A Future for Madison Square's Past

MADISON SQUARE is back on the map. The map was drawn last month by the Landmarks Preservation Commission, which designated as a historic district a 10-block area around the great V formed by Broadway and Fifth Avenue, where there has been almost no new construction since the Depression.

The district boundaries embrace 96 buildings in all, from antebellum town houses to a jazzy Art Deco office tower.

At first glance, it is a motley amalgam; not the kind of cohesive cityscape found in the nearby Ladies' Mile Historic District. ''When I first came down here, I thought, 'It doesn't hang together,' '' allowed Sherida E. Paulsen, the new chairwoman of the landmarks commission. ''But then I realized, 'My God, it's intact.' ''

The question is how long the old-fashioned aura around Madison Square Park will endure. To the east and west, tall apartment towers rise on sites that would have seemed unlikely a decade ago.

City planners are trying to accommodate the push for more residential development without upsetting the existing commercial and industrial base, said Joseph B. Rose, the director of the City Planning Department. His agency is studying a possible rezoning of the area west of Fifth Avenue, now designated for manufacturing, to expand permitted uses while maintaining the physical context. ''It's one of the historic centers of the city that's really coming back into its own,'' he said.

In a sign of how attractive the area has become for development, the five-story former headquarters of the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals at 50 Madison Avenue is to be expanded into an 11-story condominium apartment building, in a project costing $10 million to $12 million. Because the developer, Samson Management, already had permits, the site was not included in the new historic district.

The project overlooks Madison Square Park, which reopened last month after a $5 million renovation, filled with artwork: taxi-shaped pavilions, a labyrinth of plastic bamboo and a miniature Japanese landscape with real snow. ''The renovation of the park is spectacular,'' said David M. Kershner, president of Samson Management. ''I draw a parallel to Bryant Park and that transformation.''

Other signs of economic investment are plain. Two office towers at 245 and 261 Fifth Avenue are being renovated, as is the Metropolitan Life Tower. The Appellate Division courthouse is undergoing exterior repairs, repointing and cleaning now that its sumptuous courtroom -- cloaked in marble, adorned by murals and topped by a broad skylight -- has been restored.

The Prince George, 14 East 28th Street, once the city's largest welfare hotel, has been handsomely renovated as subsidized, supportive housing for 416 residents.

''Tongues and Flames'' sprout from the chic-on-a-budget Gershwin Hotel, 7 East 27th Street. The polymorphous fiberglass canopies and sconces are by the Finnish artist Stefan Lindfors. Because the Gershwin is now in the historic district, the hypothetical question is irresistible: would the commission have allowed ''Tongues and Flames''? Ms. Paulsen laughed as she considered the question during a recent walking tour of the new Madison Square North Historic District, after she and two colleagues debated whether the bulbous protrusions looked more like flames or shallots.

''It's totally reversible,'' she said. ''It's fun. It's something ephemeral. But it's too bad that the building has been painted.''

Invited by the owner, Urs Jakob, to devise a way to distinguish the hotel, designed by William H. Birkmire and completed in 1905, Mr. Lindfors came up with flames. ''This hotel is always on fire,'' he wrote.

By and by, the landmarks commission may hear from the Gershwin. ''The work is not finished yet,'' said Andrea Mitsoulis, the reservations and sales manager, ''because the flames will go all the way up.''

The commission will not be reviewing the transformation of the former A.S.P.C.A. headquarters, designed by Renwick, Aspinwall & Owen and completed in 1896, which the ''AIA Guide to New York City'' described as a ''proper London club in delicately tooled limestone.''

Samson Management, owned by Arnold Goldstein and his son, Michael, could have simply demolished the old building and replaced it, Mr. Kershner said. Instead, he said, they chose ''to preserve whatever is preservable'' and blend the new and old.

Platt Byard Dovell Architects have designed the transition and addition. It will involve removing the fourth-floor exterior and cornice, which is visible from the street, and the fifth floor penthouse, which is not, and adding 20,000 square feet to create nine full-floor apartments, one of them a duplex. Work is to begin in about six months.

''We determined, after a lot of anguish, that the only way to marry these was to work the base over and create a classical base, shaft and modern cornice,'' said the architect Charles A. Platt.

