Nominations Represent Varied Histories Highlighting Stories Across New York State
During Women’s History Month, Several Nominations Highlight Women’s Contributions to New York State
Sites Include the Home of a Children’s Book Illustrator in Canandaigua, Industrial Buildings in Troy, and a Pioneering Women’s Residential Club for Artists in New York City
Governor Kathy Hochul today announced recommendations by the New York State Board for Historic Preservation to add 15 properties to the State and National Registers of Historic Places. The nominations include churches in North Harpersfield, industrial buildings in Troy, and the home of a children’s book illustrator in Canandaigua. During Women’s History Month, the Governor is recommending several sites tied to the stories of women in New York State, including the Three Arts Club, a pioneering women’s organization offering housing, educational, and professional opportunities to female artists in New York City.
“New York is defined by its diverse culture and history, and we are continuing efforts to preserve and protect our state’s inspiring stories,” Governor Hochul said. “During Women’s History Month, several of the sites we’re recommending for our historic registers highlight the contributions women have made to New York State – from the Three Arts Club in New York City to the former house of children’s book illustrator Eloise Wilkin. With the addition of all 15 of these sites, we are encouraging the public to learn more about our past.”
New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation Commissioner Pro Tempore Randy Simons said, “New York’s cultural and historic resources are extraordinary. They can range from large-scale manufacturing facilities to modest rural residences, but they are all tangible connections to our past. State and National Register listing is an important step to recognizing these sites. In addition to the honorific designation, the listing helps make the properties eligible for various public preservation programs and incentives, such as matching state grants and federal and state historic rehabilitation tax credits. With this support and with opportunities for investment, these resources can continue to be active spaces and contribute to the economic vitality and pride of place of their communities today.”
New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation Deputy Commissioner for Historic Preservation Daniel Mackay said, ”At the Division for Historic Preservation, we work on projects throughout the state, including designations to the State and National Registers, and we’re committed to highlighting new histories, expanding our inventory of listings, and connecting communities with resources to help preserve and promote these remarkable assets. State and National Register of Historic Places listing is the first step in connecting historic property owners with incentives and programs that will aid them in stewarding this shared history. We’re proud to be part of this work.
New York State continues to lead the nation in the use of historic tax credits, with $3.96 billion in total rehabilitation costs from 2018-2022. Since 2009, the historic tax credit program has stimulated over $13 billion in project expenditures in New York State, creating significant investment and new jobs. According to a report, between 2018-2022, the credits in New York State generated 72,918 jobs and over $1.47 billion in local, state, and federal taxes.
The State and National Registers are the official lists of buildings, structures, districts, landscapes, objects, and sites significant in the history, architecture, archaeology, and culture of New York State and the nation. There are more than 118,000 historic properties throughout the state listed on the National Register of Historic Places, either individually or as components of historic districts. Property owners, municipalities, and organizations from communities throughout the state sponsored the nominations. Once recommendations are approved by the Commissioner, who serves as the State Historic Preservation Officer, the properties are listed on the New York State Register of Historic Places and then nominated to the National Register of Historic Places, where they are reviewed by the National Park Service and, once approved, entered on the National Register. More information, with photos of the nominations, is available on the Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation website.
CAPITAL REGION
Empire Stove Works, Rensselaer County –The Empire Stove Works is a brick industrial building in the City of Troy that was constructed for the Empire Stove Company. Built in several phases, its earliest portion was constructed in 1845 on the bank of the Poestenkill creek, a tributary of the Hudson River that once provided important waterpower to early Troy industries. The Empire Stove Works produced a variety of cast-iron products, but specialized in stoves, and is generally recognized as having been the second largest stove works in Troy. The last section of the building was added in the 1880s; metalworking was conducted at the facility for nearly seventy years. Today, the building is a relatively rare survivor of the once-flourishing iron and steel industry in the South Troy neighborhood.
