Historic Districts Council

Voted by the American Planning Association as one of the best blocks in America: "Arthur Avenue is an exceptionally rich streetscape lined with restaurants, grocery stores, and shops promoting Italian heritage, dating back to large Italian migration starting at the turn of the 20th century. Nearly every shop is an institution, passed down through generations of families that have lived in the neighborhood. There is no better place to sample delicious bread, pasta, sausage, or espresso the Zagat Survey readers repeatedly give Best Buy status to more Arthur Avenue shops than in any other neighborhood in New York City.

Community rallies to preserve the Janta House - a site of Polish culture in Elmhurst!

"Profit-motivated private developers and their enablers in city government continue to push a narrative of class conflict that will result in damaging the neighborhood for all." Simeon Bankoff's Letter to the Editor of The New York Times about the proposed rezoning of SoHo & NoHo https://www.nytimes.com//opinion/letters/amazon-union.html

"And when you’re talking about an establishment that’s lived through Prohibition, the Depression, two world wars, and the Spanish flu, what’s six more weeks in the grand scheme of things?"

Show your support for NYC's Landmarks! https://bit.ly/supportlandmarks

Sometimes we can have nice things. Granted, it took 6 years to happen but at least it happened.

Help save the Art Deco Lobby of the McGraw-Hill Building!

The Committee on Governmental Operations will hold a hearing on Tuesday, February 23 at 10am, virtually via Zoom-Webinar regarding the following piece of legislation: Int. 2186 (Johnson), A Local Law to amend the New York city charter, in relation to requiring a comprehensive long-term plan! You are hereby invited to attend this hearing and testify therein. If you are planning on testifying live via video conferencing, please register at https://council.nyc.gov/testify/ no ...later than 24 hours before the hearing. Each person who intends on testifying live should register separately. Persons who do not register in advance will not be permitted to testify live via video conferencing. If you are interested in viewing the hearing, but do not wish to testify live, the hearing can be viewed at https://council.nyc.gov/livestream/. Written testimony may be submitted without registration by emailing it to [email protected] or via our website at https://council.nyc.gov/testify/ up to 72 hours after the close of the hearing. Thank you for your cooperation. For questions about accessibility or to request additional accommodations please contact [email protected] or [email protected] or (212) 788-6936 at least 72 hours before the hearing. All other questions should be directed to [email protected] or [email protected].

"‘The city, public officials, and developers have all built an increasingly fevered false sense of urgency that shows just how desperate they are to ram through the rezoning while the public is sidelined by the pandemic, economic crisis, and weak sauce virtual hearings.’

How many times do we need to see this happen before we change how development in NYC works? Hudson Yards was built for a buyer that’s no longer there and maybe partly a tenant that’s no longer there, and that was someone who wanted to live in Manhattan but not live in the city per se, said Richard Florida, a professor at the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management and School of Cities, referring to the development’s homogeneity and somewhat isolated location." https://www.nytimes.com//02/06/nyreg/hudson-yards-nyc.html

On Barry Lewis: "When Mr. Lewis spoke of the city’s architectural gems, Sara Cedar Miller, historian emerita of the Central Park Conservancy, wrote in an email, he could comfortably and brilliantly discuss the finer points of their style, their contributions to the architectural tradition. But more often, Ms. Miller said, that conversation would morph into the people that he met while visiting those landmarks: the doorman at the Chrysler Building, the custodian of Radio City Music Hall, the guy in the newspaper kiosk in Grand Central Station. And even when discussing a building, he would anthropomorphize them, describing a column he admired as having ‘bulging muscles.’ https://www.nytimes.com//02/02/nyreg/barry-lewis-dead.html