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Landmark West

Name: Landmark West
Address: 45 W 67th Street, New York, NY, 10023, US
Telephone: (212) 496-8110
Price range: Not applicable
Rating: 3.1

An architecture & culture non-profit doing education, research & advocacy on the Upper West Side.

12/10/2024

*APOLOGIES, THIS EVENT HAS BEEN CANCELLED. Due to a health issue, this event has been canceled and will hopefully be rescheduled in the new year. *

The year is coming to a close, but LW! has one more fantastic talk from one of everyone's favorites: Tom Miller (aka the Daytonian in Manhattan blogger).

He'll take us (virtually) along West End Avenue to locate the refined 19th century rowhouses hiding in plain sight between the impressive 20th century apartment buildings that replaced so many of them.

Don’t miss this special online tour of West End Ave’s beloved and literally low-profile holdouts.

As always, Miller will share from his trove of deeply researched historic photos and much more to tell the stories past and present of these unique buildings. Join us on Zoom tomorrow at 6 pm! Get your tickets here: https://landmarkwest.ticketspice.com/stubborn-survivors-the-holdouts-of-wea

12/09/2024

The holiday spirit has hit the Upper West Side! We couldn't resist a visit to the tree stand on the corner of Columbus & 67th to brighten up this dreary winter day. A festive friend even accompanied us back to the office!

What are your favorite neighborhood holiday decorations?

12/05/2024

TCLF released their annual Landslide report and this year they're focusing on sites of demonstration in U.S. history. Landslide 2024: Demonstration Grounds, a thematic report and digital exhibition, highlights 13 stories of protest that could be forgotten from public memory.
There are 2 NYC sites on the list; has a site recognizing the efforts to save Washington Square Park from irreparable change. Landmark West! was involved in the consultation and research process for one of the entries, the West 67th Street Adventure Playground.
On April 17th, 1956, more than fifty Upper West Side mothers, children, “small dogs, and several outraged babies in carriages” marched into Central Park to defend a wooded play area near West 67th Street against a bulldozer and a willful Robert Moses, the Parks Commissioner.
The Mothers staged a week-long sit-down protest to stop Moses and his forces from tearing up the play area to build an 80-car parking lot for Tavern-on-the-Green. READ MORE on TCLF's website and on our blog! Link in bio.

12/04/2024

in 1909, Amsterdam News was founded in by James H. Anderson. The publication has been among the leading Black weekly newspapers in the country for more than a century. Although it formally began in Harlem, its founder Anderson lived in San Juan Hill, now Lincoln Square.
Amsterdam News was named after Anderson's time living in this neighborhood on the Upper West Side. It was from his basement at 132 West 65th Street that he first began to write articles covering hyper local issues and African American life and interest.
San Juan Hill was the predecessor for what Harlem would become as Black artists and musicians would move uptown. Anderson was actively involved in all community affairs. The popularity of the newspaper prompted Anderson to relocate to 135th St in Harlem

Anderson sold the paper in 1926 and a succession of owners followed. Amsterdam News still operates out of Harlem today. Read more about this historic newspaper and its founder on our San Juan Hill page on our website. Link in bio.
Image: 132 West 65th Street via The New York Municipal Archive.

12/03/2024

It's ! That means it's the most generous day of the year, when neighbors and friends like you support the organizations and causes that mean the most to you. Here at Landmark West!, we depend on your support to maintain our work all year round, from our research into Upper West Side buildings to our youth education programs, which are always free for public schools. This year more than most, we see the importance of community advocacy work to ensure that our neighborhood's history and character is honored. Please consider becoming a member today, or even renewing or increasing your current support! www.landmarkwest.org/membership

11/28/2024

Happy Thanksgiving from all of us at Landmark West! This year, we are thankful for all our wonderful neighbors and members who support our education, research, and advocacy work all year round. Wherever you are this year, we hope you have a restful day.