Fitzgerald Brothers Brewing Company Bottling Works, Rensselaer County –The Fitzgerald Brothers Brewing Company Bottling Works, located near the Hudson River north of Troy’s central business district, is a brick industrial building constructed for the Fitzgerald Brothers Brewing Company. The building consists of three distinct portions: a large barn/storage building constructed in 1892; a bottling works plant constructed in 1911; and a new bottling plant addition constructed in 1955. The Fitzgerald Brothers Company was established in 1866 and in its heyday was one of Troy’s and the region’s leading breweries, marketing its products throughout the northeast United States. It remained in operation until the early 1960s.
Graceland Cemetery Receiving Vault, Albany County – Located within the Graceland Cemetery in Albany, the receiving vault is a significant example of a mortuary building exhibiting Romanesque, Neoclassical, and Gothic style features. Built in 1902 by local civil engineer and architect Garnet Douglas Baltimore, the building is a rare example of an aboveground receiving vault with an attached chapel. Distinctive interior features include stained-glass windows with decorative metal grilles, glazed brick, ceramic and mosaic tiles, and timber-framed hammer-beam trusses. Baltimore, a life-long resident of Troy, New York, was the first African-American graduate of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (1881). His professional career included projects with railroads, the New York State Canal System, the City of Troy, and various cemeteries throughout the state; he was also an active community member who gave lectures and served on local committees.
Miller, Hall and Hartwell Shirt Collar Factory, Rensselaer County – The Miller, Hall and Hartwell Shirt Collar Factory is significant for its association with textile manufacturing in Troy, one of the city’s dominant industries during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The factory was initially constructed by Justice Miller, who engaged in a series of partnerships at other locations before constructing the south half of the factory building in 1880. The new building became Miller, Hall and Hartwell in 1884 and went on to become one of the biggest producers of shirt collars and cuffs in the city, selling its products in every state. An addition to the north in 1891 nearly doubled the size of the building, and, at the peak of production, the firm employed nearly 3,000 people – most of them women and teenage girls. Notably, Troy’s collar industry employed mostly women; they are known for being early unionizers who rallied to secure wages similar to male employees. The existence of an intact box factory, added in 1915, provides more complete documentation of how this factory functioned and is a rare surviving ancillary building from Troy’s textile industry. The buildings are also significant as representative intact examples of large-scale factory buildings in Troy. Both were built with load-bearing brick walls and heavy timber frames. The factory building is especially distinguished by its decorative combination of Italianate and Romanesque Revival style embellishment, and its northern half was designed by Edward Loth, a well-known local architect.
FINGER LAKES
Building at 216-222 South Avenue, Monroe County – This small, three-story brick building in Rochester was most recently known as the V. H. Lang Trophy Company, a business that served as the major supplier for local awards and trophies since 1957. However, prior to that, the building had a colorful history as a saloon, hotel, cigar factory, grocery, and woodworking shop. The building was originally constructed for the Hebard Marble Works ca.1865 to serve as a showroom for the products manufactured in an adjacent factory. The company was best known for producing marble monuments and grave markers, but it also made architectural elements such as fireplace mantels, columns, and decorative features for building exteriors. Recognition and rehabilitation of this canal-era building will bring attention to a largely forgotten area of the city that is now isolated by roadways.
William W. Gorham House, Ontario County – Located just beyond the Canandaigua city limits, the house is one of few remaining stone buildings from the town’s early development period. The two-story Greek Revival-style house was part of a large farm known as Oak Hill, built for a husband and wife who were descendants of Nathaniel Gorham and Jasper Parrish, the heads of two of Canandaigua’s prominent founding families. The house was built between 1826 and 1828 by local builders Malachi Lovelace and Jonathan Wells, who also built the J. A. Granger House at the corner of North Main and Gibson Streets. The house was later occupied by Major Joseph J. Kingsbury, who helped select Canandaigua as the new location for a Veteran’s Hospital, and Eloise Wilkin, an illustrator for Little Golden Books. She used one of the rooms in the house as her studio and included the house in some of her illustrations.
