Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation

March 12, 2009

For Release: Immediate
Press Contact:
Eileen Larrabee
Dan Keefe
518.486.1868

State Board Recommends 32 Nominations for State & National Registers of Historic Places

The New York State Board for Historic Preservation recommended the addition of 32 properties to the State and National Registers of Historic Places. Property owners, municipalities and organizations from communities throughout the state sponsored the nominations.

"From urban office towers and factories to rural cemeteries and hillside retreats, these nominations reflect New York's distinctive history," said Carol Ash, Commissioner of the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation. "Recognizing these landmarks will help us to preserve, appreciate and understand New York's unique past."

Listing these properties on the State and National Registers can assist their owners in revitalizing the structures. Listing will make them eligible for various public preservation programs and services, such as matching state grants and federal historic rehabilitation tax credits.

The State and National Registers are the official lists of buildings, structures, districts, landscapes, objects and sites significant in the history, architecture, archeology and culture of New York State and the nation. There are nearly 90,000 historic buildings, structures and sites throughout the state listed on the National Register of Historic Places, individually or as components of historic districts.

Once the recommendations are approved by 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 and, once approved, entered on the National Register.

STATE REVIEW BOARD RECOMMENDATIONS

Albany County

1. Peltier House, Cohoes - an intact large-scale Queen Anne/Eastlake home, built for a prominent physician who served a large population of his fellow French-Canadian immigrants in the late 19th century.

2. Norman's Vale (Nott House), Guilderland - a 1786 Federal/Colonial Revival home.

3. New Scotland Presbyterian Church & Cemetery, Slingerlands - a rural church built in 1849.

Cayuga County

4. Hutchinson Homestead, Cayuga - a 1910 center hall Colonial Revival.

Chautauqua County

. Dunkirk Schooner Site, Dunkirk - a Lake Erie shipwreck site.

Chenango County

6. Holden B. Mathewson House, South Otselic - a large Colonial Revival built in 1908-09.

7. Eaton Family Residence/Jewish Center of Norwich, Norwich - a highly intact example of a 1914 Colonial Revival residence.

Columbia County

8. Conyn-Van Rensselaer House, Claverack - a pre-Revolutionary War dwelling melding Dutch and English building styles.

9. St. John's Lutheran Church, Ancram - an 1847 rural church, later parsonage and horse sheds, and a 1910 church hall.

10. Pratt Homestead, Spencertown - built around 1760 by a founding family of Spencertown, the ornate home retains a high degree of historic integrity.

Cortland County

11. Stage Coach Inn/Royal Johnson House, Marathon - the first house built by European-Americans in the town of Lapeer has served as a stagecoach stop, post office and dance hall.

Erie County

12. E.&B. Holmes Machinery Company Building, Buffalo - an example of industrial architecture once common along the urban areas of the Erie Canal during the mid-19th and early 20th centuries, of which few remain in Buffalo's Old First Ward section.

Herkimer County

13. Masonic Temple, Newport Lodge No.455, Newport - a 1902 Neoclassical structure is a significant and intact example of a large fraternal headquarters.

Kings County

14. Beth-El Jewish Center of Flatbush, Brooklyn - a 1927 synagogue and 1954 school building.

Livingston County

15. Sweet Briar, Geneseo - a country estate built in 1896.

Madison County

16. Chittenango Pottery, Chittenango - two 1898-99 brick structures are the only existing buildings that reflect the heritage of the Erie Canal in the Chittenango area.

Monroe County

17. Lake View Cemetery, Brockport - a fine example of the 19th century rural cemetery movement.

Montgomery County

18. Chalmers Knitting Mill, Amsterdam - the last major knitting mill built in Amsterdam, beginning in 1913.

New York County

19. New York Telephone Co. Building, Manhattan - a 32-story Financial District structure, built between 1923 and 1927, recognized as the first American Art Deco-style skyscraper, which has been associated with the communications industry throughout its history, and narrowly survived the 2001 terrorist attack on the World Trade Center.

20. Park and Tilford Building, Manhattan - built in 1907 for an early grocery store chain. Niagara County

21. 8 Berkley Drive, Lockport - a 1957 Prairie-style home designed by noted regional architect Duane Lyman.

Oneida County

22. First United Methodist Church, Rome - an 1868 Italianate-inspired church.

23. Edward W. Stanley Recreation Center, Clinton - an ice arena central to the life of the community.

Onondaga County

24. Louis Will House, Syracuse - 1885 Queen Anne home of a Progressive Party mayor of Syracuse.

25. C.G. Meaker Warehouse, Syracuse - a 1930 warehouse on Erie Boulevard reflective of the city's industrial history.

Orange County

26. Stone Arch Bridges of Cornwall-on-Hudson - a number of single-arch bridges built between 1800 and 1940.

27. Balmville Cemetery, Balmville - a cemetery that contains approximately 115 graves from the early 19th century.

Oswego County

28. Dr. Charles M. Lee House, Fulton - a Greek Revival home of the doctor who help found the first public hospital in Fulton.

29. Little Stone House, Mexico - one of the earliest small industrial buildings in Mexico built in the late 1830s.

Richmond County

30. Jacques Marchais Center of Tibetan Art, Staten Island - built in the model of a Himalayan mountain monastery by its namesake, an expert on Tibetan art and culture, where she amassed one of the finest collections of Tibetan and Himalayan art in the early 20th century.

Suffolk County

31. William Cauldwell House, Noyac, Southampton - an 1892 seasonal cottage of a noted politician and editor/publisher.

Westchester County

32. Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, Sleepy Hollow - an important representation of a mid-19th century rural cemetery that was the brainchild of author Washington Irving, who is buried there along with other notable figures such as Brooke Astor, Andrew Carnegie, Walter Chrysler and Samuel Gompers.