New York Local News

NEW YORK (CBS) ― The New York skyline is known for its static columns of glass, steel and concrete. While it may seem like the skyline has been here forever, the columns actually tell a lot about our lives and the way we live now.

The highly stylized, architecturally significant and absolutely iconic skyline is a true New York landmark, but it hasn't always been that way. Here's a nutshell version of the evolution of the city.

An Emerging City

Quaint farmhouses filled the region in the 1600s and 1700s before they gave way to rapid skyward expansion.

Since the late 1800s, New Yorkers have lived largely vertically with a big, tall and rightfully self-important attitude that matches the city's architectural DNA.

"We'll never have a weary skyline, we're a time capsule of history, layer upon layer of history and tradition, innovation and change, that's what makes New York City so remarkable," said Barbaralee Diamonstein-Spielvogel, author of "The Landmarks of New York". "Most places are known for their natural beauty. We in New York are known for our unnatural beauty."

Architect Daniel Liebskind said that New York's icons give us a kind of orientation to a beautiful world. He noted the George Washington Bridge, Grand Central Station, the Guggenheim Museum and the peak of the Chrysler Building as examples of why New York represents the nature of great architecture.

A Commission To Preserve The Past

"You walk around, you look at City Hall, you look at the Woolworth Building, you look at the Statue of Liberty, the Empire State Building and on and on and on, and Central Park and you say 'Oh my God,'" said Robert Tierney of the Landmarks Preservation Commission. "They're all landmarks and reasons this city is so great."

Tierney would know. His commission oversees the 11-member agency to protect and preserve the architectural treasures of the past, and allow buildings and places of historical significance to be part of the progress without become a hindrance to it.

The commission established 30 as the age at which a building can become a landmark.

"We think 30 is good," Tierney said. "We need a little bit of time, a little bit of seasoning, a little bit of distance, to get a sense so that you don't be subjective to any kind of architectural fads."

But landmarks aren't limited to commercial buildings. They can be exterior, like bridges, churches, libraries, and more. Other designations include scenic landmarks such as Central Park, the crown jewel of open space. There are also interior landmarks like the opulent Lyceum Theater, the oldest continually operated theater in New York.

There are also historic districts like Brooklyn Heights, which is a meticulously and elegantly preserved residential area. Unlike many New York neighborhoods, Brooklyn Heights has remained virtually unchanged since the 1800s.

"Since the Landmarks Commission was created 40 years ago, we're been much more cognizant of the need to balance continuity with change better than we used to," said Architecture Critic Paul Goldberger. "Once, we didn't care, we sort of trashed things, we treated buildings like paper towels to crumple up and throw away."

One notable incident he mentioned was the destruction of the original Penn Station that took place in 1963. Goldberger called it a "thoughtless act of civic vandalism," and said he thought it brought people to their senses and made them realize buildings need protection, too. He said people looked into laws at the time and realized that there was no effective way to prevent further destruction. So The New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission began.

The Commission's Early Work

The Wycoff House was one of the first buildings the commisssion was designated to protect. Parks Department Commissioner Adrian Benepe said the humble Dutch farmhouse in Flatland, Brooklyn, is one of 22 historic house museums that sit in parks across the city.

"There are little touchstones that help us touch the past,' said Benepe.

The Wykoff House was built in 1641. The farmers that settled the city were simple and modest, mostly Anglo-Dutch architecture. Not many still survive, but those that do are protected relics of the Landmarks Preservation Commission even in modern business districts.

Fraunces Tavern served as a center for commerce, communication and politics for a growing population in the mid-1700s. Today it's rich and colorful history is prominent in its current incarnation as a restaurant and museum.

St. Paul's Chapel is currently the oldest church building in continuous use in Manhattan. It is even more prestigious due to its role in the aftermath of 9/11.

Governor's Island is another historically rich area of the city. It was developed in the 1800s, when defending our expanding new world was the focus of other historic developments.

Castle Clinton in the Battery once stood 300 feet from the tip of the island. Now it's incorporated via landfill. The rock-faced brownstone structure boasts massive walls, measuring eight-feet wide at its gun ports.

"There's so much rich stuff in the New York cityscape you can spend a lifetime going through it and not get to the bottom of is," said Architecture Critic Paul Goldberger. "The great thing is the way we are a combination of individual landmarks and neighborhood feeling."

He said he loves that sometimes you can fall upon a block of row house where each building on its own is nothing spectacular, but the whole street is an amazing composition.

New York's Historical Districts

Row houses were heavily developed throughout the 1800s all over the city.

In TriBeCa, federal style brick town houses were nearly lost to demolition for commercial development, until the Landmarks Preservation Committee stepped in.

Astor Row in Harlem boasts 28 houses grouped in pairs in signature Neo Grec style.

The Mount Morris section of Harlem qualifies as a landmark district and has outstanding examples of town houses and apartment buildings. The details include a broad range of architectural styles, including classical French Neo Grec and Queen Anne.

Tierney said that historical districts have to have a certain sense of architectural integrity throughout, although it doesn't necessarily have to be consistent. He said that buildings have to have individual architectural integrity and be able to relate to other buildings on the block so the neighborhood maintains a sense of place.

The Evolution Of A Skyline

Looking across time, you can see how the New York skyline came to life.

The end of 19th century saw the opening of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Carnegie Hall, followed by the completion of the Brooklyn Bridge. A year later, the Dakota Apartments opened its doors to prosperous tenants with an imposing yellow brick and stone structure in the German Renaissance style.

The turn of the century saw the power of the financial district realized in the New York Stock Exchange, a Greek Revival temple. As the city grew farther uptown, there was the dramatic and technologically advanced steel caged Flatiron building.

"The Landmarks of New York" author Barbaralee Diamonstein-Spielvogel said she thinks that vertical cities allow the opportunity to step into a rich and diverse past without jeopardizing future development.

"Just look around any part of New York City with its unsurpassing prosperity of the last decade. There isn't a neighborhood that hasn't been touched by building, by renovating, by recycling, by adaptive re-use, by new construction, by every kind of construction imaginable," she said.

Libeskind called the New York City skyline a good book that continues to be memorable. "It's not just an aesthetic entity, but something that enters people's lives -- you see it on the horizon, you pass it by, and it's good if it continues to inspire you."

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