In honor of the Lord & Taylor building becoming an honest-to-God landmark this week, I paid a visit on the department store and, when not purchasing pajamas, admired various aspects of its exterior and interior architecture. It was a pleasing experience. 
The Landmarks Preservation Commission met on Tuesday, Oct. 30, to vote on a mess of proposed landmarks and, when the dust had settled, eight NYC buildings were untouchable.
The biggies were arguably Brooklyn's Eberhard Faber Pencil Factory complex and Manhattan's Lord & Taylor Building. Others included the Manhattan House on the Upper East Side, 511 and 513 Grand Street in the Lower East Side, Staten Island's Standard Varnish Works Factory and Gillette Tyler Mansion, and The Voelker-Orth Museum, Bird Sanctuary and Victorian Garden in Queens.
Which is all great. But what about Webster Hall? It was up for landmark status. Not good enough for the Commission? What happened?
Just last November, the president of NRDC, the acronym that owns the Lord & Taylor department store chain, said he wanted to close the shopping icon's flagship Manhattan store on Fifth Avenue and 39th Street. "It's nice having a Manhattan store, but I wouldn't call it key," said President Richard Baker. "We want to be where people live, not where they work."
Now, NRDC is saying it wants to keep the store up and running. What changed? Well, it may have something to do with the City's Landmarks Commission announcement that it's considering making the 1914 building a landmark.
Of course, whatever the Commission decides in the future, NRDC wouldn't be forced to keep on doing business on the site. But one can only imagine that the Commission's interest in the building has acted as a wake-up call to the know-nothings in the head office. Or maybe they just don't like that idea that they'd now have to get approval from the City if they wanted to convert the building into condos or some such thing. Better to just let things stand as they are.
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