Great cities have thriving downtowns, where the entire community can partake in joyful and affordable cultural experiences. That is why it is so exciting that San Jose, the national Levitt Foundation and Friends of Levitt Pavilion San Jose have a formal partnership to bring a state-of-the-art performance venue to St. James Park. After 13 years of dreaming, designing and extensive community input, this vision now has momentum to become reality.
The Zaharakako decorated their emporium in a grand turn-of-the-century style with two onyx soda fountains, a Tiffany-like lamp, a 50-foot mahogany backbar, intricate wood and brass works, and an Italian marble counter. At some point, the brothers expanded their sweet offerings to soda water (an innovation at the time) flavored with syrups and ice cream cones. One of their prized acquisitions - and clientele favorite - was a 1908 Welte Orchestrion, a self-playing organ, similar to a player piano, that imitates a several-piece orchestra.
Though the front of the house is original, successive add-ons over the years caused the home to feel increasingly disjointed, and its early character became harder and harder to discern. "It was as if there were extensions added on with no master plan and no thought process as to the flow of the property," explains Moore. "And so everywhere you went, there was a jog, a dip, a step up, a step down, a step up. There was no connection point."
Those structures are - or were - earthquake shacks, also known as earthquake cottages or refugee cottages. With the help of the Army, the city built the shacks in the wake of the 1906 earthquake, which left 225,000 San Franciscans without homes. They placed the tiny, one-room cottages in city parks, and residents whose homes had been destroyed paid $2 a month to live in them. At one point, more than 16,000 people lived in the shacks - approximately three for every 250-square-foot dwelling.
New interior renders released by Studio Sofield - the firm responsible for the interiors of SHoP Architects' ultra-thin tower at 111 West 57th Street - reveal how the triangular icon is being reshaped from office spaces into a collection of homes. While the 1903-built structure is shaped strongly by its site and steel frame, its tapering geometry guides the plan of each unit.
Long before Orange County became known for Disneyland or surfing, the area was the agricultural heart of Southern California. The local economy hinged on cattle ranching and citrus growing-cowboys weren't an uncommon sight, and adobe homes once lined the streets. It may be hard to imagine the county's idyllic past, but that history is actually alive and well in San Juan Capistrano, a small town near the county's southern border.
The San Francisco Office of the Chief Medical Examiner sought the public's help in identifying a man who was found deceased in front of 131 10th Street. The man, described as around 30 years old, with red hair and distinctive facial freckles, was identified Monday with the help of media attention on the case, but his identity has not been released. [KRON4]
In a city of about 120,000 residents, it takes only about 50 to trigger the process. If that designation is issued on the grounds that the site has some historic value, future attempts to alter the property become much more challenging. It's a tool councilmembers and housing advocates say has been weaponized to prevent or delay housing development in the city.
Trump mused this week to Fox News Host Laura Ingraham about his plan to repaint the Eisenhower Executive Office Building completely white. So, you know it was always considered an ugly building, Trump said. But it's actually one of the most beautiful buildings ever built. Trump produced a mock-up of the building saying, Look at that. How beautiful that is with a coat of paint.
"Everything was blue underneath, from floor to ceiling," says vintage dealer Robert Ropertz. It's just the kind of surprise one encounters when scraping through layers of paint and wallpaper in an 1865 building. Then, there's the crooked floors, crumbling clay plaster, and leaky roofs, all of which illustrator Andrea Weber and Ropertz, who is also a painter and preservationist, took in stride.
This therapist unlocked a piece of history. Construction crews working on a refreshed storefront for a Brooklyn psychotherapy office discovered stunning, century-old stained glass that offers a sneak peek into Greenpoint's past. "I was totally blown away. It's a huge unexpected gift," Karen G. Costa, who has rented Brooklyn Psychotherapy's office at 705 Manhattan Ave. for years, told The Post. "I almost cried."
New Yorkers love a historic landmark, and College Point's Poppenhusen Institute has always been one of those gems that locals know is special. Now, the 1868 structure-already listed on the National Register of Historic Places and protected as a city landmark-has emerged from a $6.2 million restoration. The city unveiled the completed restoration at a ribbon-cutting ceremony this week, marking the latest milestone in an ongoing, multi-phase effort to preserve one of Queens' most significant cultural hubs.
