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Dating problem

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The article is incorrect: this building picture was published in the 1870s ... (and was opend or built in 1868!)

--Metilsteiner (talk) 20:14, 10 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Built between 1894 and 1899, it is a New York City Landmark and is listed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places ...
Yes, you are right, the lead was incorrect, although the body of the article is correct -- I've checked it against the Guide to New York City Landmarks. I've changed the lede to read "Built in two stages, from 1868 to 1870 and from 1894 to 1899, ..." BMK (talk) 20:40, 10 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Did you know nomination

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The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by CSJJ104 (talk) 20:18, 27 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

(
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346 Broadway/108 Leonard Street
346 Broadway/108 Leonard Street

5x expanded by Epicgenius (talk). Self-nominated at 15:51, 5 September 2022 (UTC).[reply]

General: Article is new enough and long enough
Policy: Article is sourced, neutral, and free of copyright problems
Hook: Hook has been verified by provided inline citation
Image: Image is freely licensed, used in the article, and clear at 100px.
QPQ: Done.

Overall: Some overlap with other sources found using Earwig's Copyvio Detector, but these are straightforward descriptions and fine per WP:LIMITED IMO. BennyOnTheLoose (talk) 13:43, 12 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I'm a little concerned about the chronology of the first hook and ALT1, ironically, unless I'm misreading something. I think they need tweaking.

  • "that New York City's "clock master" was hired after repairing a clock at 346 Broadway, even though he had never fixed a clock before?" - doesn't quite work for me. By the time he was hired, he had fixed a clock.
  • "that New York City's "clock master" had never fixed a clock before repairing the one above 346 Broadway?" - but he wasn't the clock master before that repair, was he?
  • No issues with ALTs 2, 3, 4. ALT2 is the least interesting of the bunch to me. QPQ is pending. Thanks for your excellent work on the artile, Epicgenius. Regards, BennyOnTheLoose (talk) 10:46, 8 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Hi all, I'm leaving a second review for this article. In short, it's really well-researched and brimming with correctly citated reliable sources. Really great job! There are no copyvio issues according to Earwig. My pick for the hook is ALT4 as I'm a stickler for mysterious, humourous hooks. But I'd support 2 or 3 like Benny above. Pending a QPQ I'm happy to support.--Coin945 (talk) 23:25, 8 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@BennyOnTheLoose and Coin945: Thanks for both of your reviews. I have done a QPQ now - it seems to have slipped my mind, sorry about that. I'm also suggesting another hook to replace ALTs 0 and 1: Epicgenius (talk) 13:19, 12 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

GA Review

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Passed. —Kusma (talk) 16:02, 8 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

GA toolbox
Reviewing
This review is transcluded from Talk:108 Leonard/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Kusma (talk · contribs) 19:41, 24 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Will take this one (it's getting time for this article to have a proper review). Might take a few days, though. —Kusma (talk) 19:41, 24 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Section by section prose and content review

