Daily News from New York, New York • 257

DAILY XL'S: MONDAY! OCTOBER' 1965 It Landmarks in peril: Leonard Jerome mansion (foto left) and the Old Metropolitan Opera House. Help! Landmarks iroup Issues Civic Save-Our-City Unit Fights To Keep 20 Buildings By KITTY HANSON ATITH the chatter of jackharr.rr.ei and the steady rumble tuniblincr walls eehiin.ur in their ears, the city's Landmarks Preservation Commission today announced the names vi 2" historic btrildir.crs the city will fiirht to saw. bo's. The fo ir impressive sculptures at the front of the building were by Haniel Chester French. They represent four continents: Asia.

ahead with fatalistic calm: America, clear-eyed and hopeful; Kurope, gravely reflective; and Africa, asleep. The building is rich in impressive stairways, a handsome rotunda, spacious rooms, gilded ceihngs, carved walnut panels and screens. It has been an uncertain future ever the United Suites Bureau of js-fr asss ure sever NV.v V-rks rt'Tt offii't' 11 piorosea I -x: t.v. r. on city's au "advj- Trad- the West Side.

Th mark- ly save it, tr wa made strictly capacity. fit i lx I .14 tar. rarv. -J. P.

H.y;s e. F- -he Hp hx Ha! the ot r.ave a.rtaiv t-en crc-- i-e-y'e ea'er x. tl CI. rt- If ay be -a; Services Ad of it us eas.ly as it al govei f.t ra to fpnetly as The t'eder-on record landmarks preservation r.n i and it expects private citizens the city u-e all :r.ir "a t' this area. 1 good i itl.er the Custom tr.e i ale merit has a vham to dem" just what it means by i.od ii r-' TWO NOTABLE MANSIONS AMONG THE DOOMED n-tri for grabs.

The United States Custom House: It's up citizenship." HOPE TO SAVE CHAPEL, TAVERN AND CEMETERY Some of the buildings proposed for designation tomorrow are such features of the city as Fraunces Tavern, where Gen. are tr.e 0: i 1 1 in '-2 '-n the tit North (Hudsoni and Fast Rivers. Peter Stuyvi-sant's governor's house was also built there. In by which time it had become Fort George, New York began its pattern of demolish-and tore down the and-'tuild DAILY.3 NEWS SPECIAL FEATURE a h'-uie ir. Italiana: a "ieti-riar.

mansion styled in Ker.ai5iar.ce Revival fas hie mans -ion the rr.ar.ner of tr.e Second Kriit ire. In exchange. New Yorkers will tret a commodity of which there is r.o shortage more apartment houses and office buildings in a style that mijrht 'be called 20th Century Mediocre with accents of Time, as usual in New York, is Hoje in Prospect Park, the V. yckoff House in Brooklyn, two rouses in the New York Naval Shipyard, the Fish House, the 51 Market St. House, four of LaOant Terr for some of its most running out street, an, illae liall ace on Lafayette Xew Eiit'hton Staten Island.

Washington bad farewell to his troops, and St. Paul's Chapel, where the first president worshipped. The list also includes the Henry Street Settlement; the first Jewish cemetery in New York. Shear-ith Israel Graveyard on St. James Place, and such commercial landmarks as the main building of the New Y'ork Stock Exchange, the four-story J.

P. Morgan and Co. building at 23 Wall, and the First National City Bank Building at 55 Wall, and the Woolworth Building. The hearing is designed to uncover all the facts about each building and to discover the public sentiment about each building. Ultimately however, the fate of the.se as of all of New Y'ork's landmarks, will be weighed between commercial values and the interests of the people.

If Commerce should win, New Yorkers who care about such things can always take refuge in Churchill's mother, has been cold by the Manhattan Club. It is to be torn down and replaced by an office building. The building's formally designated as landmarks by the commission will not automatically be saved for all time from the wrecker's ball. The commission and the city have to come up with a workable, economically feasible plan for saving it. But at least, the law gives the city a fighting chance to save some of its past.

One of the costliest, and most richly historic buildings marked "to be disposed of," is the United States f'ustom House, at the foot of Manhattan. Technically speaking, the Cus- torn House does not come under the jurisdiction of the landmarks commission, since is is federally owned. But, according to James Grote van der Pool, executive di- rector of the commission, it is "one of the most important buildings of its period in New York, an outstanding example of an architectural project in which painters, architects, sculptors and mosaicists collaborated to produce a building of monumental This vast and impressive build- ing, designed by Cass Gilbert, oc- cupies the site of Fort Amster- dam which had been located eo that it could command both the fort. It was replaced by a mansion known as the (I'-vcnmn nt House, built by ambitious New Yorkers who hoped that their city would become the nation's capital. Ceorge Washington never slept there (although cows used to snooze in the driveway but the mansion was used by Governors John Jay and DeWitt Clinton.

Later, it served as a customs house, and then, in 1815, it burned down. THE CITY PAID A LOT OF WAMPUM FOR SITE At that time, the city sold the site to private citizens for It changed hands several times, private residences gave way to steamship offices, and by the time the city was ready to buy the exact site back again i0 years later, it had to pay $3 million for it. Including the price of land, the present Custom House was built at a total cost of $7 million. It was built of Maine granite, heavily embellished with dolphins, tridents and other nautical sym- prized buildintrs. The Friends Meeting- House on Gramercy Square.

a 105-year-old home of the Religious Society of Friends, was sold in February to a man who plans to put an apartment building in its place. The J. P. Morgan house on Madison a Victorian mansion prized for its beautiful balconies and handsome wrought-iron grille work, is to he torn down fay its owners, the Lutheran Church of America, and replaced by an office building. The Metropolitan Opera House, now presenting its longest and last season at 3Cth is scheduled for demolition.

It will be replaced by an office building. The beautiful Leonard Jerome mansion on Madison Ave. at 26th family home of Winston MORE LANDMARKS CN THE AGENDA Meanwhile, the rf.mmi-sion will a second pu'rlic r.ear'r.t at Hal: tomorrow, this tur.e to -onsider 70 more structures it considers worth savir.z. Some of these TO structures seem in no imminent danger. Nobody is about to put an off c-e building on the site of Tifnity Church, or tear down the Brooklyn Bridge, or turn Castle Clinton (the old aquarium) into a skating rink.

But some of the smaller residences and commercial buildings which date back as far as the late 1700a may soon give way a New ork organization dedi- cated to marking historic sites with plaques. "We don't try to save anything," a spokesman explained. "We just want to mark where they werel".