Here’s to continuing the fight for the beauty, history, and identity of the UWS! 🌆

#PreserveUWS #HistoricPreservation #UpperWestSide

From saving irreplaceable landmarks to empowering community voices, young and old, our work has always been about honoring the past while shaping a more thoughtful future.

Thank YOU—our supporters, neighbors, and preservation partners—for 40 years of advocacy, passion, and progress.

Samuel D. Gruber Ph.D., has led the documentation and preservation of historic Jewish sites worldwide for 35 years. He spearheaded initiatives to preserve Jewish architectural heritage, authored two books, and maintains a lively blog, Samuel Gruber's Jewish Art and Monuments.

The building of impressive synagogues uptown was both a sign of continuity with cultural traditions and their successful acceptance into NY's ethnic and religious pluralism. This talk will examine the development and design of approximately a dozen synagogues on the UWS.

Including a new name, as pointed out in the press conference on April 6th, the “Metro” sign is not part of the landmark status. Many parties interested in its revitalization have come and gone over the years. We hope this most recent acquisition sees the return of an UWS gem.

The theater underwent a renovation in 1986, which saw the auditorium sliced in half to create two screens. The Art Deco interiors were still intact; however, in 2005, the LPC granted the demolition of the interior. This new acquisition could see some changes to the theater.

According to the New York Times, the landmark movie theater that closed 20 years ago was sold to a nonprofit after it received $3.5 million in discretionary grants from Gov. Hochul. Plans include a five-screen theater, a lobby lounge and a public cafe.

Its sleek design incorporated elements of Art Deco and Moderne with the Greek masks of Tragedy and Comedy displayed on the medallion bas-relief fixed to the facade above the marquee. The new theater connected Depression-era Americans to the colorful world of film.

At the time of the Metro’s designation in 1989, 4 of those 18 theaters were still in operation and open to the public. Now, only one remains standing, the Metro. The architectural firm of Boak & Paris created a neighborhood movie theater with global ties in 1933.

If one were walking up Broadway on the UWS in 1934, one would have had the choice of 18 theaters in which to see movies, incl. The Circle Theater, The Colonial, The Yorktown (later New Yorker), The Stoddard, The Alden and Metro.

Image 1. Ricardo Scofidio. Courtesy of Diller Scofidio + Renfro
Image 2. The Rooftop Illumination Lawn. Courtesy of Glenwood.
Image 3. Julliard School/Alice Tully Hall. Courtesy of Iwan Baan via ArchDaily.

Ricardo Merrill Scofidio was born on April 16, 1935, in New York City. He attended Cooper Union School of Architecture and then Columbia University. He began teaching at Cooper Union in 1965.

The firm spent a decade reimagining Lincoln Center, including incorporating a tilted grassy roof on the North Lawn, and stripping away the opaque base of the Alice Tully Hall building, originally designed by Pietro Bellushchi, to reveal the hall's outer glass shell.

Click the link in our bio to read our #BlackHistoryMonth blogs!

From Seneca Village to San Juan Hill, Thelonious Monk to James Baldwin, Black history has shaped the Upper West Side. Unfortunately, while many of these significant sites no longer remain, they are immortalized by those determined to remember!