MID-HUDSON REGION
St. Joseph’s Parish Complex, Ulster County – Located in the heart of uptown Kingston, St. Joseph’s Parish Complex is an ecclesiastical campus erected over the course of more than a century that showcases a rich variety of architectural styles and building types designed by locally (and sometimes nationally) prominent architects. The oldest building in the complex, the church, was completed in the early 1830s for the Dutch Reformed Church. In the 1850s, it served as a concert and lecture hall—hosting Susan B. Anthony among other noted speakers—and during the Civil War it was converted into a drill hall and armory for Kingston’s Ulster Guard. Following the war, St. Joseph’s Catholic Church purchased the property and updated the building to its current appearance during a pair of building campaigns in the 1860s and 1890s. As the congregation expanded, and as adjacent lots became available, St. Joseph’s erected a series of support buildings, including the parish house (1874), a school and convent (1913), and a second school (1963).
Wallace Company Department Store, Dutchess County – Located on Main Street in downtown Poughkeepsie, the Wallace Company Department Store was constructed for a different retail establishment in 1875. In 1906 it was purchased by the Wallace Company, a subsidiary of the regional department store chain Forbes & Wallace, which reshaped it into a major anchor retail establishment in Poughkeepsie, helping to draw shoppers downtown. The building was expanded in the 1930s when the company acquired and connected it to an adjacent building that had been constructed in 1896. Further additions were made in 1946 and 1955. The Main Street façade is especially notable for its Modern redesign in 1941, when it received a covering of planar limestone panels broken by a three-story-high central window opening, transforming it into a smooth surface that served as a signboard. Today, the building remains a distinctive intact example of a nineteenth-century department store that was modernized in keeping with the new architectural trends that emerged in the 1930s.
MOHAWK VALLEY
House at 120 Balcom Road, Otsego County – The House at 120 Balcom Road, located in the hamlet of Mount Vision, embodies building characteristics brought by settlers from southern New England into Central New York during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Built ca. 1810, this is a rare example of a subtype of the traditional New England Colonial house type called the New England Large House. The two-story, five-bay form expands a single-pile two-room over two-room layout with a row of half-depth rooms spanning the rear of the house on both floors under the main roof. The house incorporates a massive center chimney and displays a roughly symmetrical exterior with influences from late Georgian and early Federal design.
NEW YORK CITY
821 Broadway, New York County – The building at 821 Broadway was designed by New York City architect Samuel Sass and completed in 1906. It is one of Sass’s most important designs. Although not well known today, the architect was a prolific designer of tenements, apartment buildings, and lofts in New York City between 1895 and 1925. Sass’s loft buildings helped give form and character to the area south of Union Square at the turn of the twentieth century when this section of Broadway and the adjacent side streets was rapidly transforming into one of Manhattan’s most important commercial districts. The building is a notable example of early twentieth-century loft design in the Romanesque Revival style, while also showing the growing influence of Classicism and the Beaux Arts. It was constructed of structural steel and faced in reddish-orange brick with accents in contrasting, light-colored limestone and terra cotta. It employs the typical tall office building form that mimicked a classical column, with a two-story base, multi-story middle section, and two-story capital. Its visual prominence is enhanced by its corner site at the angled intersection of Broadway and East 12th Street. For much of its early history, 821 Broadway was occupied by a variety of dry goods, textile, and apparel merchants, providing full-floor spaces for companies like the Gimbel Brothers department store.
Metro North Plaza, New York County – Metro North Plaza, a public housing project in East Harlem, is significant as one of several early twentieth-century public housing projects in East Harlem developed by the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) in collaboration with local community groups in an attempt to fulfill the needs of the neighborhood residents. In this case, NYCHA partnered with the local community organization Metro North Citizens’ Committee (MNCC), led by the Reverand Norman Eddy, which played an integral role in the mid-twentieth-century efforts to improve living conditions in East Harlem. Beginning in 1963, the MNCC held meetings to encourage the revitalization of this area of Harlem, later meeting with Mayor Robert F. Wagner to discuss the need for redevelopment and working with NYCHA and to discuss the buildings and site. First envisioned by community architects Whittlesey and Conklin as a group of six-story buildings, Metro North Plaza was ultimately designed by William Lescaze, a prolific Modern architect known for his efforts to create ethical urban living conditions, as three towers of different heights enclosing a courtyard designed by landscape architect M. Paul Friedberg. The period of significance is based on the dates of construction, 1971-1973.
