Daily News from New York, New York • 474

DAILY NEWS. MONDAY. OCTOBER 18." 1965 i i I 5W Sk. ft Landmarks in peril: Leonard Jerome mansion (foto left) and the Old Metropolitan Opera nP espi Lanraniancs wmp tissues iiivic Sove-Our-Cfy Unif Fights To Keep 20 Buildings By KITTY HANSON YrITH the chatter of jackhammers and the steady rumble of tumbling: wall echoincr in their ears, the city's Landmarks Preservation Commission today announced the names of 2' historic buildings the city will ficht to save. fr.

this rirst list were seven of York's most famous Th corr.n-iission is still stutlyinp. a-i t-s ar.r.our.iv its decision on the Metropolitan House. A-' Lii rary. Biiiliiir.v. J-P.

Morjran Hov.se. Meeting House, the Old Bronx Borough Hal! the Leonard Jerome Mansion. or these buildinprs House. bols. The four impressive sculptures at the front of the building were by Daniel Chester French.

They represent the four conti- 1 nents: Asia, gazing ahead with fatalistic calm; America, clear- eyed and hopeful; Europe, gravely reflective; and Africa, asleep. The building is rich in impressive stairways, a handsome rotunda, spacious rooms, gilded ceilings, carved walnut panels and screens. It has been facing an uncertain future ever since the United States Bureau of Customs decided to rent offices in the proposed World Trade Center downtown on the West Side. The city's Landmarks Commission cannot actually save it, but the designation was made strictly in an "advisory" capacity. It may be difficult for the General Services Administration to dispose of it as quietly and as easily as it might like.

Th- Federal government is on record in favor of landmarks preservation and it expects private citizens to Ik- "good citizens" in this area. In the Cu-tnm the government has a chance to demonstrate just what it means by "good 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. 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. Place, and such commercial landmarks as the main building of the New York Stock Exchange, the four-story J. P. Morgan and Co.

building at 23 Wall, and the First National City Bank Building at 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, i Ultimately however, the fate of these as of all of New York's I landmarks, will be weighed be- tween commercial values and the interests of the people. I If Commerce should win, New Yorkers who care about such things can always take refuge in a New York organization dedicated to marking- historic sites with plaques. "We don't try to save anything," a spokesman explained. "We just want to mark where tr.e ran As in N'nr York, which -rem- ir.ter.t -v-ry trace of its pa t.

take a effort -ive rvhat is valuable and uood it replaced by wh -it protitao.e. TWO NOTABLE MANSIONS AMONG THE DOOMED Already scheduled for demoli- are the and variety of a meeting house in Italianate sty. a Victorian SrownsV-ne mar.iion vied in Kenaissance ilevival fashi' n. another mansion in the manner of the French Second Empire. In exchange.

New Yorker? will ret a commodity cf which there no shortage more apartment r.uu.-s and office buildings in a -tyle that mijrht be called 20th Century Mediocre with accents of Monotony. Time, as in New York, is for aom- of it- most prized buildings. The Friends Meet.r.t' 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 pit an apartment buildir.tr in its place. The J. P.

Morgan house on a Victorian mansion prized for its beautiful balconies and handsome wroupht-iron gTille work, is to be torn down by 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 3yth is scheduled for demolition. It -will be replaced by an office building. The beautiful Leonard Jerome mansion on Madison Ave. at 28th have a.

ready been s.id Iople ready and eatrer to tear them doT.vn. Forma! designation as I a a means the city Id use all its i -w-rs save them i or ciemoli-t if.n. The fir-t placed un-jr 1 he the Old Kir.t'-lar.-i tr.e Bf.at DAILY.3 NEWS SPECIAL FEATURE H- ir. e. Park Wyckoff ir: v-rvuses ir.

tr.r York r.irya: tve 7 tr.e two Xava: Fish or. Lafay-tt- Stat-r. MORE LANDMARKS CN THE AGENDA Meanwhile, the h' id a -e, r.r; i Hail 70 considers worth savirsy. Some of these 7'i seem in no imminent da Zf-r. Xo- body is about to an on the t- of Tiinity Church, or tear dov.n the Brooklyn Bridg-e, or turn Castle Cimton (the old aquarium) into a skating rink.

But some of the smaller residences and commercial buildings which date back as far a3 the late 1700s 'may soon give way i NEWS fr-tn hy I.eonar.1 Ix trlck) House: It's up for grabs. North (Hudson) and East Rivers. Peter Stuyvesant's governor's house was also built there. In by which time it had hecome Fort George, New York began its pattern of demolish-and-build and tore down the fort. It was replaced by a mansion known as the Governme nt House, built by ambitious New Yorkers who hoped that their city would become the nation's capital.

George 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 Sl.r, it burned down. THE CITY PAID A LOT OF WAMPUM FOR SITE At that time, the city sold the site to private citizens for $164,783. 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 90 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 miinon.

It was built of Maine granite, heavily embellished with dolphins, tridents and other nautical sym- The I'nited States Custom Churchill's mother, has been sold by the Manhattan Club. It is to be torn wn and replaced by an office building. The building? 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.

Ore of the costliest, and most richly historic buildings marked "to be disposed of," is the I'nited States Custom House, at the foot of Manhattan. Technically speaking, the Custom House does not come under the jurisdiction of the landmarks commission, since is is federally owned. But. according to (irote van der Pool, executive director of the commission, it is "one of the most important buildings of it3 period in New York, an outstanding example of an architectural project in which painters, architects, slptors and mosaicists collaborated to produce a building of monumental significance." This vast and impretsive building, designed by Cass Gilbert, occupies the site of Fort Amsterdam which had been located so that it could. command both the i family horn of Winston i.