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Landmarks
12-14 West 44th Street, Hotel Mansfield, proposed designation
WHEREAS, Under Section 3020.7 of the City Charter, the LPC is required to give CB5 Notice of a proposed designation:
"In order to provide an opportunity for comment, in advance of any
hearing on a proposed designation of a landmark, landmark site, interior
landmark, scenic landmark or historic district, the commission shall
send a notice of the proposed designation and the hearing to the city
planning commission, all affected community boards and the office of the
borough president in whose borough the property or district is located," and
WHEREAS, On March 22, 2012 the LPC wrote to CB5 that a hearing was to be held on March 27, 2012 that would address the proposed Designation of Hotel Mansfield as a NYC Landmark, which would not have provided CB 5 with adequate time to review and vote on this matter at its next regularly scheduled meeting, April 12, 2012; and
WHEREAS, Hotel Mansfield is a 12-story, red-brick and limestone Beaux-Arts style hotel located on the same prestigious Midtown block as the New York Yacht club, the former Yale Club, the Harvard Club, the former Mechanics' and Tradesmen's Institute, the New York Bar Association and the Algonquin hotel, all individually designated NYC Landmarks; and
WHEREAS, Built in 1902 and designed by the architects Renwick, Aspinwall & Owen who are recognized for their design of the Colonial Revival style buildings located in the New York City Farm Colony-Seaview Hospital Historic District on Staten Island, as well as for a 1904-05 addition to James Renwick, Jr.'s Smallpox Hospital on Roosevelt Island, which is an individually designated New York City Landmark; and
WHEREAS, The Hotel Mansfield features several hallmarks of the Beaux-Arts style, including a two-story rusticated limestone base; vertical ranks of copper-clad oriels; bold and over-scaled ornament such as quoins, cartouches, garlands, and swags and a heavy balcony supported on paired modillions beneath a copper cornice decorated with anthemia; the hotel is crowned by a curving mansard roof with three large segmental-arch dormers, and
WHEREAS, The hotel is now known as the Mansfield Hotel, the building is still in use as a hotel and remains an imposing presence on West 44 Street, therefore, be it
RESOLVED, Despite the fact that the LPC Public Hearing has already taken place without CB5 being given an adequate opportunity to review and vote on the proposed Designation, based on its historic, architectural and cultural significance. Community Board Five endorses the approval of Designation by LPC of Hotel Mansfield, 12 West 44 Street as an individual NYC Landmark, which is scheduled for an official vote by the Commissioners on April 10, 2012.
The above resolution passed by a vote of 37 in favor; 0 opposed; 1 abstaining.