commission and is occasioned by the book that is the catalog for the exhibition called "saving place" which is on view at the museum of the city of new york. through september 13. i hope you will go see that exhibition. andrew dolkart is the co-curator for that exhibition, and he has a very long history with new york city landmarks and architectural history. i think this has gone off now, has it? all right. andrew is a good friend of long-standing, as we like to say, rather than old friend, but we do go way back. this is one more lecture at the skyscraper museum, which has been going on in a relationship now for probably nearly the 17 years since the museum was started. andrew is always there when you call on him to talk about new

york city history or to speak about yet another of his new books and his new publications. he is an exemplary historian and someone who has a long and deep history with new york city landmarks, having worked in his youth at the commission on the research staff, having been a consultant to them, having written many a designation report, having authored the first guidebook to new york city landmarks, and in the years now since he has been at columbia, heading the historic preservation program at the graduate school of architecture, planning, and preservation. he has been a friend and colleague of everyone who cares about the history of new york and the history of architecture. and indeed, tonight, we're celebrating the history of architecture as part of american architecture because we are

being filmed here for c-span american history channel. so i'm going to remind you that when we come to the question-and-answer period, you're going to use this phone in my hand in order to project your important questions. andrew will talk about half an hour, and he has framed his remarks around the history of the skyscraper and landmarks preservation, and a special project that he will talk about that he would rather rediscover and offered up and special drawings. the marcel drawings that were not realizied but marked an importance in their association with grand central, mark a very important point in history of the legal decision that withheld preservation, not just in new york city, but in america through a supreme court case. i'm going to let andrew tell you about that history. here is andrew dolkart.

[applause] mr. dolkart: it's always a pleasure to be here. so as carol noted, this is the 50th anniversary of the landmark law, and i'm sure all of you know that, and that i am the co-curator of the exhibit called "saving place: 50 years of new york city landmarks." which i co-currated with donald, the architecture currator. as carol mentioned, the show is supposed to close the second week in september. actually, the show has been

extended through the end of the year, but i highly recommend you go before september 13 because a lot of the architectural drawings are probably going to disappear after that date because a lot of archives are not going to extend the loan. because of light, they cannot be on view for too long. if you have not seen the show, go before the second week in september. when carol asked me to speak about the exhibition and the book, i hesitated because it is not specifically a skyscraper story, and i wanted to make the talk sort of site-specific, so i talked with carol about this and thought about what i could talk about. there are two issues i will talk about this evening that deal with skyscrapers. one focuses on the topic i wrote -- there's the exhibit. and there's the book. i think we will go back to the exhibit. the exhibit was designed by the same firm that designs a lot of

the exhibits here by wendy -- what's her last name? wendy evans joseph, so there's a good connection between this exhibit and skyscraper museum exhibit. there are two things i want to talk about. what is the issue of when the landmarks commission designate what, especially in the early years. this is something i talk about in my essay in the book. it is something i became very interested in, wondering about what the commission did once it was a landmarks commission. what did it mean to have a land marks commission? the other thing i want to talk about is marcel and grand central. one of the things i was pleased with in the exhibit is we have four drawings for the towers proposed on top of grand central, and i don't think they have been on view since the days of the hearing. it was interesting to see what breuer was proposing.

there were three schemes breuer proposed. most people attuned to new york city preservation are familiar with the decision to reject the penn central corporation's plan to build a tower designed by breuer on top of grand central, but that's about all people know. actually, the story -- i did not fully understand the story, so i'm going to share with you a little bit about what happened there. so on april 19, 1965, mayor robert wagner, jr. signed a law that created the new york city landmarks preservation commission, but what did this mean? the law was passed in response to citizen lobbying, especially in brooklyn heights and greenwich village, and the demolition of many important links, among them, of course, penn station, but also other buildings that might be less well known.

the brooklyn savings bank here in brooklyn heights, one of my favorite lost buildings in new york, and the brokaw houses, which were demolished during landmarks week in new york. and they are the building that was the catalyst to get robert wagner to get the idea of a landmarks law off to the city council. and so we really owe it to the loss of the brokaw houses on fifth avenue and 79th street for getting the law passed. of course, many other buildings were in danger. the new commission was empowered to designate the exterior of and any buildings that were at least 30 years old and also to designate historic districts that had a sense of place. by september 1965, a commission had been established. there was a chair, there were commissioners, and there was a

small staff that had been assembled. but now, what would they do? i think this is a question that in hindsight we have failed to ask -- what did it mean to have a landmarks commission in new york? this was a novel idea. what would they designate? the city's most famous and most well-known buildings? would they dive right in and designate buildings that were endangered, or would they be careful about the fragile legal basis for the new law and only designate safe buildings that had owner support? the first thing of course was to figure out what constituted a landmark.

