More municipal buildings get landmark status

New York City’s Landmarks Preservation Commission is increasing its efforts to preserve, and grant landmark status to, historic municipal buildings, according to the New York Daily News. Recently several schools, libraries, firehouses, police precincts and park facilities – many built as Works Progress Administration projects in the 1930s –  have been studied and landmarked by the agency in order to preserve their decorative features.

Last Tuesday the LPC  gave landmark status to three firehouses: Engine Company 305/Hook & Ladder Company 151 in Forest Hills, Queens; Engine Company 41 in the Bronx; and Engine Company 83/Hook & Ladder Company 29, also in the Bronx.

“These are already landmarks with a small L,” LPC Chairman Robert Tierney said. “They serve an incredibly important role whether they are police precincts or courthouses or public schools. You want to keep them intact for the future even if they take on other uses.”

More recently erected municipal buildings often pay closer attention to function than form, according to Lloyd Ultan, the Bronx Borough Historian, which makes the older structures worth saving. The News noted that Queens preservationists are pushing for more such sites, including the Jamaica Post Office, to earn the designation [NYDN]