saving the past in nomad

So dramatically has NoMad been transformed in the 21st century that developers have concocted a new vocabulary for their creations:

“Slender-scrapers” and “skinny climbers,” “needle towers” and “super-talls,” all boasting “high slenderness ratios,” have punctured the skyline.

“It seems that a super-tower is being built or proposed on every single corner of NoMad these days,” said Mario G. Messina, president of the 29th Street Neighborhood Association.

But the neighborhood’s architectural conversation got a reboot, at least briefly, on March 6 when a pair of treasures from the early 1900s were officially designated by the city’s Landmarks Preservation Commission.

The LPC awarded landmark status to the Hotel Seville, at 22 East 29th Street, now operating as the James NoMad Hotel — a modestly scaled, limestone-and-red-brick, 12-story Beaux Arts-style classic with a highly ornamental base and crown that was completed in 1904.

Directly across 29th Street, at 95 Madison Avenue, the agency also designated the Emmet Building — a 16-story, Neo-French Renaissance-style office building, complete with gargoyles and sculptures, that was built for pioneering gynecological surgeon Dr. Thomas Addis Emmet in 1912.

Before the construction of the Seville and the Emmet, the area to the north of the original Madison Square Garden on East 26th Street had been best known for its affluent, if sleepy, residential blocks.

With the debut of the twin structures, the neighborhood’s character was transformed, and its evolution into a bustling commercial and business district that could sustain fine hotels and office suites was underway.

“These elegant buildings are not only distinctive and exemplary on their own, but together they represent an era of change and development in the area north of Madison Square during the early 20th century,” said LPC chair Meenakshi Srinivasan in unveiling the designations.

“Their location across the street from each other reinforces this intersection as a reminder of the architectural exuberance of their historic period,” she added.

Applauding the designations, Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer called both buildings “well-known gems that future generations of New Yorkers deserve to see in their streetscapes.”

Each had been vulnerable to development pressures.

Both the Seville and Emmet lie just north and east of the existing Madison Square North Historic District, which was designated in 2001, and since they fall outside that protected zone, they could have been demolished as of right had landmark status not been conferred.

That’s exactly why preservationists have long been fighting — thus far, unsuccessfully — to get the LPC to designate a Madison Square North Historic District Extension, which would comprise 286 buildings dating from the 1840s through the 1930s.

The proposed expanded district would add roughly 150 buildings to those in the existing historic district.

In the meantime, absent an extension, these developments are altering the area’s skyline:

• 262 Fifth Avenue, at West 29th Street, a planned super-tall, will become NoMad’s tallest tower, rising 1,009 feet and 54 floors.

• 277 Fifth Avenue, at East 30th Street, a Rafael Viñoly-designed, 55-story, 663-foot tower, topped out earlier this month.

• 316 Fifth Avenue, at 32nd Street, the site of the 1902 Kaskel & Kaskel Building, currently under demolition, will morph into a 40-story, 535-foot condominium with just 27 apartments.

“We’re fighting tooth and nail to save the buildings we still have,” Messina said. “Parts of Fifth and Madison Avenues in NoMad are now turning into a combination of Hong Kong and Dubai.”

invreporter@strausnews.com