so what would the commission do when it now had the power? i was surprised by what i found out and i began looking at early designation calendars. i had assumed, as i think most people do, that early designations would include renowned buildings such as city hall, grand central, the stock exchange, the woolworth building, the chrysler building, the empire state building -- these are things that i think most of us assume would have been the landmarks, that may be the chrysler building would have in landmark number one, but this was not the case at all. none of these buildings were among the first buildings designated.

the empire state building had to wait until 1981. the woolworth building atomic and the stock exchange until 1985. although the new commission was clearly aware that the constitutionality of a law such as that in new york had yet to be tested in court, they actually plunged right in and designated endangered buildings. indeed, the first public hearing, every single building that was on that, and there was endangered in one way or another. some were endangered by neglect. the peter klassen wyckoff house was still in private hands.

as you can see, this is a photograph that was taken by john barrington bailey, who was commissioned to photograph potential landmarks, so this is just before the public hearing. you can see the building is in pretty terrible condition, and it stood right on a road, so the road could have been cut through at any time. you know this beloved landmark has been beautifully restored, but it was a complete wreck. they stepped in to deal with these endangered buildings. some were endangered by impending vacancies. the customhouse was about to be abandoned as the customer service moved to the world trade center. that is the commandant's house, which was about to be abandoned by the navy, and the future of its historic buildings were unknown. this was also threatening to move out of new york. so they looked at buildings that were endangered because they were soon going to be vacated, and also, they looked at buildings that were about to be demolished. all four of these had been sold to developers, and all of them had designs that were going to replace the buildings -- all 4 of these had been sold to developers. the jerome mansion on the bottom left had been sold for office construction, and the

metropolitan opera house also for office construction for the garment district. so all of these buildings were endangered in one way or another, and all of them were part of the first public hearings. there was strong opposition to some of these designations. interestingly, there's not a lot of news about what actually happened at that first public hearing because it took place during a newspaper strike, but fortunately, margo gale, who many of you will know was one of the great preservationists, was at the hearing and wrote up a report on what transpired during that day. she did not cover every single building that was heard, but she did give a sense of the tenor of that public hearing, so there was a lot of opposition, especially among the new owners of these buildings. and three of them were

designated. the meeting house and the astra library. of course, this is now the brotherhood synagogue, and the astra library is now the public theater. in fact, the landmarks considered its first victory joseph's announcement that he would reuse the library for the public theater because land landmarking was not only about designating buildings but about saving buildings, finding uses for them. the jerome mansion was designated as well, but in the law, if you could not make a 6% return on investment, you can apply for hardship. they applied for a hardship. they received it. the city had a year to find a new owner. they failed, and it was demolished, and the metropolitan opera house was never designated. it was the one building from the first series that they voted not to designate. i think it was partly because it was the forces that were building lincoln center that were opposed to saving the metropolitan opera. similarly with carnegie hall,

how could we possibly support more than one opera house in new york? and so, you know, the rockefellers and other powerful people that were supporting lincoln center were opposed to this, but also because the exterior was never considered a great, beautiful thing, and it was the interior that was considered spectacular, and the commission did not at that time have the right to designate interiors. so the metropolitan opera of course was lost. so what about skyscrapers? none were considered in the first public hearing. the architectural historians involved in the formation of the

commission were interested in tall buildings. at least to an extent. all this list making culminated in a book called new york landmarks that was written by alan burnham, who would later become a key member of the commission staff. in that book, he included about two dozen skyscrapers among the list of buildings. the list included traditionally styled skyscrapers such as the woolworth building and the municipal building, which you see here. it also included buildings that advanced european modern aesthetic like these. conspicuously absent from this list with the city's early skyscrapers from the 1870's through about 1900 with their traditional facades, which have long been denigrated by architectural historians in favor of the chicago building that more clearly reflected their innovative structure.