SANTA CRUZ - For years, the San Lorenzo River mouth surf break in Santa Cruz has been celebrated by local surfers and history buffs as the location where surfing was first introduced to the continental United States more than a century ago. On Friday, state authorities stepped in to make that recognition official. The California Historical Resource Commission unanimously agreed to designate the Three Princes' Surf Site at the San Lorenzo River mouth as a California Historical Landmark. The application process was spearheaded by California State Parks but came after at least a decade of advocacy work among local community members and surfers.
The last we'd heard of the beloved and historic Land's End restaurant the Cliff House, which closed in late 2020 and its iconic lettered Cliff House signage came down when the restaurant owners could not renew their lease with the property owners at the National Park Service, the new owner said a new restaurant there would not open until late 2025.
CB2's Land Use Committee voted against the proposal for the 27-story development, which would rise from a landmarked Fort Greene church. After more than a year of speculation about the future of the landmarked Hanson Place Central United Methodist Church in Fort Greene, plans are now clear: The owners want to use the church's shell as the base of a 27-story, 240-unit apartment tower that would rise beside the iconic Williamsburgh Savings Bank Tower.
The story of America's motels begins, as travel journalist Ellie Seymour reminds readers, exactly a century ago in 1925, when architect Arthur Heineman opened the Milestone Mo-Tel in San Luis Obispo, California. The term 'motel' itself was born out of necessity, as 'Milestone Motor Hotel' simply didn't fit on the rooftop sign. Offering private garages and hot showers, it catered to the rise of automobile tourism and set the blueprint for a phenomenon that would flourish after World War II.
In an eight-to-five vote on Monday (3 November), the San Francisco Arts Commission (SFAC) voted to disassemble Armand Vaillancourt's namesake fountain. Two days prior, the San Francisco Chronicle that San Francisco Recreation and Park Department (RPD) officials stated the fountain posed an "an immediate and serious hazard" and would propose dismantling the monumental fountain and storing it for up to three years, at a cost of $4.4m.
Imagine freeways along Lady Bird Lake in Austin, through Georgetown in Washington, along the beach in Santa Monica, through the French Quarter in New Orleans, or bisecting Cambridge between Harvard and MIT. Freeway builders had their sights set on all these places. They would've had their way, too, if not for the meddling protesters who foiled their schemes. The freeway revolt of the 1960s and '70s changed the course of American history, saving some of the nation's oldest and most-beautiful neighborhoods.
When the couple reached out to Penneman last March and invited her in, she was struck by the beauty of the property and the potential that previous professionals wasted. The existing Art Deco front door was made of steel and hammered glass, and it opened to a terrazzo floor bordered by a hand-laid mosaic. Further inside, dark and disjointed rooms were confused by additions and closed off from the sun by neighbors on either side.
A new entry in the National Register of Historic Places may be a spot you regularly pick up dog poop! That's right, Balch Gulch Bridge-spanning the gulch between NW 29th and NW 31st, where many pick up Forest Park's Lower Macleay Trail-was officially designated by the National Park Service in September. Bridge heads likely already know that the steel structure makes use of a load-bearing framework of triangles fastened with flexible pin connections.
The Valley Plaza was among the first and largest open-air shopping malls on the West Coast and a major center of commerce when it opened in 1951. Now, swathes of the historic mall are being demolished, after years of complaints from nearby homeowners that the collection of vacant buildings and parking lots had fallen into disrepair. David Udoff fondly remembers how his mother would drive him and his brother to Valley Plaza in her avocado Dodge Dart.
These house museums and foundations, all open to the public, invite visitors into preserved spaces that shaped some of the most influential artistic visions of the 20th century. The Louis Armstrong House Museum in Queens is a famous example, winning the National Medal for museums in 2024. And Hamptons visitors often stop by the Pollock-Krasner House and studio in the hamlet of Springs, in East Hampton.
If there's a controversial statue commemorating a dead white supremacist out there, there's a good chance the president has gone to bat for it. Sad to see the history and culture of our great country being ripped apart with the removal of our beautiful statues and monuments, Trump tweeted in 2017, in response to a push to remove Confederate monuments. You can't change history, but you can learn from it. Robert E Lee, Stonewall Jackson who's next, Washington, Jefferson? So foolish! Trump added.
I do think as an existing property that has had the historic houses specifically protected and moved here to be saved, any solution here needs to celebrate those houses and work with them in the way that makes the proposal and the existing fabric a win-win. Unfortunately, that's not what I'm seeing in this proposal,
