Eric Adams has landmarked fewer buildings than his predecessors. During a push for new development, will the next mayor change course?

While Mayor Eric Adams is no longer in the race to lead New York City, he continued to attack Democratic mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani this month on an aspect of city policy that Adams hasn’t overtly emphasized himself, until recently – landmarks designation. 

During his one-term mayoralty, Adams has granted fewer landmarks designations than his predecessors. While recent predecessors Bloomberg and de Blasio granted an average of around 26 and 16 landmarks designations per year, respectively, Adams’ administration has averaged around 10. There are only so many landmarks to designate, of course. However, in a rare instance on Oct. 8, Adams called on the Landmarks Preservation Commission to designate two of the city’s Christopher Columbus statues as public landmarks, protecting them against possible Mayor Zohran Mamdani tearing them down to protest Columbus’ colonial legacy. 

Despite the attack, both politicians are advocates for new housing, with Adams championing the City of Yes for housing rezoning plan, and Mamdani pledging to build more housing if elected. As the city sees a movement toward new developments, some preservationists argue that there is an imbalance between constructing more housing and preserving buildings that are emblematic of the city’s past. Others in preservation, however, believe that the decline in landmarking numbers is a necessary adaptation to the intensifying issues of space and housing. But neither Mamdani, Andrew Cuomo or Republican nominee Curtis Sliwa have released plans about how they would tackle historical preservation if elected – leaving a vocal sector of city advocacy wondering about their future. 

“I think Mayor Adams was particularly enthralled to the real estate lobby, and I think he was entirely uninterested in protecting any kind of real estate that powerful forces or interests might have had other plans for,” said Andrew Berman, executive director of Village Preservation, who released the report about Adams’ landmarking legacy last fall. 

From 2022 to 2024, the Landmarks Preservation Commission under Adams granted most landmark designations to city-owned properties, such as parks. Berman claims that this history shows a pattern of the mayor not protecting sites that face imminent threat, pointing to the current advocacy push to restore the Tony Dapolito Recreation Center, which features a sprawling Keith Haring mural and currently sits unused. While the City Council had already allocated $120 million to repair the center, the Adams administration announced plans in August to demolish and renovate it into a new fitness hub, arguing the building is too damaged to be repaired for community use and that the mural can be preserved. Adams’ Landmarks Preservation Commission says that their recent history of historic preservation is guided by their Equity Framework, launched under Mayor de Blasio in 2021, to prioritize preserving sites in diverse communities that have often been overlooked such as the Joseph Rodman Drake Park and Enslaved People’s Burial Ground in the Bronx, designated in 2023.   

“As the largest municipal preservation agency in the nation LPC oversees more than 38,000 designated buildings and sites citywide, and we are proud of the landmarks designated under the Adams administration, with unprecedented gains in designations that represent New York City's diversity and designations in areas less represented by landmarks, including a record number of designations in the Bronx, as well as important new landmarks associated with Black and LGBTQ+ history,” Courtney Clark Metakis, director of communications at the Landmarks Preservation Commission, wrote in a statement to City & State. 

When asked at a recent town hall about how he would approach this issue of the Tony Dapolito Recreation Center as mayor, Mamdani signaled support to restore the center, saying “the important thing to do here is not just to fulfill the promises you have made, but also do your best to fulfill the promises that have been made prior to you.”

“This question, to me, is working with the City Council to ensure that we actually allocate the money that was promised and follow through on this commitment,” Mamdani said.     

While Mamdani focused his answer on not walking back the $120 million commitment from the City Council, Sliwa has overtly said he supports “the halt of the Tony Dapolito Recreation Center demolition.” Sliwa has also been an active voice in Adams’ push to preserve the city’s Christopher Columbus statues, even committing to erecting a new one on Staten Island. 

In response to questions from City & State about his preservation plans, Cuomo spokesperson Rich Azzopardi said in a statement that “When done right, these designations can help preserve New York's rich history and help spur tourism and economic activity. Just as happened during his time as governor, these decisions should be taken on a case by case basis.” Neither Mamdani’s team nor Sliwa’s responded to questions from City & State about their platforms on preservation.

For Erica Avrami, a professor of historic preservation at Columbia University, this “case-by-case” designation work does not effectively address systemic issues that the city is facing.  

“We need to be thinking more holistically about how we can adapt existing buildings to create more affordable housing,” Avrami said. 

While some preservationists have focused on the declining numbers of landmarks designation in recent years, Avrami said that this metric is not a relevant indicator especially as the city faces more unique challenges compared to mayors of the past, such as shrinking space due to climate change. 

“The land of New York City is finite. In fact, many would argue it's shrinking because of climate change and so we just keep designating more buildings, right? What's the end goal here? To designate most of the city?” Avrami asked. 

The push to build more housing will be on the ballot next month. Ballot proposals put forth by Adams’ Charter Revision Commission aim to fast-track the process of erecting new developments. Some preservation advocates emphasized that their message to the next mayor is that designation and construction do not stand in opposition to one another.    

Peg Breen, president of the New York Landmarks Conservancy said, “I would hope that our next mayor understands that preservation has an important role to play in the city and that we are not anti-development.”