
John Freeman Gill
@JohnFreemanGill
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New York Times Streetscapes columnist, native New Yorker, wag, author of the novel THE GARGOYLE HUNTERS (Knopf), a B&N Discover selection.
New York City
Joined February 2011
We are all so proud of you, Anderson! β€οΈπ³οΈβπ
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Audubon Terrace Is Extending an Olive Branch to Its Neighborhood Once accused of ignoring the largely Latino residents of Washington Heights, the Hispanic Society will take the lead in a new charm offensive. by @JohnFreemanGill
https://t.co/O1M7DhL9o0
nytimes.com
Once accused of ignoring the largely Latino residents of Washington Heights, the Hispanic Society will take the lead in a new charm offensive.
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Sad news: Richard Roth Jr., major architect and leader of a firm that changed the face of NYC across generations, has died.
Sharing the sad news that my dad @ootzard Richard Roth Jr former chairman of Emery Roth & Sons passed peacefully today #emeryroth #emeryroth&sons #architect @paulgoldberger @AIA_Media @urbanarchiveny @archpaper @ArchDigest
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#NYC owns the last-known "colored" schoolhouse remaining in Manhattan from the city's racially segregated 19th-c. school system. But the city hasn't landmarked it and says it has no money to repair the leaky roof. #nyclandmarks #nycarchitecture #BlackHistory #nychistory #Chelsea
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.@colsonwhitehead @hblodget My @nytimes Streetscapes column on the #NYC home of #undergroundrailroad leader Rev. Theodore Wright in TriBeCa. More recently, it was a #jcrew and @ToddSnyderNY & the late, lamented Liquor Store Bar. #blacklivesmatter
nytimes.com
Before it was a clothing store, it was a bar, and before it was a bar, it was a key part of American history.
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How many of my beautiful LGBTQ+ people coming to @Mets pride night tomorrow?! β€οΈπ§‘ππππ
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Informative obit by @samrob12 of Frank Gilbert, a colossus of historic preservation who helped craft New York's groundbreaking Landmarks Law, which saved Grand Central Terminal and served as a model for similar laws all over the country. Fare thee well. https://t.co/8CH4NyJYIQ
nytimes.com
He fought to spare Grand Central Terminal from the fate that befell Penn Station. He also helped draft a landmarks preservation law that became a model across the country.
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My @nytimes #streetscapes column on 1k+ unprotected terra-cotta sculptures of #Parkchester in #Bronx. 45 have vanished. #Preservationists like @Art_Deco_NYC seek Historic District status. @nyclandmarks 1st ID'd the complex as potential HD 44 yrs ago. #HDC
nytimes.com
More than 1,000 terra-cotta sculptures β of firefighters, mermaids, steelworkers β adorn the walls of Parkchester in the Bronx. Is there a plan to protect them?
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Thanks for the amplification, @paulgoldberger. Yes, some 45 sculptures have been removed with no stated plan to restore or reinstall them. The condo boards that directed the sculptures' removal say they are being stored but would not say where or show them to me.
I had no idea until I read this important piece by β¦@JohnFreemanGillβ© that the sculptures at Parkchester were in danger. These pieces are a critical part of one of the greatest housing complexes of modern times. It deserves landmark status.
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Great piece by Paul Lukas. The Mets' bronze statue of Tom Seaver uses a font for the 4 in the "41" on the back of the jersey that Seaver never wore. On the clay model, the sculptor inadvertently removed the little stub on the 4. This article is high geekery, but good fun!
EXCLUSIVE: Today I have a scoop on a significant design error in the Metsβ Tom Seaver statue. The Mets declined to comment, but I talked at some length with the sculptor about how this could have happened. Read here (no subscription needed for this one):
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Blushing over here.
My friend @JohnFreemanGill's Streetscapes columns are some of the best stories you will ever read about NYC. https://t.co/4s5pF6AXpr
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Thank you @JohnFreemanGill for another magnificent, detailed preservation column on the true life of a building. Starrett-Lehigh, built in 1932 atop an active Lehigh Valley RR freight yard, was served by car floats docking at Pier 66 across 12th Ave.
nytimes.com
The venerable city landmark, a star of industrial modernism when it opened, is adding amenities for commercial tenants, especially in creative fields.
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@JuliaManhattan @JohnFreemanGill Wonderful @JohnFreemanGill piece but why does the NYT accompany it with that awful photo of a desecrated station when they had this? credit Tony Cenicola/The New York Times
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My @nytimes #Streetscapes column on the majestically moldering #Bronx #railroad stations by Cass Gilbert, architect of the Woolworth Building. Plans are afoot to rescue and repurpose two beguiling stations in the South Bronx. #nycarchitecture #nychistory
https://t.co/wVenncX21Y
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My @nytimes #Streetscapes column today on a "Raiders of the Lost Ark"-style warehouse stuffed with relics from shuttered #catholic #churches. Statues of saviors and saints stand in their multitudes like a rookery of colorful penguins. #nyc #architecture
https://t.co/AaCZ63nWmx
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