In late November 2017, a divided Appellate Division, First Department, decided that New York City’s Landmarks Preservation and Historic Districts Law (Administrative Code of City of N.Y. §25-301 et seq.) (the Landmarks Preservation Law) permitted the Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) to require the private owner of property purchased subject to a prior interior landmark designation to preserve the historic character and operation of the interior landmark and to continue to permit at least minimal public access to it.

This ruling came down even though the LPC previously had determined that it did not want to impose such a requirement in the case, involving the historic New York Life Insurance Company building and, in particular, its clock tower at 346 Broadway in lower Manhattan. Matter of Save America’s Clocks, Inc. v. City of New York, 157 A.D.3d 133 (1st Dept. 2017). The First Department’s decision, as I pointed out in a 2018 Zoning and Land Use Planning column about that decision, seemed destined to itself become a landmark ruling. Anthony S. Guardino, “Landmarks Preservation Law Given Broad Reading by Divided Court,” NYLJ Jan. 23, 2018.