Although planning for the project began in early 2000, the application for an alteration permit was not filed until April 12. It was granted the next day under the Buildings Department's self-certification program, then audited and accepted by the agency on May 17, only 12 days before the landmarks hearing, effectively taking the matter out of the commission's hands.

UNABLE to regulate the property meaningfully, the commission painstakingly drew the district boundary around it, creating a one-building notch in the 26th Street corner.

''It's a shame,'' Ms. Paulsen said, as she walked by. ''This is a gorgeous building.''

Asked why the commission did not include the building anyway, given that much of the facade was being retained, Ms. Paulsen said: ''If it's within the historic district, it looks like something we approved. It's confusing to applicants to see new work and assume that's the kind of work they can do.''

Inside, some fascinating architectural features survive, said Valerie K. Angeli, the director of public information and special projects at the A.S.P.C.A., which moved out of the building in 1950. These include a wood fireplace mantel inscribed ''Blessed Are the Merciful'' and a stairwell skylight with the letters A.S.P.C.A. in a decorative oval.

Ms. Angeli asked the developers to donate these to the A.S.P.C.A. or allow the society ''first dibs.'' No decision has been made yet, but a lawyer for Samson, Marvin B. Mitzner of Fischbein Badillo Wagner Harding, said, ''To the extent that we can, we'll try to accommodate her wishes in terms of salvaging certain artifacts.''

The exclusion of 50 Madison Avenue dismayed groups like the Historic Districts Council and the Drive to Protect the Ladies' Mile District, although both welcomed the new district, as did Danny Meyer, the proprietor of the restaurants Tabla and 11 Madison Park in the Credit Suisse First Boston building. ''It is important that the cherished architecture and history of this area be preserved,'' he told the commission.

Madison Square evolved over time from a residential enclave into an entertainment district liberally sprinkled with luxury hotels and then into a business precinct. Roger Lang of the New York Landmarks Conservancy called the new district an ''intact casebook of commercial architectural styles.'' Some of the chapters are:

*A Greco-Roman temple -- ''a little Parnassus in the sky,'' Ms. Paulsen said -- atop the Baudouine Building, 1181 Broadway, at 28th Street (Alfred Zucker, 1896).

*A sculpturally lavish Renaissance Revival tower called the St. James Building, 1133 Broadway, at 26th Street (Bruce Price, 1897) that was once an architects' colony. Price had his office there, as did Daniel H. Burnham, Aymar Embury, Henry C. Pelton and John Russell Pope.

*Broad window bays recalling the Chicago school of architecture, in the rebuilt Coleman House hotel, 1161 Broadway, at 27th Street (Maynicke & Franke, 1907).

*The deceptively sweet-looking Queen Anne cottage at 21 West 26th Street (Thomas Stent, 1881) from which the Astors ran their immense real estate empire.

*The altered but recognizable facade of one of the earliest ''French flat'' apartment houses for the middle class, 251 Fifth Avenue, at 28th Street (George B. Post, 1874).

Private preservationists wished that the district boundaries had been stretched to take in a number of already designated individual landmarks, but that would have diminished the ability of the owners to transfer their development rights.

One of three landlords who formally objected to designation was the owner of a 16,000-square-foot parking lot at 7 to 11 West 28th Street, which reaches through the block and is across 29th Street from the freshly restored Marble Collegiate Church.

The owner, identified in public records as Harvey Drucker, has received a special permit to build a below-grade parking garage. What he might build over that is not known. Robert S. Cook Jr. of De Forest & Duer, who testified on his behalf before the commission, would not comment.

Ms. Paulsen said the commission included the south half of the site in part to ensure that whatever happened, there would be continuity in the building line, instead of the 75-foot gap that now exists.

Another objection at the public hearing in May came from the Gift Building, 225 Fifth Avenue, between 26th and 27th Streets, with 150 gift, tabletop, stationery, home textile, accessory and Christmas ornament showrooms. It was designed by Francis H. Kimball and Harry E. Donnell and completed in 1907 as the Brunswick Building.

The executive director, Jon R. Hendel, said the objection has since been withdrawn. ''Once we realized we were integral to landmarking,'' he said, ''we wanted to support it 100 percent.'' He said the management is working on a master plan for storefront and window replacement, adding that there were no plans to convert the ground-level bays from showcase to retail space.