and were devoid of historical references. none of these buildings -- in fact, the tribune building was lost after the landmarks commission was established. indeed, the only skyscraper from the late 19th century that made the list was the building but chicago architect louis sullivan. also missing were the high art deco buildings such as the chrysler and empire state building's, as these buildings were intensely disliked by sophisticated historians and critics, including those people that were involved with the landmark commission. it was not until 20 years later that a younger commission got interested in art deco. in a second public hearing held in october 1965, the commission considered 70 buildings in lower manhattan, three of which were tall office buildings. the first skyscraper -- or the first steel framed office building to be designated was the new york evening post building, and odd choice, as it is not a very well-known building. this subtle building is an example of the commission heavily weighted to architectural historians choosing a building for its sophisticated architectural value and designating it even over the opposition of its owner. ironically, this would later

become the home of landmarks commission. when i worked for landmarks, i worked here in this building. so this was the first building you could argue was a skyscraper to be designated. it was followed in february of 1966 by the municipal building, which we saw before. that was also heard at the second public hearing. the third skyscraper that was heard at the second public hearing was the woolworth building, which probably holds the record for the building that had the largest number of public hearings. it just kept on coming back and coming back and coming back, and the owners kept on being opposed, and landmarks kept on holding new public hearings until finally in the 1980's, they designated it, but they did not designate it in its early years. it's here i think that the commission was reticent to

designate over powerful owner opposition. the woolworth building and other major skyscrapers were not in danger of demolition, so the commission chose not to deal with them because there was opposition. the law was still on weak constitutional grounds, so they simply ignored most of these buildings. the only other skyscraper that the landmarks commission designated in its early years was the flatiron building. otherwise, they basically were doing old houses, public institutional buildings, churches, upper east side town houses, and not skyscrapers. the one exception to what i've said is the singer building. although in his book, alan burnham did recommend the singer building as worthy of preservation when it was actually threatened with demolition, the commission did not act. in 1967, demolition began on the singer building. just like the tribune building,

this is proof that you can have a landmarks commission, but it will never save everything. while the commission would step in to designate and hopefully save more buildings, when it came to a building on the scale of the singer building, the commission refused to act. alan burnham noted that "if the building were made a landmark, we would have to find a buyer for it or the city would have to acquire it. the city is not that wealthy and the commission does not have a big enough step to be a real estate broker for a skyscraper." he's referring to the hardship provision of the law, which meant that once the owner approved the hardship, the city had a year to find another buyer to become a real estate operator or acquire the building itself. and so they had already lost on one hardship application, which is the jerome mansion, and they were not going to do this again. they knew that they would have trouble finding a buyer. i have argued often that this building was built as an advertisement for singer and the floors were so small they were never economically viable. they were tiny. so who was going to acquire a building like this?

so in general, skyscrapers were not a priority until the 1980's and 1990's when the commission began to catch up. designating the great art deco towers and early skyscrapers in park row as well as masterpieces elsewhere in the city, although i have to say it was not until 2011 that the great city services building finally became a landmark. it took a long time to catch up with a major buildings in new york. by now, most of the great prewar skyscrapers are designated landmarks and even a few postwar masterpieces have been designated. most of the great commercial skyscrapers were designated after the supreme court upheld the designation in 1978. this decision, which gave firm constitutional basis for landmarking as with any jurisdiction's zoning powers, made it easy for the commission to designate buildings over owner opposition. many people have noted that the commission was quite cautious in

his early years about what battles to fight. and as we have seen with the singer building, some issues they chose not to fight at all. but we just knew they designated several dozen important skyscrapers, so let's look at the important issues. the exterior of grand central terminal was designated a landmark on august 2, 1967, so that's two years after the commission was established. that was penn station was such an important aspect of the reason why the commission was established. i would have assumed grand central would have been done right away. this was done just months before the first public announcement before the new york central railroad was seeking proposals to build an office building atop the terminal. and i can't help believe that the commission knew that this was about to happen, and that's

why they actually heard grand central when they did. the initial announcement as reported in "the new york times" notes that the idea had been broached with landmarks and the reception had not been hostile. but the saga really begins in june 1968 when british developer morris and his union general properties company announced their plan for architect marcel breuer's 55-story concrete and granite slab to be erected on top of the building. the tower would be floated above the waiting room. he claimed it would provide the calm background for the landmark facade of the terminal and that it would work because there would be no visual -- because there would be a visual separation between the terminal and the new building. so here is the initial proposal. here you can see it is floated above, so it saves the facade. and there it is, it is separated, so that's the idea of it floating.

