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Landmarks
Designation of the Emmet building at 95 Madison Avenue at 29th Street
WHEREAS, The Emmet building is located at 95 Madison Avenue at the corner of 29th Street; and
WHEREAS, This richly ornamented sixteen-story limestone and terra-cotta building, designed by Barney & Colt, was constructed between 1911 and 1912 for the prominent physician and collector Thomas Addis Emmet (1828-1919); and
WHEREAS, The design of the Emmet Building combines Early French Renaissance ornament with a Neo-Gothic vertical effect and state-of-the-art steel frame construction; and
WHEREAS, Located on a corner site and almost square in plan, the building features a tripartite articulation with heavy corner bays framing three lighter four-window-wide center bays and the three-story base is faced with Indiana limestone with Italian marble revetments accenting the column shafts with elaborate composite capitals, medieval figures surmounted by canopies, cartouches, and gargoyles providing decorative interest on the lower stories; and
WHEREAS, The upper stories are faced with terra cotta featuring a series of Gothic-inspired colonnades with clustered piers and shafts that rise unbroken from the fourth to the eleventh story, while the five-story crown is liberally encrusted with Renaissance motifs including baluster columns, elaborate cornices, foliate friezes, grotesques, console brackets, herms, and a mansard roof with stepped dormers; and
WHEREAS, The building has been minimally altered over the years and remains most of its original architectural features; and
WHEREAS, The Landmarks Preservation Commission calendared the building in December 2017 and held a hearing in February of 2018 indicating the building holds strong merits for landmark designation; and
WHEREAS, The building is located within the Madison Square North proposed Historic District Expansion that Community Board Five supports; therefore be it
RESOLVED, Community Board Five recommends support of the designation of the Emmet Building as individual landmark; and further be it
RESOLVED, Community Board Five urges the Landmarks Preservation Commission to urgently consider the Madison Square North Historic District Expansion.