Trust for Architectural Easements Tours Garment Center Historic District in New York City

PRLog (Press Release) - Aug 11, 2011 - The Trust for Architectural Easements helped list the Garment Center Historic District on the National Register of Historic Places. Garment Center covers 25 blocks of Midtown Manhattan between Sixth and Ninth avenues to the east and west, and between 35th and 41st streets to the south and north. It is known for its distinctive loft buildings built in the 1920s to house New York City’s garment industry, the largest in the country for much of the 20th century.

The garment industry moved here from Fifth Avenue after World War I, under pressure from powerful landowners. Fearing that the industry’s real estate holdings and ever-growing immigrant workforce would threaten Fifth Avenue’s high-end retail development, the landowners successfully lobbied for the Zoning Resolution of 1916, which forced the move.

Prior to becoming the garment district, the neighborhood had been home to tenement buildings, publishing and printing houses, and many theaters and hotels (with legendary nightlife). Some buildings from these years have remained today, including a pre-Civil War fire station at 220 W. 37th St. and an 1870 church at 126 W. 37th St.

With the garment industry came the big lofts, and they forever stamped the district with their distinctive look. Form followed function: showrooms and offices filled ground floors, open-plan workrooms occupied upper stories, and large windows provided light for garment display and production. Lofts typically stood 12 to 30 floors in height; elevators and steel-frame construction, both common by the 1920s, made it all possible. The Zoning Resolution of 1916 also determined the shape of the new lofts, requiring building silhouettes to be “stepped back,” zigguratstyle, from the street over a certain height. Architects responded enthusiastically to these design parameters, and the profile of the stepped pyramid became characteristic of New York City’s tall buildings, particularly of the lofts in the garment district. (The resolution remained in effect until 1961.) An early exemplar of the new aesthetic was the Garment Center Capitol: two 22-story lofts – advertised as “towering masses” – rising up on Seventh Avenue between West 36th and West 38th streets. Completed in 1920 at a cost of $20 million to establish the first permanent, co-operative home for the garment industry in its new location, the buildings included not only offices and showrooms, but also a club, a gymnasium, reading rooms, restaurants, and a roof garden, all within a total floor space of 1.5 million square feet. Promoters touted it as a “city within a city.”

Throughout the 1920s, many more loft buildings were built on the Garment Center Capitol model, replacing most of the neighborhood’s pre-World War I building stock. The busiest years were 1924 and 1925, when a total of 47 new loft buildings were constructed in the district.

Stylistically, the lofts tended to be art-historicist and/or Art Deco. For example, New York architects George and Edward Blum incorporated Gothic-inspired ornament and a metallic Art Deco entrance portal into the design of the 24-story building at 497-499 Seventh Avenue, completed in 1926.

Some of the more stylistically sophisticated lofts included the 14 designed by New York City architect Ely Jacques Kahn. His Bricken Textile Building, completed in 1930 at 1441 Broadway, was dressed head-to-foot with Art Deco lines, patterns, and staccato ornament, its upper floors ascending to the sky in an asymmetrical series of shallow set-backs in classic, New York City-ziggurat form.

Similarly, Kahn’s Bricken Casino Building, completed in 1930 at 1410 Broadway, featured a white-and-black striped brick tower rising, again ziggurat-like, 35 floors to a turret marked by vertical fins flanging out from its corners.

The play of light and shadow against these tall, abstract forms and highly patterned surfaces increased the visual drama of the buildings – no longer lowly factories, but glorious modern monuments to American manufacturing. In Kahn’s own words, they epitomized “a new style of architecture – a New York style.”

With the onset of the Great Depression, the building boom of the 1920s ground to a halt, and only a handful of buildings were constructed in the district in the second half of the 20th century. Fortunately, loft buildings have been easily converted to other uses, and with the recognition provided by the creation of the new historic district, they have a chance to remain standing for many more decades to come.

The Trust protects more than 800 historic buildings across the United States. For more information, please visit www.architecturaltrust.org.