this is the image that was in "the new york times" on the day of the announcement. with breuer pointing at the design. this is a design for the new storefront. the tower would be anchored into the waiting room of the terminal, which would be destroyed, but as a trade-off, the concourse, which was deteriorated and covered in advertising signage -- many of you remember, it was not so long ago that they actually took it down -- that the concourse would be restored. i have to accent the fact that interiors could not yet be landmarks, so only the exterior of grand central was a landmark at that time. now, of course, the interior is a landmark as well. changes were also proposed to the ground floor storefront that would now be the entrance to the tower, and that is what the bottom right hand drawing is. the proposal was an expensive in engineering tour de force with a central core in the waiting room supporting the tower.

although 4 stories shorter than the pan am building, it would rise 150 feet taller, since it's ground floor was 188 feet above the street. it said there was competition between breuer and the designer of the pan am building. reading into it, breuer would have just loved the fact that it was basically blocking the pan am building. you can see here is the juxtaposition between this, the pan am building, and there is breuer's building. these are among a group of drawings at syracuse university.

they are just beginning to catalog it when i contacted the archivist, they had discovered nine drawings. these other drawings that came before landmarks that i don't think have ever been seen before, one or two of them have been published. there's another one you will see that has been published, but most of the others have not been. opposition to this proposal was immediate. the article quotes donald elliott, the mayor's city planning chair, saying that "it's the wrong building in the wrong place at the wrong time." although there were substantial concerns about congestion in the subway and on the street, these are issues that we are hearing now about the grand central area, too, so a lot of this is so interesting because it's the same arguments we are hearing now about the building on the corner of 42nd street and vanderbilt avenue. these issues just come back again and again and again. although there were substantial concerns about congestion in the subway and on the street, city planning had no jurisdiction over the project because it was, as we would say today, as of right, so city planning could say whatever they wanted, and they were actually quite vocal, but they had no say.

only the landmarks commission had a say in this project. the same day of the announcement, ada louise huxtable published a very thoughtful piece for "the new york times." she of course was the architecture critic for the "times." she looked closely at the issues of high land value and how this would impact on the character of the city. in a particularly pressing of passage, she noted that "if the air over grand central terminal were not worth several hundred million dollars in rights and income over the next 50 years, there would be no grand central tower project. that solid gold air is there to stay, and if it's superheated values continue to rise as anticipated in the coming half-century, manhattan could someday replace fort knox." we have not quite reached 50 years yet, but we know these values have been rising and rising and rising.

huxtable appreciated that was she said was the technical of the building and a certain swap is to the design, but old the it was seen as a shotgun wedding and what she called a grotesquerie. give a grotesquerie to a good architect, she wrote, and you will get a better grotesquerie, like a better mousetrap. mr. breuer has done an excellent job with a dubious undertaking, which is like saying it would be great if it were not awful. in later commentary, huxtable became much more vehement in her opposition to the proposal. she said that in hindsight -- a few years later, she wrote that in hindsight, she found the proposal monstrous. a "times" editorial on the same day proposed -- that the proposal was announced, possibly also written by huxtable, states that as architecture of the new tower soaring over the classical bozartsa terminal like a skyscraper on a base of french pastry has the bizarre quality of a nightmare. a food analogy also appeared in a talk of the town piece in "the

new yorker," probably written by brandon gill, that refers to the building as an elongated meat cleaver standing on a prune souffle. this is interesting because i don't know if anybody knows what a prune souffle is. i certainly have no image of that. the writer thought the project would be impossible to stop. it's interesting that the writer thought it would be impossible to stop this project, noting that there was small hope that they would be any immediate reversal of the attitude now prevalent among urban officials that the right of real estate owners to make money when coupled with architectural and engineering genius outweighs the right of city residents and workers not to be driven batty. ironically, the design was made public only a week before breuer received the aia gold medal, its highest honor. breuer was so repected in the

field that few artists would criticize the design on record, although a "times" piece noted many had resignations. only philip johnson, of course, would go public, stating that hiring a very great architect to design the building is not enough justification to build it in the first place. not only was there opposition in the press, but it was clear that the lindsay administration was opposed. public opposition gave cover to the landmarks commission's decision. in july 1968, developers of the tower requested a certificate of no exterior effect from the landmarks commission. now you need to understand a little bit about landmarks permitting. landmarks gives out three kind of permits -- the easiest permit to get is a certificate of no exterior effect, which means basically that what you are going to do is going to have absolutely no impact on the designated exterior of a building. then they can give a certificate for minor work, which is if you want to repair your stoop, or you can go for a public hearing and you get a certificate of appropriateness.