Two buildings now under renovation in the district are 245 Fifth Avenue, at 28th Street (George F. Pelham, 1927) and 261 Fifth Avenue, at 29th Street (Ely Jacques Kahn of Buchman & Kahn, 1929). They were formerly owned by Harry B. Helmsley and Irving Schneider through Investment Properties Associates and were purchased last year for $135 million by a fund controlled by Koll Bren Schreiber Realty Advisors.

The owners were neutral about the inclusion of their buildings within the new district, said Charles A. Valentino, senior vice president of Koll Bren Schreiber. ''On the negative side, it can impact improvements,'' he said. ''On the plus side, when an area is designated it highlights the area and the historical importance of it.''

Ms. Paulsen was clearly pleased on her tour to see the effort going into the restoration of the lobbies in both buildings.

''We looked at ripping out the lobbies but our recommendation was, 'Let's take advantage of what we have,' '' said Mitchell L. Konsker, an executive director of Cushman & Wakefield, the leasing agent.

Following an archaeologist's hunch, the architect Josephine Sokolski of J. C. S. Design Associates poked through the hung ceiling at No. 245 and found the original groined vaults above. These are being restored. So is the exuberant lobby at No. 261, which was compromised in the years of Helmsley ownership. For instance, the gold-leaf ceiling had been slathered with several different kinds of gold paint, said Matthew R. Astrachan, senior director of Cushman & Wakefield. Gold leaf will be reapplied.

Another little-known space awaiting rediscovery is the ballroom of the Prince George Hotel (Howard Greenley, 1905), a 48-by-100-foot hall with 18-foot coffered ceilings. Its columns are encrusted with plump cherubim, ripe fruit garlands and faces with leafy walrus mustaches.

The ballroom was a dining hall, social service office and basketball court in the 1980's when the Prince George housed 1,700 people -- four times the current population -- in notorious squalor and danger.

Today, it is closed off from the rest of the lobby, whose ornate features were restored as part of a $25 million renovation by Common Ground Community, a nonprofit organization that acquired the property in 1996. The architects were Beyer Blinder Belle.

Common Ground Community is looking for a restaurateur who would employ its residents but would like even more to see the ballroom become an event space for nonprofit organizations. ''We're sitting on a treasure,'' said Rosanne Haggerty, the executive director of Common Ground. ''But we house the homeless. We don't renovate ballrooms with the money we raise.''

The apartments are rented to single adults, working tenants with incomes between $15,000 and $30,000 and the formerly homeless. What made the lobby renovation possible was the sale of $6.5 million in historic rehabilitation tax credits.

Tax credits were also used by MetLife in its renovation of 11 Madison Avenue, now occupied by Credit Suisse First Boston, and the current work on 1 Madison Avenue, which is scheduled to be finished later this year. That building will also be substantially occupied by Credit Suisse First Boston, though MetLife will keep its headquarters there, with 32 floors in the tower. The tower stonework is being cleaned and repaired, the clock is being relighted and 1,100 windows are being replaced.

''Federal incentives can inspire owners of historic properties to do the right thing,'' said Raymond M. Pepi, president of Building Conservation Associates, the restoration consultants on the project. ''The building benefits and the city benefits.''

Through his restoration contracting company, Archa Technology, Mr. Pepi is also involved with the renovation of the courthouse of the Appellate Division, First Department, of State Supreme Court.

So are Platt Byard Dovell Architects. In fact, the project has closed a three-generation circle in the Platt family, since the model for ''Wisdom,'' an allegorical mural in the courtroom, was Eleanor Hardy Platt, Charles Platt's grandmother.

The muralist, Henry O. Walker, introduced Mr. Platt's grandparents to each other and spent time with them at an artists' colony in Cornish, N.H.

In 1968, Charles Platt's uncle, Geoffrey, found himself in the Appellate Division courtroom. As chairman of the landmarks commission, he was the defendant in a serious challenge to the new landmarks law by the trustees of Sailors' Snug Harbor on Staten Island. He happened to look around during the hearing, Charles Platt recalled, to find a very familiar face staring at him from the courtroom wall. ''He said, 'My God, there was mother and I knew everything would be all right.' ''