11/26/2024

We are so thrilled to announce that we were awarded a FY25 grant from New York State Council on the Arts for our upcoming year of programming! Landmark West! has been lucky enough to partner with NYSCA for many years now, and are so proud to be part of an exciting cohort of artists, non-profits, and community groups doing exciting work all across New York State.

You can learn more about NYSCA on their website: https://arts.ny.gov/

11/18/2024

in 1824, the Union major general Franz Sigel was born. Many years later, Riverside Park would dedicate this statue in his honor.

Sigel was originally from the Grand Duchy of Baden, which would later become part of Germany. He immigrated to the US in 1852, where he later joined the 3rd Missouri Infantry, fighting for the Union in the Civil War. He moved to New York City in 1867, where he taught in our public schools and established a career in journalism and politics. He was a very influential leader within the German-American community at the time.

This bronze statue was commissioned in 1904 and dedicated 3 years later, in October 1907. It was a gift to the City of New York from the Sigel Monument Association and the artist designed it to be seen by viewers from the base of the stairs, at street-level, and even on boats traversing the Hudson River. In 1941, Sigel’s bronze sword was dislodged and reattached by Parks crews, and was later removed to storage for safekeeping. Following conservation of the sculpture in 2004 by the Citywide Monuments Conservation Program—that included the reattachment of the long-salvaged sword—an endowment was established with Riverside Park Fund in memory of Thelma and Alex Schwarz to provide for the monument’s care in perpetuity.

Learn more in our public art survey here: https://www.landmarkwest.org/public-art-survey/general-franz-sigel/

11/12/2024

in 1815, the famous suffragette Elizabeth Cady Stanton was born. The activist was famous for her work in women's rights and abolitionism, and spent her final years living in an apartment building on the northeast corner of Broadway and 94th Street.

That Victorian residential building was known as the Stuart Apartment House, but it did not survive long in the 20th Century. In 1925, it was replaced with a neo-Renaissance building designed by the Sugarman & Berger architectural firm.

Stanton herself did not live to see the fruits of her life's most notable pursuit. The 19th Amendment, which guaranteed women's rights to vote, did not pass until 1920, 18 years after she passed away in her home here on 94th Street. Residents of this replacement building later honored her life on the Upper West Side when they voted in 2008 to name the building after her. Ever since, it has been known as The Stanton.

You can learn more about the building here: https://www.landmarkwest.org/theboulevard/2511-broadway/

11/07/2024

Happy ! Today we're admiring the fall splendor of 245 West 71st Street, a Neo-Grec rowhouse built between 1885 and 1886. Architect John H. Steinmetz designed this beauty, which lies in the West End-Collegiate Historic District Extension today. What are your favorite festive decoration in the neighborhood right now?

https://www.landmarkwest.org/building/245-west-71st-street/

11/06/2024

We love seeing the next generation of architects in action! Here at P.S. 163, 1st and 2nd graders create new brownstones and other neighborhood buildings while exploring the architecture and history of our neighborhood.

The school year is well underway, and so is our popular series of youth education programs! Head to our website to learn more about how you can bring Keeping the Past for the Future to your classroom.

https://www.landmarkwest.org/teachers-portal/

11/04/2024

Arabella Huntington is the real-life woman behind the character Sylvia Chamberlain in HBO’s television series The Gilded Age. Arabella was once considered the richest woman in America, thanks to her two railway titan husbands, Collis Huntington and his nephew (!) Henry Huntington. You've likely heard of the mansion and gardens Henry built--now known as the Huntington Library, Art Museum and Botanical Gardens in San Marino, California. But did you know they were designed to lure Arabella to him in the west?

Arabella was ardently self-educated in languages, history and art. She may have risen to great heights, but she started somewhere far different. As she made her way up through the most elite societies of New York and Europe, she strove to hide her roots and scandalous past and forge a new identity as a lady of the finest breeding. While Arabella may have intentionally buried details of her early life, our speaker Lynn Byrne has done some impressive digging.