it took a lot of chutzpah, i think, for breuer and developers to ask for a certificate of no exterior effect for this building. this was rejected in april 1968. the developer said this was outrageous. how could they do this? because they were preserving the exterior. now one of the things that was most interesting is that it is early in landmarks' history, and i don't think people fully understood what a landmark designation meant. because glenn collins, who wrote most of the pieces in "the new york times" about this kept on referring to the fact that landmarks was concerned with saving the facade, and that was it, and not the three dimensionality of the building.

if we take that reasoning that once landmarks designates a building only the facade is designated, then i guess this has no exterior effect, although it certainly did down here. but the landmarks commission felt that it was regulating the three-dimensional form of the building, so they rejected it. in april 1969, a public hearing was scheduled that would include the original proposal, plus an alternative plan, arguing rather disingenuously, i believe, that they had rejected the initial proposal, which was not true. they had just rejected it as a certificate of no effect. breuer presented an alternative known as breuer two -- actually, breuer two a, which obliterated the front facade of the building. as you can see here, it saves the concourse and completely obliterates the front. there was, said breuer, always questions in the minds of informed people as to whether the exterior of grand central terminal is worth preserving. i always wondered who these

informed people are, but this keeps coming back, as we will see when it goes to the court. one of the arguments they used was that informed people thought the building was not worthy of landmark designation. breuer was optimistic about his new design. he was in europe and sent a cable to his office that said, "i'm sure we can win with second project." at the second public hearing, breuer presented his two proposals. the one we just saw and that second. the council threatened to challenge the constitutionality of the law if one of these was not approved. at the hearing, i.m. pei and the president of the history museum spoke in favor. in her commentary about the hearing, huxtable analyzed the problem that the city faced if

it sought to get what it wanted in grand central, seeing how rejecting the tower proposal would be, as she said, the big gamble because if they were going to reject this, there was clearly going to be a lawsuit, and the city could lose the landmarks commission entirely. meanwhile, it was clear that things were not going well for the proposal, so the development team kept on asking for delays in making a decision, and they came up with what is often referred to as breuer 2b. this is very confusing because people have not understood the order. the book gets it mized up. this is 2a and this is 2b over here. you can see it got rid of these supports over here and creates a somewhat more traditional entrance to the building.

so now we have three designs altogether. finally, on august 26, 1969, the commission unanimously rejected all the proposals, saying that to protect a landmark, one does not tear it down. to protect its architectural features, one does not strip them off. soon after the commission rejected breuer's design, the penn central company filed suit against the city, claiming that the landmark designation was the taking of their property and the quality of the building was also highly debatable. the case was heard in new york's supreme court, the state's lowest level of court, before justice irving stapled. there were many delays as the owners of the city negotiated developments. finally, in november 1974,

roberta, a critic for "the new york post" announced that a decision was coming soon and that the new mayor was considering withdrawing from the suit and permitting the skyscraper to be built under the condition that the owner's monetary damages that they were threatening the city with, $5 million and $8 million a year, would be canceled. in january, the justice voided the designation and agreed there was economic hardship. he did not rule on the constitutionality of the landmark law. it was only very specific to this one issue. the administration hesitated to appeal the case and was considering de-designating the terminal, but according to roberta, kent barwick organized the municipal art society to oppose the designation. jackie onassis called barwick and offered her assistance, and

she came to a meeting with mayor beam when she told the mayor how much her husband had loved the building. finally -- and roberta things this had a lot to do with the change of heart -- finally, he agreed to appeal the case, and it went before the appellate division. in 1977, the case moved to the court of appeals in albany. by this time, the proponents of landmarking had understood the value of celebrities at a public event. a rally was held at grand central before the case was heard where the mayor was joined by jackie onassis and a group of broadway performers. the court of appeals unanimously upheld the designation of grand central and issued a braun decision that placed landmark designation on par with zoning regulations. and then, of course, it went to the supreme court, preceded, of course, by the even more famous rally and train ride to washington, which you can see here. there is jackie onassis speaking at the rally.

