
Daryl Roth Theatre Building (Photos courtesy of the Union Square Community Coalition)
By Wally Dobelis
In this year of many anniversaries of political, civil rights and social significance, we should also celebrate those of direct impact on helping New York maintain its historic past, letting us preserve our architectural and social accomplishments. The Landmarks Law of 1965 was prompted by widespread popular anger over the loss of Pennsylvania Station, and the Union Square Community Coalition was formed in 1980 to recover the badly neglected park and its neighboring 14th Street areas from a large population of derelicts and drug addicts.
USCC was successful in helping clean up the park and gaining landmark designations for the Ladies’ Mile and East 17th Street/Irving Place Historic Districts, as well as in obtaining individual landmark designations for 14 local buildings, and is looking forward to securing the designation for five more worthy buildings.
All of the above are described in a gracious eight-page pamphlet, with a double-page cover photograph of a 1933 Labor rally of the type that made the Union Square North Plaza famous for free speech and assembly. This review attempts to identify the 19 buildings with short descriptions, in a manner of an excursion or walk around the park area, all within three blocks of the Square.