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Landmarks
1501 Broadway, The paramount Building, an individual NYC Landmark, application to add signage to the 43rd and 44th Street elevations
At the scheduled monthly meeting of Community Board Five on Thursday, October 10, 2013, the Board passed the following resolution by a vote of 38 in favor; 0 opposed; 1 abstaining:
WHEREAS, The Paramount Building, located at 1501 Broadway in Times Square and granted Landmark status in 1985, was built in 1926-27, and has made a significant contribution to the development of the Broadway theater district; and
WHEREAS, The building was designed by the firm of Rapp & Rapp, who were among the best-known and most prolific designers of elaborate movie theaters in the 1920s; and
WHEREAS, The Paramount Building first served as the Eastern headquarters for the Famous Players-Lasky Corporation, the forerunner of Paramount Pictures; and
WHEREAS, The building's distinctive massing is exemplary of the innovative setback skyscraper type of the 1920s; and
WHEREAS, 1501 Broadway is a thirty-three story building with a clock tower and was the tallest structure on Broadway north of the Woolworth Building at the time of its completion; and
WHEREAS, The owners, Paramount Leasehold L.P., have applied to LPC to add signage to the 43rd and 44th Street elevations as follows:
A) Eleven 16 ft. X 12 ft. angled vertical banner signs, extending from downward, between windows from the 4th to the 2nd floors, on the West 43rd and 44th Street elevations;
B) Two 80 ft. wide X 10 ft., high, 6 ft. deep, LED horizontal signs to be placed at the 9th Floor brick facade, where there are no windows, on the West 43rd and 44th Street elevations; and
WHEREAS, CB5 finds that the banner signs described in A) are in keeping with the general signage program for the building which already has vertical corner signs, as well as the signage in the surrounding Times Square area; and
WHEREAS, CB5 also finds that the proposed excessively large and poorly positioned LED signs described in B) will materially detract from the facade of the Landmark visually; therefore, be it
RESOLVED, Community Board Five recommends denial of the application unless the LED signs described in B) are eliminated from the application for 1501 Broadway (43rd and 44th Streets).