Photo Flash: 18th Annual Lucy G. Moses Preservation Awards

Ruth Abram will receive the Preservation Leadership Award for founding and guiding the Lower East Side Tenement Museum and her efforts to preserve the character of the Lower East Side. Former Chief Judge Judith S. Kaye will receive the Public Leadership Award for restoring historic courthouses throughout the State. Owners, managers, architects and restorers responsible for nine outstanding preservation projects completed in 2008 will accept the awards.

This year's project award recipients are:
• 62 East Eighty Third Street
• 295 East Eighth Street
• American Irish Historical Society
• The Cathedral of St. John the Divine
• Jamaica Performing Arts Center
• Longacre Theatre
• Moynihan Station
• Poly Prep Lower School
• Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum
"The awards are a celebration of outstanding restoration projects throughout the city as well as some extraordinary individuals," said Peg Breen, President of the New York Landmarks Conservancy. "The time and care that went into completing these projects demonstrates New Yorkers' commitment to preserving the entire range of the City's architecture."

About the Lucy G. Moses Preservation Awards:
The Lucy G. Moses Preservation Awards are the Conservancy's highest honor for outstanding preservation efforts, named for a dedicated New Yorker whose generosity benefited the City for over 50 years. The Awards recognize preservation leaders, organizations, owners, builders, architects, and craftspeople that restore the beauty and utility of New York's great architecture.

About The New York Landmarks Conservancy: The New York Landmarks Conservancy is dedicated to preserving, restoring and reusing architecturally significant buildings throughout New York. Since its founding in 1973, NYLC has provided more than $35 million in grants and low-interest loans, accompanied by countless hours of hands-on technical consulting to owners of historic homes, businesses, schools, houses of worship, theaters, cultural institutions, affordable housing units and community centers. The Conservancy is a leading advocate for preservation at all levels of government.

2008 Lucy G. Moses Awards:

Manhattan
62 East 83rd Street
By the time the owners purchased this four-story Italianate row house in 2004, the original stoop and areaway had been removed and the façade had lost all original architectural ornamental details. Although the building is not a designated landmark, falling under the regulation and guidance of the Landmarks Commission, the design and construction team held themselves to that higher standard, restoring original details based on historic documentation. The scope of work includes a detailed brownstone façade and stoop that replicates the original; and a restored areaway, cornice, front door, and windows.

295 East Eighth Street
At the corner of East Eighth Street and Avenue B is the picturesque former home of the Children's Aid Society/ Tompkins Square Lodging House for Boys and Industrial School, designed by the firm of Vaux and Radford, and completed in 1887. According to the Landmarks Commission, this stunning High Victorian Gothic building "sheltered and educated destitute working children, particularly newsboys and bootblacks." The current owners provided their own time and labor to rehabilitate the interior and create a 10-unit co-op, and then took on the exterior. The façade was transformed when the multi-level slate roof and pyramidal towers were replaced, the entire brick façade cleaned and graffiti removed, and the ironwork and wood front doors restored.

American Irish Historical Society
This striking Beaux-Arts house at 991 Fifth Avenue, across the street from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, has had an illustrious history since it was built by John T. and James A. Farley in 1900-01. Its interiors were remodeled by Edith Wharton's co-author interior decorator Ogden Codman Jr. shortly after completion, and the first owner was Mary A. King. In 1940, it was purchased by the American Irish Historical Society. The AIHS has used it as its home and as a showcase for cultural programs and a repository for historical documents related to the American Irish experience. After many years of use and some refurbishments, the building required a comprehensive restoration. The brick and limestone swell-front façade and rusticated limestone base were restored; the wood windows replaced; a new exterior lighting system was installed; and, the interior restored to a museum-quality level.

The Cathedral of St. John the Divine
The Cathedral is one of the largest churches in the world, the mother church of the Episcopal Diocese of New York, and the seat of its Bishop. Construction began in 1892, with the earlier Romanesque eastern half comprising the apse and crossing designed by George Heins and John LaFarge, and a later Gothic style nave and western façade by Ralph Adams Cram. Like the great cathedrals of Europe, construction of this building will take many years, and is only partially completed. In late 2001 a six-alarm fire severely damaged the north transept, destroyed the gift shop, and filled the interior with soot and smoke. A lengthy cleaning and restoration of the interior was completed in 2008, and last November, seven years after the fire, the Bishop and the congregation celebrated the rededication of the Cathedral.

