DESIGNATION REPORT Richard Webber Harlem Packing House Landmarks Preservation Designation Report Designation List 505 Commission Richard Webber LP-2595 Harlem Packing House

DESIGNATION REPORT Richard Webber Harlem Packing House LOCATION Borough of Manhattan 207-215 East 119th Street, Manhattan Tax Map Block 1784, Lot 5 in part LANDMARK TYPE Individual SIGNIFICANCE Designed by the architectural firm of Bartholomew & John P. Walther for the prominent butcher Richard Webber, this Romanesque Revival and Renaissance Revival style building is a fine example of late-19th- century architectural design and an intact reminder of East Harlem’s commercial and industrial past. Landmarks Preservation Designation Report Designation List 505 Commission Richard Webber LP-2595 Harlem Packing House

Cornice detail LPC, 2017 (above) Circa 1939 Tax Photo New York City Municipal Archives, Landmarks Preservation Designation Report Designation List 505 Commission Richard Webber Harlem LP-2595 Packing House 3 of 25 March 27, 2018

Richard Webber Harlem Packing House 207-215 East 119th Street, Borough Designation List 505 LP-2595 Built: 1895 Architect: Bartholomew & John P. Walther Landmark Site: Borough of Manhattan, Tax Map Block 1784, Lot 5, in part consisting of the land beneath the footprint of the building. On February 13, 2018 the Landmarks Preservation Commission held a public hearing on the proposed designation of the Richard Webber Harlem Packing House and the proposed designation of the related Landmark Site (Public Hearing Item No. 1). The hearing had been duly advertised in accordance with the provisions of the law. At the Public Hearing, six people spoke in favor of designation, including representatives from the New York Landmarks Conservancy, Friends of the Upper East Side Historic Districts, Historic Districts Council, the Marcus Garvey Park Alliance, and CIVITAS. In addition the Commission received four letters and one email in support of designation, from Borough President Gale Brewer, Lott Community Development, Landmark East Harlem and East Harlem Preservation, and two individuals. No one spoke in opposition Landmarks Preservation Designation Report Designation List 505 Commission Richard Webber Harlem LP-2595 Packing House 4 of 25 March 27, 2018

Summary early-20th century, the architects specialized in warehouses, factories and flats buildings, and Richard Webber Harlem Packing House designed a number of buildings in Upper Manhattan. The formal design and high quality craftsmanship of the six-story, brick and stone Packing House presented a sophisticated public face for Webber’s operations. The facade combines features of the Romanesque Revival and Renaissance The former Richard Webber Harlem Packing House Revival styles. The a tripartite facade composition, is a historic meat market building in East Harlem, simplicity of lines, the decorative roundels, and constructed in 1895 and originally part of a larger repetitive design motifs, and particularly the commercial slaughterhouse, meat packing and retail projecting cornice with its paneled frieze, complex. Designed by the architectural firm of denticulation and modillions, speak to the Bartholomew & John P. Walther for the prominent Renaissance Revival style influences. Characteristic butcher Richard Webber, this Romanesque Revival Romanesque Revival style facade elements include and Renaissance Revival style building is a fine the triforium piers, and Roman arches with example of late-19th-century architectural design and Byzantine and Corinthian capitals, which are an intact reminder of East Harlem’s commercial and repeated at the arcaded windows at the top story. industrial past. The central bay of the facade includes the building’s Richard Webber, an English immigrant, date 1895 in carved stone, and prominently features started a small butcher shop in East Harlem in the terra-cotta cow head reliefs symbolizing the late 1870s. The company was very successful, building’s origi

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