The Archive Project joined forces with the St. Mark’s Historic Landmark Fund/Neighborhood Preservation Center to host a breakfast talk with architect Randy Wood. This conversation explored the restoration of the historic Ernest Flagg Rectory after a 1988 fire, and the influence this project had on the formation of the Neighborhood Preservation Center (NPC).

On March 28, 1988, an electrical fire caused extensive damage to the 1901 Ernest Flagg Rectory of St. Mark’s Church In-the-Bowery. After the fire, under the auspices of the St. Mark’s Historic Landmark Fund (SMHLF), the Preservation Youth Project “undertook the initial work to secure the envelope of the building, restore its windows, and engage a specialist to replace its copper mansard roof. The Edelman Partnership (now Edelman Sultan Knox Wood /Architects), for many years the architects for the church, effected the restoration, with Randy Wood acting as project manager during the construction phase of the work)

Randy Wood joined Felicia Mayro, director of SMHLF, in a conversation about this restoration. Also participating was Judith Edelman, who with her husband, architect Harold Edelman, co-founded Edelman Saltzman Architects in 1960, which became The Edelman Partnership in 1979. The discussion delved into the 11-year effort to complete this project. The restored historic Ernest Flagg Rectory opened as the NPC on November 1, 1999. Today the NPC continues its role as a resource center providing meeting rooms, office space, a resource referral service, and library to community organizations and preservation related not-for-profits.

The breakfast talk with Randy Wood was audio-recorded as part of SMHLF/NPC’s building history project, an ongoing effort to collect and present the history of the Ernest Flagg Rectory. Resources from this project, which began in 2011, can be accessed through the SMHLF’s website, including a “Bibliography of the Social History of the Rectory of St. Mark’s Church In-the-Bowery 1899-2012,” a video about the rectory, and a visual history of the building. The audio recording of this breakfast talk is available by contacting the Archive Project or SMHLF/NPC.

Location:
Neighborhood Preservation Center
232 East 11th Street
New York, NY 10016
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