Longacre Theatre
The elaborate, stylized interior of the 1913 Longacre Theatre is one of the few interior landmarks designated by the Landmarks Preservation Commission, which called it "one of the historic theater interiors that symbolize American theater." After many years of active use, a two-year campaign was initiated to restore the lush Beaux-Arts interior to its original glamour. The work included recreation of many historic elaborate plasterwork details that had been lost to previous repairs, restoration of gilded finishes and marble surfaces, improvements to the fire safety system, modernization of the technical infrastructure on the interior, and restoration and cleaning of the French neo-Classical limestone façade.

Moynihan Station
Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan proposed turning the landmark Farley Post Office into a great train station seventeen years ago. While efforts to achieve that continue, the Empire State Development Corporation has completed a substantial restoration of the building's beautiful exterior, which is highlighted by the grand stairway and columns of its Eighth Avenue entrance. The long row of columns and elegant details have been cleaned, repaired and renovated to their former glory. The Post Office was designed by Charles McKim as a twin to the late, Beaux-Arts Pennsylvania Train Station.

Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum
Frank Lloyd Wright's masterpiece is an icon of Modern architecture, housing world-famous art and serving as a cultural landmark on the Upper East Side. While the Museum has undergone several campaigns of renovations, repairs, and additions, this was the first comprehensive conservation treatment of the envelope. Preliminary work included historic research, documentation and monitoring; while in good structural condition, the building required the removal of eleven coats of paint, infilling of exterior cracks, treatment of corroded steel structures and repair and reinforcement of the concrete. This three-year long restoration project was completed just before 2009, the Museum's 50th birthday.

Brooklyn
Poly Prep Lower School
This is the sole award for a new addition to a historic building; it is located within Brooklyn's Park Slope Historic District. This addition to the Poly Prep Country Day School, Lower School was built on a lot adjacent to the existing school building, the 1882 Romanesque Revival Hulbert Mansion on Prospect Park West. The addition houses classrooms and large indoor exercise spaces, and at 18,000 square feet, nearly doubles the School's capacity. The addition uses materials such as painted metal and limestone in a restrained palette, in sculptural forms that speak to the character of Mansion building and in asymmetrical bays and window openings that connect to the row houses of Historic District.

Queens
Jamaica Performing Arts Center
This project is an excellent example of the adaptive reuse of a religious property. The former First Reformed Church in Jamaica was built in 1858-59, designed by Sydney J. Young. The apse at the rear of the building is a 1902 addition designed by the Jamaica firm Tuthill & Higgins. The building is notable for its asymmetrical towers, round-arched window and door openings, corbelled brick work and the 16 beautiful stained glass windows. After the congregation was moved from the building in 1973 as part of the City's Central Jamaica Urban Redevelopment Project, it stood empty for 23 of the next 31 years. In 2004 the restoration and reuse process began, spearheaded by local arts and community development groups and multiple Borough Presidents. Today the exterior has been restored and the interior transformed with flexible performing arts spaces, a conference center for community use, and an outdoor performance space, in a building with a restored façade, new slate roof, and restored and new stained glass windows.

Two individuals are honored for their commitments to preservation:
Preservation Leadership Award for an Individual: Ruth Abram is the recipient of this year's Preservation Leadership Award. She is the founder and former president of the Lower East Side Tenement Museum, and the founder of the International Coalition of Sites of Conscience. The opening of the Museum at 97 Orchard Street began a twenty-year long journey of preserving the building envelope and meticulously recreating apartments once occupied by immigrants. The building is a National Trust for Historic Preservation Site; and the success of the Museum helped spark preservation of the Lower East Side, a historic district on the National Register of Historic Places. In addition to the conservation of the physical site, Ruth's leadership at the Museum fostered new ways to understand history and the preserve immigrant experiences of the far and recent past.

Preservation Leadership Award for Public Service: Honorable Judith S. Kaye is the recipient of the Public Service Award. After 15 years as the Chief Judge of the Court of Appeals, the highest court in the state, Judge Kaye recently retired. She served longer than any other chief judge in New York's history and established a national reputation for both her groundbreaking decisions and her innovative reforms of the New York Court system. In addition to occupying the State Judiciary's highest office (and being the first woman, appointed to that position by Governor Cuomo in 1993), she recognized that the State's courthouses were a representation of its judicial system and that they needed to be preserved and restored. She was responsible for the restoration of many of the State's courthouses, including the beautiful 1842 Greek Revival Court of Appeals Hall in Albany and the First Appellate Courthouse at Madison Avenue and 25th Street in Manhattan.