The Trust for Architectural Easements is one of the nation’s largest non-profit organizations dedicated to voluntary preservation through easement donations. The Trust protects more than 800 historic buildings across the United States.

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According to the Trust for Architectural Easements, Water is the Enemy of Historic Buildings

PRLog (Press Release) - Aug 04, 2011 - As Ben Franklin famously stated, “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” This aphorism applies to the care and upkeep of historic buildings. The most effective way for the owner of a historic building to prevent costly repairs is to properly maintain the building.

Water is the enemy of historic buildings. Water rots wooden building materials and causes metal ones to rust. By saturating masonry and subsequently freezing – and expanding – water can cause the masonry to spall or break apart. It is a necessary ingredient for mold growth, which is a health hazard, and further degrades building materials. And, it attracts insects. If you do nothing else, it is critical to make your building weathertight, keep a sound coat of paint or stain on wooden building materials exposed to weather, and guard against interior leaks. Following these steps will help you avoid the need to make much more expensive repairs in the future.

A simple story illustrates the point. The toilet in a guest bathroom is
not often used, and no one noticed that the toilet tank bolts were corroded. Eventually, the motion of the tank broke the bolts. Water from the tank ?ooded the bathroom, which is on the second ?oor above the master bedroom. The water leaked through the tile ?oor and wooden joists to the face of the drywall on the master bedroom ceiling. The cost of drying out the framing, removing the damaged drywall and replacing it, not to mention repairing the toilet, was in the thousands. If my friend had known that this was a relatively common problem and had checked the bolts regularly, he could have replaced the bolts with new fasteners for less than $10 and saved himself quite a bit of money and aggravation. While a frustration, the damage is now repaired, and the house is as good as new.

If my friend owned a historic home, however, the leak might have ruined an original plaster ceiling or wooden ?oorboards – a much sadder outcome.

The Trust for Architectural Easements is one of the nation’s largest non-profit organizations dedicated to voluntary preservation through easement donations. The Trust protects more than 800 historic buildings across the United States.

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Tax Advisor Offers Estate and Trust Tax Preparation

PRLog (Press Release) – Jul 26, 2011 – Los Angeles, CA: William D. Truax E.A. Tax Advisors, Inc. are urging those enacting a plan for estate or trust inheritance to speak with a professional tax advisor to ensure all matters of estate and trust tax are accounted for, relieving beneficiaries of the tax burden.

William D. Truax and his associates have over 30 years of experience working in the field of tax preparation. Just one of the fields his firm specializes in is estate and trust tax preparation. Effective estate and gift planning ensures the orderly transfer of assets to a client’s beneficiaries. Security in these matters can then be gained and can reduce or even eliminate the tax due. This has a myriad of applications, such as the necessity of a will or trust and matters of inheritance, business succession and continuity of ownership, and any other transfer of taxable assets between parties.

William D. Truax, founder of the firm, commented on the matter: “Security of mind in tax matters is always essential, and the transfer of assets is no exception. Prompt and thorough preparation in these matters can completely handle any difficulties that might have occurred. We can guide you through the complex process of getting your financial affairs in order for your future and that of your heirs.”

Mr. Truax has been a tax practitioner and financial consultant in private practice for over thirty years. He is admitted to practice before the IRS and all state tax agencies and is also a member of the bar of the United States Tax Court. As a fellow of the National Tax Practice Institute, he is an Accredited Tax Advisor and a member of the National Association of Enrolled Agents. Mr. Truax was a founder and Director of Professional Business Bank in Pasadena, CA, and was chairman of the bank’s investment committee, responsible for control and oversight of over $100 million in bank assets. Mr. Truax has been active in numerous philanthropic endeavors and is currently a trustee or a board member of several active charitable organizations.

William D. Truax E.A., Inc has been representing clients before the IRS and state tax agencies for over 20 years. In addition, its founder William D Truax is one of only 300 non-attorneys nationwide ever to be admitted to practice before the US Tax Court.

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