She'll introduce us to the true Arabella Huntington, the role of the mysterious John Worsham in her life, and the tale of two husbands. A period room at the Metropolitan Museum (hers had been the largest single family home in Manhattan) provides further clues to Arabella’s identity, reminding us that real people with real lives once lived in those rooms now on display.

We'll also learn whether one of Arabella's greatest desires ever came true: was the Gilded Age's wealthiest woman ever received by Mrs. Vanderbilt and Mrs. Astor? Join us on Nov. 13 to find out! Get your tickets here: https://landmarkwest.ticketspice.com/arabella-huntington

11/01/2024

October is officially over! Thank you so much for following along with our annual series highlighting the stories of demolished and haunted buildings on the Upper West Side. If you enjoyed the journey with us and want to support our year-round research, education, and advocacy work, consider becoming a member today. Head to www.landmarkwest.org/membership to learn more!

10/31/2024

All month long, we’ve explored the ghosts and goblins of the Upper West Side. From haunted hospitals to lost mansions, our neighborhood has no shortage of spooky stories to tell. We have one final story for you today, of the building that might just become the neighborhood’s next ghost.

In 1898 architect Christian Steinmetz received commissions for two apartment buildings that would engulf the eastern blockfront of Broadway between 96th and 97th Streets. The southern building, called the Metropolitan, cost $200,000 to construct—well over $7 million today. Completed in 1899, the seven-story building included a two-story stone base with stores. The upper floors were faced in beige Roman brick and trimmed in limestone.

The initial, affluent residents of the Metropolitan included theatrical manager Myron B. Rice. Rice had been manager of the Grand Opera House on 23rd Street and Eighth Avenue, and would remain here until his death in January 1918. Playwright and author Edward Henry Peple lived in the Metropolitan by 1907 and would stay at least through 1915. By then, organist and composer Bruno Siegfried Huhn was a resident. Born in London in 1871, he had toured throughout Europe, Egypt, Australia, and India before settling in New York in 1891.

A renovation completed in 1963 downsized the apartments. It was apparently at this time that the name was changed to The Wollaston (it would be renamed once more, to The Ancott). The corner store was home to the Bargain Corner, a discount clothing store until a Citibank Branch opened around 1979. For more than a decade the West Side Discount Bicycle shop was in the 96th Street space, followed by Trek bicycle store.

Both of these storefronts are now empty, as the building’s owner filed permits for demolition in July. Of its 27 residential units, only 2 are still occupied as the developers move forward. No plan or timeline has been announced, however; only time will tell the ultimate fate of this building.

Thank you for joining us all October long as we shared ghost stories and tales of buildings past and present. Happy Halloween!

10/30/2024

Quoth the Raven: are you ready for the penultimate ghostly building in our October series? Let’s dive into the sordid past of the most famous horror writer in history: Edgar Allen Poe.

The UWS was once a rural heartland filled with farmland, country estates, and rocky outcroppings. In the early 19th century, halfway between the Hudson River and old Bloomingdale Road (now Broadway), where 84th St. stretches today, was a farmhouse. Rumors abounded; locals claimed that George Washington used it as a headquarters during the Revolutionary War.

In 1830, the 213 acre property was purchased by Patrick and Mary Brennan, who rented rooms in 1844 to 3 boarders: Mary Clemm, her daughter Virginia, and Virginia’s husband. Her husband was, of course, Edgar Allen Poe. By this time, Virginia’s health was very grim indeed; she suffered from tuberculosis, a prognosis that caused Poe unending grief and frequently found its way into his writing. The trio stayed in this house for two years until they moved north to the Bronx as Virginia continued to decline. She died there in 1847.

