The city’s Landmarks Preservation Commission granted landmark status to three firehouses, two hotels and a former bank in a vote today. All the buildings date from a period of rapid growth in the city, shortly after the consolidation of the five boroughs at the start of the 20th century.
The two hotels named landmarks are the Martha Washington Hotel at 30 East 30th Street and the Mansfield Hotel at 12 West 44th Street.
The 12-story Martha Washington Hotel, now owned by the Chetrit-funded boutique hotel chain, King & Grove, was originally known as “the Women’s Hotel,” and served as an apartment for working women between 1903 and 1998. It once was the headquarters of the Women’s Suffrage Council.
The Hotel Mansfield was originally designed in 1902 by Renwick, Aspinwall & Owen, a successor firm to the one established by James Renwick, Jr., the architect of well-known sites such as St. Patrick’s Cathedral, and Grace Church among others.
The three firehouse named landmarks remain in use today: Engine Company 41 at 330 East 150th Street in the Bronx; Engine Company 83 at 618 East 138th Street, also in the Bronx; and Engine Company 304 at 111-02 Queens Boulevard in Queens.
The former Yorkville Bank Building at 1511 Third Avenue was also named a landmark.
“All these buildings illustrate how far New York City had come by the start of the 20th century and signaled the promising direction in which it was headed,” LPC Chairman Robert Tierney said in a statement. — Andrea Cetra