jackie onassis and -- it's mondale's wife, whose name i have now forgotten. joan mondale with a cake in the form of grand central. beth meyerson was there as well. this all culminated on june 6, 1978, with a 6-3 court decision which provided a firm base for constitutional preservation. we have the decision signed by justice brennan who wrote the decision at the exhibit. the issue of air over low scale landmarks has been warned that has been recurrent at the landmarks commission. over the years, proposals have been considered and rejected for towers above landmarks including a proposal for the new york historical society -- we are reading left to right -- the

metropolitan club, the building on madison avenue, and the film associates plan for saint bartholomew's church on park avenue. some are not very good architecture, and some are ok, and some, this design taken all by itself is a really beautiful building, but the question was did it belong on the roof of the metropolitan club? this is, of course, still a significant issue since air is even more valuable than huxtable imagined in her 1968 column. just last week, a permanent real estate lawyer, whom i often chat with about preservation and development issues, the mode the -- bemoaned the fact that preservation advocates were so opposed to the issue. skyscrapers have played a key role in the history of the landmarks preservation commission. many are now revered city landmarks, and i'm sure some of

the more recent towers will, some decades from now, be considered for such designation as well, so thank you. so thank you. [applause] mr. dolkart: so i am, of course, happy to answer questions, but you have to wait for the microphone to ask your question. ms. willis: are there questions? >> at the beginning, you intimated -- i think you might have even stated -- that the landmarks commission was struggling with skyscrapers. they actually seemed to have a bias towards older buildings that have certain characteristics. after the singer building came down, do you think that impacted things at all?

mr. dolkart: no, i don't think the singer building did impact because they still did not do many skyscrapers. it was shocking how few skyscrapers were done. there's an incredible imbalance. there were more dutch farmhouses than skyscrapers. we all think of them as such a key element that they would be the first things people would look at because that was so characteristic of what makes new york, but it was not something that they considered, and i think partly -- and it's an instinct i have but have no way of proving that it's generational. that these -- the leaders of the commission, allan burnham and others, were born in the early 20th century. they grew up as skyscrapers were rising. they were not something they were interested in. and also, most skyscrapers were not designed by the most prestigious architects.

the people that they were interested in -- when vernon was interested in skyscrapers, it was buildings like the daily news buildings and the mcgraw-hill building. which actually were not designated at the time. i stopped at 1970, and it would be interesting to go on and see. although how many did they designate before grand central and the huge push, a new generation comes in, and lots more skyscrapers get designated. >> i might add to that from my own experience, and i believe it's generational because i'm of the generation that in the art history and architectural history field advocated for skyscrapers, that became

interested in skyscrapers, and my professor was the one who did the first book on art deco. that was the graduate symposium at columbia, was the first time anyone ever took do commercial architecture, and skyscrapers were really not considered a legitimate area for study at columbia art history at the time that i was just beginning studies. it takes advocates of different building typologies in order to include them in the history. mr. dolkart: and rosemary's book on art deco is still one of the best. a similar story can be told that it was not until sarah landau comes along and starts doing

research, she puts them on par and in some cases even as more significant than the chicago skyscrapers. ignoring what was being done in new york. ms. willis: apropos to the orthodoxy of modernism, as they breuer building shows that there was a large constituency within the field of architecture and planning for modern slabs like that that defined a promethean sensibility as well, what was high-value architecture, high style architecture, so new york buildings did not fall within that definition. >> andrew, what was the legal justification at all given to landmark somebody's private property? this is my property, hardship or not, i mean, you do not tell me what to do with my private property. it's like ted turner said about colorization -- i own the film. i can --

mr. dolkart: partly it was the bard act which was passed in the 1950's, which gave local communities the right to designate private property, gave them the right to form landmark commissions that would designate. and what the courts, the courts relied very heavily on their precedent that allowed zoning. they saw this within the zoning power of the city, and that as long as you could use the building as it was intended to be used or make a 6% return on your investment, which is within the law, which the law specifically states. so when they wrote the law, they noted that you had to be able to make a return on the building, so that because of that, they said it was not a taking, and if you could not make that return, then you could apply for hardship. there have been a few hardship cases. the jerome mansion. a synagogue on west 79th street that was heard after it was sold