According to Brennan family accounts, Poe wrote frequently while living in this farmhouse. “The Raven,” his eerie narrative poem now considered one of his most famous works, was mostly likely written during this time. In the poem, the narrator laments the loss of Lenore, whom many scholars have noted as a reflection of his growing grief about Virginia’s fatal illness. Was the character’s frightening descent into madness more than just a fiction? Even more startling, the Brennan farmhouse had a small plaster bust of the goddess Athena nailed above the doorway to Poe’s rented room. Such a bust of Pallas features prominently in the poem, as the perch of the ominous Raven itself.

Decades after the Poes’ departure, the modern world caught up with the Brennan farmhouse. The home was demolished in 1888 when the city’s grid pattern expanded north. The rocky hill it sat on was leveled, leaving no trace of the legendary farmhouse behind.

Join us tomorrow, Halloween, for one final spooky story. You can always visit our website, www.landmarkwest.org, for more resources and research into the Upper West Side's lost stories.

10/29/2024

Do you feel that chill in the air? Halloween is coming, and the ghosts and goblins of the Upper West Side have begun to assemble! Join us tomorrow evening for a very special, spooky event inspired by our annual social media series!

Landmark West! celebrates this ghoulie-filled time of year by exploring ghost and ghostly stories from across our neighborhood. Listen to the whispers of any Upper West Side gargoyle and you'll soon learn that our historic blocks hide countless shadowy stories, from haunted hallways to Revolutionary mansions and post-modern phantoms. And of course the specter of demolished buildings is always there, haunting us. LW!'s own Sarah McCully is our guide to the neighborhood's nether world. We'll be wearing our costumes on-camera - you're invited to, too, for this fun and spooky evening unearthing the neighborhood’s necrology, its iconic lost buildings and more than a few haunted houses. Who knows? One just might be your own...

Join us tomorrow at 6 on Zoom! Get your tickets here: https://landmarkwest.ticketspice.com/ghostly-uws

10/29/2024

It’s finally time for the most haunted building in New York City: the Dakota. The iconic apartment building, which lies on Central Park West and 72nd Street, was built between 1880-1884 by Henry Janeway Hardenberg. At that time, the Upper West Side remained a sparsely populated enclave north of the city, and the Dakota was one of the earliest luxury structures luring New Yorkers uptown.

The building has a primarily German Renaissance style, but with lots of French influences. The high gables, dormer windows, balconies, bulstrodes, and terracotta decorations give it a distinctly European flair. Every apartment inside has a different layout, all surrounding a square courtyard.

But its beautiful architecture is not the only explanation for the Dakota’s iconic place in New York’s imagination. If you believe the stories, it has more spirits than any other building in the city. There are reports of ghostly children roaming the halls, including a little boy who paces up and down one particular stretch, and a girl wearing a yellow taffeta dress and bounding a red ball. She has happily declared it to be her “birthday” to surprised residents. More eerily, a construction worker in the 60s reported the vision of a grown man with a little boy’s face, staring. If you are unlucky enough to find yourself in the basement, a hotspot for such stories, be prepared to dodge a heavy shovel flying off the walls at you, or the sight of the developer Edward Cabot Clark’s ghost, as building workers have experienced.

The Dakota’s most famous spectral presence is surely John Lennon, the Beatles legend who was murdered in the building’s entrance in 1980. His wife Yoko Ono still lives in the building, and reported the vision of her late husband playing the piano in their home. He turned to her and, touchingly, spoke to her: “Don’t be afraid, I am still with you.”

Every day in October, we are highlighting haunted or "ghost" buildings on the Upper West Side. Check back tomorrow and every day this month for more spooky stories! You can always visit our website, www.landmarkwest.org, for more resources and research into the Upper West Side's lost stories.

Address

45 W 67th Street
New York, NY
10023

Opening Hours

Monday	9am - 6pm
Tuesday	9am - 6pm
Wednesday	9am - 6pm
Thursday	9am - 6pm
Friday	9am - 6pm

Telephone

(212) 496-8110

Website

http://www.landmarkwest.org/, https://linktr.ee/landmarkwest

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