New York City’s Landmarks Preservation Commission voted April 7 to designate three buildings in Brooklyn and Manhattan tied to the city’s immigration history as individual landmarks, the commission’s press office announced, capping a designation process that began with a public hearing the agency had advised was scheduled in March. The commission, which titled its announcement “LPC designates three buildings in Manhattan and Brooklyn linked to New York City’s rich immigration history,” framed the action as part of its work preserving sites connected to the city’s immigrant past; the commission did not release the specific addresses in the advisory text provided to reporters, though independent coverage later identified the three sites as the Public School 15 Annex at 372 Schermerhorn Street, the Church of Saint Mary at 440 Grand Street, and the Lithuanian Alliance Building at 307 West 30th Street.
The landmark vote was one strand of a busy stretch of civic business in and around Bushwick this spring, much of it routed through Brooklyn Community Board 4, the 50-member volunteer board that serves as the neighborhood’s advisory voice on land use, the city budget and municipal services. The board, an independent city agency, holds committee meetings at its district office at 1420 Bushwick Avenue and full board meetings at the Hope Gardens Older Adult Center at 195 Linden Street, with a Zoom option requiring registration for each session, according to its newsletters.
The most consequential item on the board’s spring calendar arrived at its March 18 public hearing, where Jamar Hooks, a deputy commissioner with NYC Social Services, and Yuri Sanchez, assistant deputy commissioner for intergovernmental and legislative affairs, joined Alfredo Matthews, senior vice president of ACACIA Network Housing, to present on Rennie’s House, described in the board’s notice as a new men’s shelter in the district. The same hearing included a review by CB4 leadership of agency responses to the board’s preliminary budget register, the board said. The March meeting agenda also listed a report from Deputy Inspector Thomas Maffei, commanding officer of the 83rd Precinct, a fixture of the board’s regular sessions.
