The New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission on Thursday announced the launch of the LPC Designation Photo Collection, a free digital photo archive of landmarked buildings and historic districts.
Now, property owners, architects, journalists and students can search and download designation photos and high-resolution images of designated buildings and sites throughout the five boroughs.
"The LPC Designation Photo Collection will not only allow the public to have a greater understanding and appreciation of New York City's designated buildings and neighborhoods, but it will serve as a resource for applicants as they prepare their permit applications, which will help streamline the process," said Landmarks Preservation Commission Chair Sarah Carroll.
For more than 55 years, LPC has been documenting designated buildings and sites through photography as part of the designation process. When LPC designates a property, it documents it in a designation report with a written description and photographs, both of which serve as a baseline for future work. Until now, these designation photos had only been available by request, and now they are accessible to all in a digital format that is easy to access.
The images in the LPC Designation Photo Collection are an interesting mix of 35 mm black-and-white and color film, medium and large format negatives, color slides and miscellaneous darkroom prints and Polaroids.
The LPC Designation Photo Collection, available at https://nyclandmarks.lunaimaging.com/, allows user to search for images by landmark name, address, block and lot number, and landmark number. The digital photo archive is enhanced by LPC’s historic building data, which includes building-by-building information on more than 37,500 buildings.
For more information on how to navigate the archive, please visit, How to Navigate the LPC Photo Archive on the main page. Any reproduction of archive photos must credit the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission as the source.
