Watch-Blog
It’s a Fantastic, Plastic World at Apthorp Cleaners
by Sarah McCullyAt first glance, the green awning and deep inset door of Apthorp Cleaners on 383 Amsterdam Avenue look like any other storefront. But venture closer, and you’ll find yourself in for a whimsical surprise. Behind the glass of the display windows lies a...
Dive Bars Where Patrons are Considered Family
By Claudie Benjamin Just one of many stories Lee Seinfeld has to tell about his four Upper West Side Bars, captures the neighborhood/family environment that attracts patrons month after month and year after year. Chatting while driving with his wife, Mary Ellen, he...
Ice Cream Makes the World a Sweeter Place
By Claudie Benjamin Savor a sugar cone filled with a large scoop of Blue Marble Ice Cream. You may not be aware that you’re enjoying a very blue, peanut butter, and marshmallow crème-streaked edible abstraction of the view of the earth from outer space. Not only that,...
Keeping an Awesome Architectural Treasure Intact
By Claudie Benjamin Architect Kevin Bone says grand old buildings “are like aging people who find they need more and a greater variety of health care as time goes by.” Hard to be grander than the Manhasset, a beaux-arts style that takes up the frontage on Broadway...
Building Sites with LGBT Connections
By Claudie Benjamin They had all been students at Columbia University’s historic preservation program. And, today Jay Shockley, Ken Lustbader, Andrew Dolkart, and Amanda Davis are all notables in the field of historic preservation scholarship. As founders in 2015 of...
Bringing Imaginative LGBT Books to Press
By Claudie Benjamin Put on your to-read list FRIGHTEN THE HORSES by Oliver Radclyffe, to be published by Roxane Gay Books/Grove Atlantic sometime next year. Oliver’s agent Malaga Baldi counts this memoir among the finest, most exciting, perceptive books she’s helped...
The Endurance of West Park Presbyterian
PEW! That was one long hearing! Following an updated presentation by the Presbytery and their team of Consultants, which responded to prior commissioner inquiries, the Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) shelved much of their scheduled agenda and even skipped...
Power of LGBT Representation
By Claudie Benjamin Among the best-known Muppets on Sesame Street were Big Bird, Oscar the Grouch, Ernie, Bert, Cookie Monster, Grover, and Elmo. From when she was a very young girl, Amanda Davis loved the world of Jim Henson and his company. “Jim Henson was my hero,”...
Casual Sex, Community, Entertainment and LGBT Activism
By Claudie Benjamin Historic preservationist Ken Lustbader is known as “a pop culture maverick” among his fellow colleagues leading the NYC LGBT Historic Sites Project. Why? Because among them, an essential area of his expertise is the city’s LGBT cultural and social...
West Harlem Preservation Conference
“Harlem and the Future 2: Preserving Culture & Sustaining Historic Character in a Changing Environment” will discuss the current state of housing, neighborhood character, cultural identity, and houses of worship in a changing environment of city policies,...