to a developer, and maybe two or three other hardship cases. so it was because there was an economic out in the law and it was part of the zoning that the courts found it legal. ms. willis: i might make another addition. something i've been very interested in a distinction between zoning and land marking in terms of municipal regulation in new york and generally nationally is the difference between public good and public safety, and zoning was really to protect public safety when it was first established, to protect light and air on the street, protect against panic in the streets and fires through density issues. the idea of public safety is something that protects life and limb, whereas public good is something that enhances the experience of the city, and i

think landmarks is much closer or it is entirely based on public good, which really does not have a precedent in municipal regulation. i think it is very significant because of that and much undervalued in that distinction. mr. dolkart: good point. >> if you would, just give us a point of reference when was leaver house resignation, when was the seaver building designated? in relation to the breuer proposal. mr. dolkart: seagram was designated exactly when it turned 30 years old, so that would make it about 1988. i may be off by a year or two. and lever had been done a year or two before that.

for the modern buildings, landmarks has hit the major monuments. they more recently did chase bank and just within the last year, they did the old marie midland bank. with the cube in front of it. and the old pepsi building on park avenue, but they have not really gone beyond that. there's a lot of effort to get the old union carbide building on park avenue done, with the chief architect was a woman, whose name i usually remember and have now forgotten. do you remember? natalie dubois. some thought given to if there are other modern buildings that are worthy of being done. so the great monuments of modernism, most of them have been designated.

the sukkony mobile building was done on the exterior. >> [indiscernible] mr. dolkart: all of rockefeller center was done in the late 1980's, i think. >> and the ge building? mr. dolkart: the ge building also in the 1980's. the ge building is a landmark. >> your comment about the singer building as being not usable commercially because it had too small a footprint struck my ear with horrible irony of the repurpose thing of that kind of thing happening to the woolworth building now. had it survived, had it been

applied to the singer building, which would have had magnificent -- mr. dolkart: i'm sure it could have. have. >> floor aparments had it survived long enough to be repurposed. mr. dolkart: i'm sure it could have been repurposed from our perspective today, but nobody was thinking about that then. living downtown? no, not at that time. and nobody would have even imagined that, unless you were an artist living in a loft. nobody would live down here. >> i'm a fan of a little building on queens boulevard in elmhurst. it was designated a landmark in 2005.

jamaica savings bank. then it was overturned by the city council. is there any process for reconsideration? >> that's a really interesting issue because the jamaica savings bank building on queens boulevard, which is a very funky, kind of vernacular modern building was turned back by the city council, and it is an issue of education because when it was turned back, one of the city council members said, "bring us buildings that look like landmarks." modern buildings did not have a lot of ornament so they could not possibly be landmarks. this was a really serious problem with modern buildings. it could be heard again. in fact, the jamaica savings bank in jamaica, the old 20th century one, i think was turned back twice by the city council before it was designated -- it could be heard again and designated. send in a letter to the landmarks commission.

let's see what happens. what bank occupies it now? >> bank of america. the building is pristine. it's beautiful. they redid the whole thing. it's nice. ms. willis: other questions? mr. dolkart: any other questions? ms. willins: i'll ask about an endorsement for another skyscraper that needs to be protected. you mentioned it at the end of your essay in the book. the books are over there, so you should be getting a book. the shelton hotel. mr. dolkart: the shelton hotel is the most conspicuous prewar skyscraper that is not designated, and i don't understand why. there's no building that was considered more important in the history of zoning them the

shelton hotel, which was generally considered the first building to use the zoning law in an expressive manner, and it's now a marriott marquis or something. it is on lexington avenue, just south of the waldorf. it is a beautiful building and so important in the history of zoning and skyscraper design. also, it was home to georgia o'keefe who loved the building and painted it several times. there are a number of really great paintings of the building that she did. unfortunately, none of her urban skyscraper paintings, which i think are her best work, are in new york collections. they are all places like lincoln, nebraska, and arkansas, or whatever. ms. willis: let's carry the flag forward for the shelton hotel and all new york landmarks, and thank andrew. [applause]

mr. dolkart: you have a reception. wine, water, books, and pretzels. you are very welcome. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2015] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] >> you are watching american history tv. follow us to keep up with the latest news. >> the last beachhead, japan. august 30, 1945. at the airport. general of the army douglas macarthur,