 to house the Engineers Club, the first social organization established in the United States for engineers and those working in related fields.

The club was founded in 1888, a time when professional engineering had become integral to the nations industrial and economic development, and originally leased space at 10 West 29th Street. Its members have included Andrew Carnegie, who contributed $500,000 for the project, Herbert C. Hoover, Thomas Edison, Charles Lindbergh, Cornelius Vanderbilt and H.H. Westinghouse.

The new building was constructed in response to the clubs rapidly growing membership, which reached 2,000 by 1909, and featured public spaces, social rooms, and 66 sleeping rooms, also known as bachelor apartments.

Henry D. Whitfield and Beverly S. Kings relatively young architecture firm was selected to design the building through a competition, besting Carrere & Hastings and other established names in the business. The firm was also responsible for the parish house of the Flatbush Congregation Church in Brooklyn and a neo-Federal parking garage on the Upper East Side belonging to Carnegie, Whitfields brother-in-law.

The Engineers Club building, which faces Bryant Park, has a three-story base clad in white marble, marble quoins, molded window enframements and a projecting ornate cornice.

The club building today looks almost exactly as it did more than a century ago, and stands as an architectural reminder of the emergence of New York state as the engineering center of the nation, said Chairman Tierney.

Its construction coincided with that of an adjacent, but related building that was also funded by Carnegie and served as the joint headquarters of New York Citys professional engineering clubs such as the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, the American Institute of Electrical Engineers and the American Institute of Mining, Metallurgical and Petroleum Engineering.

The Engine Club declared bankruptcy in 1977, forcing the sale of the building, which was converted in 1983 into a cooperative apartment house, its current use.

The Neighborhood Playhouse (now the Harry DeJur Playhouse), 466 Grand Street, at the corner of Pitt Street The red-brick, neo Georgian-style Neighborhood Playhouse was completed in 1915 and constructed as part of the Henry Street Settlement, by the theaters founders, sisters Alice and Irene Lewisohn. They were the daughters of Lewis Lewisohn, a wealthy German-Jewish immigrant and philanthropist.

Prior to opening the theater, the Lewisohn sisters directed a number of childrens productions and pageants at the Henry Street Settlement, founded in 1889 by Lillian D. Wald primarily to assist poor immigrants living on the Lower East Side.

The Neighborhood Playhouse was one of the Citys early little theaters, or experimental theaters, that staged innovative works and gave rise to the Off-Broadway movement. The playhouse, which was completely controlled by women, initially staged drama, song and dance performances, including new works by George Bernard Shaw, James Joyce and Eugene O’Neill.

The playhouse was designed by Ingalls & Hoffman, an architecture firm that was responsible for Broadways Helen Hayes Theater at 238 West 44th Street, also a neo-Georgian style, red-brick building _ a rare architectural style for a Broadway theater, which typically were designed in the Beaux-Arts or Classical Revival styles.

The firms other commissions include the Henry Miller Theater at 124 West 43rd Street, and the famed Villa Vizcaya in Miami. The three-story playhouse, set above a granite base, features a main entrance with wood-paneled double doors beneath a fanlight and flanked by sidelights, wood shutters, and splayed keystone lintels. The second story is topped by a balustrade and a white stuccoed, third-story setback.

The Neighborhood Playhouse theater company closed in 1927, and the Henry Street Settlement took over programming, opening the Henry Street Music School and renaming the building the Henry Street Playhouse. One of the most notable performances at the school was the world premiere of Aaron Copelands The Second Hurricane, in a staging by Orson Wells in 1937.

From 1948 to 1970, the playhouse was the home of a dance school founded by modern dance pioneer Alwin Nikolais. It was renamed in 1967 for Harry De Jur, a Russian immigrant who was a former director of the Henry Street Settlement. The New Federal Theatre, which was founded in 1970 and specializes in productions by women and minorities, has performed there since 1971

The theater is a standout among the buildings that surround it, and continues to distinguish itself as leading cultural institutions on the Lower East Side to this day, said Chairman Tierney.  The building is the 12th Modernist site to receive landmark status since 2003. It’s also the youngest of the Citys individual landmarks. Prior to todays vote, the Ford Foundation, completed in 1967, held that distinction.

Greyston Gatehouse (the William E. and Sarah T. Hoadley Dodge, Jr., Estate Gatehouse)

4695 Independence Ave., the Bronx The Greyston Gatehouse, was completed in 1868 in the Riverdale section of the Bronx, a neighborhood on a high bluff above the Hudson River that was developed in the mid-19th century as a summer retreat for the wealthy.  The gatehouse was constructed to house a caretaker for the Greyston Estate, the site of the noted c. 1864 Gothic Revival grey granite villa that was designed by the preeminent architect James Renwick, Jr. and his partner Joseph Sands. The villa, also known as the William E. and Sarah T. Hoadley Dodge, Jr. House, was named a New York City landmark in 1970.

Renwick is the architect of numerous institutional and religious buildings in New York City and beyond, including Grace Church and Rectory, St. Patricks Roman Catholic Cathedral, Rectory and Cardinals Residence, all in Manhattan, the Smallpox Hospital on Roosevelt Island and the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. William Earle Dodge, Jr., was a partner in the international tin and copper manufacturer, Phelps, Dodge & Co., and was the president of the Ansonia Clock Co. and Ansonia Brass Co. His wife, Sarah Tappan Hoadley, was the daughter of a former drug merchant and banker and president the Panama Railroad Co.  The 1 1/2-story gatehouse is one of New York Citys finest examples of the picturesque rural cottage style that was popularized in the mid-19th century. It was Renwick and Sands _ also the designers of the Riverdale Presbyterian Church in Riverdale _ are strongly to be the architects of the gatehouse, not only because they designed the villa, but also because of the firms close associations with the Dodge family and the fact that both buildings feature multiple jerkin head gables. In addition to jerkin head gables, the irregularly shaped gatehouse features clapboard siding at the first story and board-and-batten above, and jerkin head roofs covered by polychrome slate shingles with several sections set in a diamond pattern. The property includes two historic granite piers at the entrance leading to Greyston.

The charming Greyston gatehouse is not only a rare example of a 19th century architectural style in New York City, its also one of the very few known buildings of this kind thats associated with Renwicks firm, said Chairman Tierney. The gatehouse remained in the Dodge family until 1977 and is now owned by the Cleveland H. Dodge Foundation.

The Landmarks Preservation Commission is the mayoral agency responsible for protecting and preserving New York Citys architecturally, historically and culturally significant buildings and sites. Since its creation in 1965, LPC has granted landmark status to more than 27,000 buildings, including 1,284 individual landmarks, 111 interior landmarks, 10 scenic landmarks, 102 historic districts and 16 historic district extensions in all five boroughs. Under the Citys landmarks law, considered among the most powerful in the nation, the Commission must be comprised of at least three architects, a historian, a realtor, a planner or landscape architect, as well as a representative of each borough.

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