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Queens Pepsi-Cola Sign One Step Closer To Landmark Status
By
Emma Whitford
Published Feb 24, 2016
Modified Feb 24, 2016
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By
Emma Whitford
Published Feb 24, 2016
Modified Feb 24, 2016
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Love it or NIMBY it, the Queens Pepsi-Cola sign in Long Island City has been prioritized for landmark status, and could be officially protected in all of its corporate, neon glory before the end of the year.
Installed in 1936 on top of the long-since-demolished Queens Pepsi bottling plant, the sign has been dismantled and shifted along the Queens waterfront multiple times since the late 1990s. In 2013, a 25-story apartment tower on the Queens waterfront was partially recessed to give the sign a respectful amount of breathing room.
The 147-foot-long sign and 29 other properties and sites across the city survived a Landmarks Preservation Commission gauntlet on Tuesday afternoon. Of the 95 NYC buildings, structures, and plots of land up for consideration—some of which had been trapped in the Commission's backlog for five decades—35 were nixed. Once a site or piece of property is rejected by the LPC, it's owner is free to alter or demolish it. Those still under consideration will receive a final vote by December.
Also on track for preservation as of this week is the Bergdorf Goodman on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, the Harlem YMCA, and the IRT Powerhouse at 12th Avenue and 59th Street, which the NY Times points out is still an active Con Ed facility (the Commission apparently has plans to work closely with the company on a LPC-complaint maintenance plan.) Green-Wood Cemetery will be considered only in part, because a full designation would make it extremely difficult to "alter" the active burial site. ("You don't want to have to check with a government agency when you put in a new headstone," NY Mag architecture critic Justin Davidson told WNYC this week.)
The Coney Island pumping station, which has fallen into disrepair since it went out of commission in the 1970s, was not so lucky. According to the NY Times, 123 Lexington Avenue, the one-time home of President Chester Arthur, also didn't make the cut—in part because the lower floors had been converted into storefronts.
Davidson argued on Monday that there's certain risk to cutting down such a big backlog in just a few hours. "If you decide that you're not going to landmark something, and then later you decide that that was a mistake, that's too bad," he said.
Here's the full breakdown of sites still under consideration for designation by the end of the year:
The Bronx
675 Schofield Street
Immaculate Conception
Brooklyn
183-185 West Broadway
Williamsburg Bank/Ukrainian Church
St. Barbara’s
St. Augustine’s (as part of the Park Slope Extension)
Green-wood Cemetery (in part)
Lady Moody House
Queens
Bell House
Bowne Community Church
Pepsi Cola Sign
Staten Island
Brougham Cottage
Prince’s Bay Lighthouse
92 Harrison Street
Curtis House
St. John’s Rectory
Vanderbilt Mausoleum
Lakeman House
Manhattan
315 Broadway
Bergdorf Goodman
57 Sullivan Street
IRT Powerhouse
Excelsior Powerhouse
Alvar Aalto Rooms
St. Michael’s Church
412 East 84th Street
Harlem YMCA
Loew’s 175th Street
St. Joseph’s (125th Street)
St. Paul’s (117th Street)
Tagged
green-wood cemetery
landmarks preservation commission
pepsi-cola sign
Emma Whitford
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