Three Midtown buildings up for landmarking

The Landmarks Committee of Midtown Manhattan’s Community Board 5 voted to recommend landmark status Tuesday night for three new buildings being targeted by the Landmarks Preservation Commission, according to DNAinfo. Among those on the agenda at the LPC’s Oct. 26 public hearing will be the 12-story Hotel Wolcott, on West 31st Street, between Broadway and Fifth Avenue, which was designed by Grant’s Tomb architect John Duncan, and 500 Fifth Avenue, often called the mini-Empire State Building because it was also designed by Shreve Lamb and Harmon and built at the same time. The 59-story tower has a similarly small footprint and set-backs in its structure, created to comply with zoning requirements. The third building up for landmark designation is the Neo-Renaissance Mills Hotel No. 3, a 16-story structure at 485 Seventh Avenue that was originally built to house 1,000 single men and was one of the first “light-court tenements” in the U.S., according to notes from the LPC. The vote by the community board serves as an advisory. [DNAinfo]