Three Arts Club, New York County – The Three Arts Club was a pioneering women’s organization offering housing, educational, and professional opportunities to female artists in New York City. It was the first residential club in the United States for young women studying and working in the Three Arts of music, drama, and the fine arts. The club was founded in 1903 by Deaconess Jane Harris Hall. It grew from a group of five women living in an apartment on West 56th Street to a leading organization that housed over 150 young women and served as a gathering place for hundreds of non-resident members. The clubhouse building at 340 West 85th Street was completed in 1927 and was designed by architect George Bruno de Gersdorff. Its arts-related spaces included a ground-floor auditorium that could be used for both music recitals and theatrical performances, and a rooftop painting studio. Women artists lived in single-occupancy bedrooms; accommodations were modest and included a single bed, a small desk, a wall shelf, and a mirror. Shared facilities included a library and reception room on the ground floor, a third-floor sitting room, a basement dining room, and communal bathrooms on each of the upper floors. The Three Arts Club in New York City inspired at least ten similar organizations throughout the county, including clubs in Cincinnati, Philadelphia, Chicago, and Los Angeles, as well as an international location in London. While the club closed in 1952, its clubhouse building remains remarkably intact.
NORTH COUNTRY
St. Lawrence County Government Center, St. Lawrence County – This complex of government buildings is located in Canton, the county seat of St. Lawrence County. From its establishment in 1828 to today, the St. Lawrence Government Complex has played a critical role in administering the essential legal and administrative duties required for the village, town, and county government to function. In particular, the continuous presence of a jail on the site proved to be an integral part of keeping the county seat in Canton. The complex is also important both socially and economically to Canton’s downtown core. Despite numerous fires, the complex is notable for a number of surviving and rebuilt buildings that reflect the county’s increased need for services as local industries attracted settlers. Built of regionally sourced stone, the building’s Richardsonian Romanesque elements exemplify the wider popularity of this architectural style as a means of conveying governmental endurance and formidability.
SOUTHERN TIER
North Harpersfield Churches, Delaware County – The Methodist Episcopal Church and the Free Church were both built in 1857 directly across the road from each other in the small hamlet of North Harpersfield. Each one was built in a different style of architecture that reflected its doctrinal orientation. The local Methodist Episcopal congregation built its church using the traditional Greek Revival form and embellishment that characterized most traditional Protestant churches in the region at mid-century, while a small faction broke from the Methodist congregation to build a Free Church in a distinctive Gothic Revival style that would be available to “any and all religious denominations.” The Methodist church was later modified with late Victorian decorative details and additions that reflect changes in Protestant church worship near the end of the nineteenth century. The nomination also includes a rare surviving example of a mid-nineteenth-century wagon shed.
WESTERN NEW YORK
Tatler Club, Niagara County – The Tatler Club formed in 1925 in Niagara Falls as a philanthropic, social reform, educational, and women’s rights organization. The club was part of the national Women’s Club Movement, which started in the late 1860s and continued through the 1920s, providing a platform for women to express opinions, exchange ideas, take progressive community action, and hold leadership roles unconstrained by male influence or interference. Founded with the mission of educational enrichment and the discussion of social problems relevant to members, prominent national and international speakers were regularly invited to present programs at the club, covering important topics such as capital punishment, women’s rights locally and abroad, socialism, and women in the workplace. In 1956, the Tatler Club purchased the former residence of Alice and Peter A. Porter, at 6 Fourth Street, which had been constructed in 1876, and remodeled the building to meet the needs of the organization while also preserving its historic fabric. The Tatler Club continues to operate today, continuing the legacy of education, enrichment, and community engagement.
The New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation oversees more than 250 parks, historic sites, recreational trails, golf courses, boat launches and more, which saw a record 84 million visits in 2023. For more information on any of these recreation areas, visit parks.ny.gov, download the free NY State Parks Explorer app or call 518.474.0456. Join us in celebrating our Centennial throughout 2024, and connect with us on Facebook, Instagram, X (formerly Twitter), and the OPRHP Blog.
MARCH 14, 2024 NY State Governor Kathy Hochul Albany, NY
Source: NY.gov – Midtown Tribune news
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