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  • Site: "originally known as the New York Life Building with the address 346 Broadway," I'd like the naming of the building and the change of its address explained somewhere, but I'm not sure the first sentence of "Site" is the best place to insert that discussion. Would be better elsewhere.
  • " about 28,566 sq ft (2,653.9 m2)" I think five significant digits is too precise for "about".
  • "The D. Appleton structure had burned down" I think "burned down" is the better tense here. Similar "Until 1894, the site had also contained a firehouse" get rid of "had"?
  • "that of the Merchant's Club". The sentence reads as if this is the firehouse of the Merchant's Club, is that what you intend to say?
  • Façade: "a retail entrance on Broadway" this is the first time we hear of any retail activity in the building
  • Do the skylights and roof counts as "facade"?
  • Broadway portico: I was confused about the columns and looked into 1512.pdf. Seems not just the columns were removed, but also the balustrade is smaller and less fancy now than originally?
  • Clock tower: introduce Philip Martiny more? From his article, it isn't clear to me that "he studied under Augustus Saint-Gaudens" is the best way to put it.
    • I've described him as a French-American sculptor, which seems to be easier to understand than "was a student of Saint-Gaudens" (which implies the reader knows who Saint-Gaudens is). Epicgenius (talk) 23:38, 2 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Is the clock still operating, presumably less mechnanically?
  • Interior: why write "pounds per square foot" in full one time? It is also lacking the conversion to kPa.
    • I've fixed this. It was lacking the conversion to kPa because the conversion was already given at the beginning of the sentence, and the original {{tl|convert}] templates (which spell out the units) were changed to {{cvt}} templates (which abbreviate the units). Epicgenius (talk) 23:38, 2 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • The elevators were removed, and then new elevator cores were installed? After reading this I am wondering whether they used the old shafts, but anything other than that would be crazy, so...?
  • "six emergency exit stairs, one of which is an official New York City landmark" The building is a landmark, and additionally one (but only one) of the exit stairs is also a landmark? So usually the exit stairs are not considered part of the building? This is a bit confusing.
    • The whole situation is a bit strange. For context, most NYC designated landmarks are "exterior landmarks", which means their entire facade is protected. A "NYC interior landmark" designation, by contrast, only covers certain parts of the interior, usually parts that are open to the public. Landmarked interiors are subject to much more scrutiny than non-landmarked interiors, regardless of whether the facade is a landmark, but a building can both be a exterior landmark and an interior landmark. The Empire State Building is a typical building with both exterior and interior landmark designations, but only the facade and main lobby are preserved; the offices, hallways, elevators, stairs, etc. at the Empire State Building aren't designated as landmarks.
      108 Leonard also has both exterior and interior landmark designations. However, unlike most NYC interior landmarks, huge parts of the interior are designated as a landmark. At last count, I think there were eight landmarked interior spaces (which is definitely more than the Empire State Building), including the main staircase, which is more ornate than all the others. I assume the other staircases aren't protected because they weren't as elaborate, because they were private at the time of the designation, or both. Nowadays, the entire building is private property, and people can't just walk into the lobby like at the Empire State Building, but the spaces are still protected as landmarks. Epicgenius (talk) 23:38, 2 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
      • OK. Good changes up to here. Is there by any chance a photo of the landmark protected emergency exit stairs? (Fine if not). —Kusma (talk) 15:21, 4 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
        • Unfortunately, no such photo exists. I couldn't even get a photo of the building's lobby, either by going there myself or by looking through archives, and the main stairway is even more private than the lobby is. Epicgenius (talk) 15:46, 8 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • History: This section comes weirdly late, given that the "Architecture" section also describes historical changes to the building. Your structure is that you first tell the reader what the building looks like and looked like at various times in its history ("Architecture"), and then later explain why the building exists and why changes to it were made ("History"), as if these two were independent from each other.
  • I find it odd that "Financial District" is a Name In Uppercase, while "lower Manhattan" just has an adjective. Wikipedia doesn't seem to be very consistent whether "Lower Manhattan" is also a name.
  • " The structure was built in either the Second Empire style[86] or the Italianate style" this makes it sound like we don't know what it looked like. Perhaps better to say "the structure has been described as built in Second Empire style or in Italianate style"?
  • Link Italianate style?
  • "heavy plate-glass windows and Ionic columns in a manner resembling the Erechtheion in Athens" I am pretty sure there were no heavy plate-glass windows at the Erechtheion.
  • "decided to hire Hatch to design the annex in August 1893, even though Hatch was less well-known than the other competitors." why "even though"? Maybe he was cheaper?? Might be enough to just say "decided to hire Hatch, who was less well-known than the others, ..."?
  • It sounds crazy to have a 12-story annex to a 4-story building. Do you know in what way "the design of the original structure was dissonant with that of the annex"?
    • Apparently, the source says the opposite: the annex was actually supposed to harmonize with the original building. As for having an annex that's much taller than the original building, that has occurred on occasion, but nowadays it really only happens whenever a developer has to build around a NYC landmark and wants to use that landmark's air rights (e.g. 111 West 57th Street, the Brooklyn Tower). Epicgenius (talk) 13:45, 3 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • We have "New York Life wanted to build an entrance portico on Broadway, but New York City's commissioner of public works had forbidden the portico's construction" and then "The next year, the portico in front of the building's Broadway entrance was removed." So was it built illegally but lasted for 15 years? Or was there originally a different portico planned than the one that was constructed, and then the replacement was replaced again??
  • "The New York Times wrote in 1923 that knitted-goods firms occupied" why not just state in wikivoice?
  • The story about taking over the space of the knitted good firms could be condensed a bit.
  • "A one-foot-square piece of masonry fell from the building in 1927" the old building or the new building?
  • "New York Life sold the building in August 1945 [...] this was the first major sale of a property in New York City after the end of World War II in the Pacific." Unfortunately that article says the war ended in September ;)
    • Ah, that might be the reason why I provided in-text attribution to the NYT a few lines up, rather than just stating the facts at face value. The NYT, as reliable as it generally is, sometimes makes mistakes, which is why I said the NYT made this claim. Anyway, I've removed it. Epicgenius (talk) 13:45, 3 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • "The East New York Savings Bank placed a $1 million mortgage loan on the building in 1951, and the VA office in the building was transferred to Philadelphia the same year" is there a connection between the two parts of the sentence?
  • "The Summons Court was handling one hundred thousand cases annually by the late 1970s, and the building had become dilapidated." again, what is the connection between the two parts of the sentence?
  • "Marvin Schneider and Eric Reiner" who are they? Apparently city employees, but that seems worth saying.
    • I do know they worked for the city after they fixed the building's clock. I can't tell if the city already employed them beforehand, but this source appears to indicate that they were existing city employees who visited the building during their lunch break. Epicgenius (talk) 13:45, 3 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Dan Hoeg sued Peebles, claiming that the firm had refused to give him 25 percent of the project's profit." hm, I am happy to believe that they refused, but was there a reason to think he was entitled to these 25 percent?
    • According to the source, Hoeg believed there was an agreement between him and Peebles, in which Peebles would keep 75% of the profit and give 25% to Hoeg. I've fixed this now. Epicgenius (talk) 13:45, 3 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • What is the "certificate of appropriateness"? Is it connected to the clock tower?
    • Yes. If a NYC landmark is being renovated, the LPC will grant a certificate of appropriateness to the proposed renovation if the commission determines that the renovation complies with landmarks regulations (i.e. if the proposed renovation doesn't negatively alter the landmarked parts of the building). I actually mention it a few lines up: {{tq|The LPC voted in December 2014 to grant a "certificate of appropriateness" to the clock tower's conversion, despite public opposition to that part of the project}.} Epicgenius (talk) 13:45, 3 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Reception: "Architectural critic Francis Swales said that, although the building's facade was composed similarly to nearby loft buildings because of the use of repeating motifs." There is something wrong with this sentence.
  • Do I assume correctly that all of the Reception section except for one comment from 1993 is about reception from the 1890s? If not, could you include the years?

First pass done! There are a few redundancies, some caused by the structural choice of having information about the original looks of the building in the "Architecture" section, causing it to be repeated in "History", and some other points where information is repeated. None of my other points above, mostly related to things I found confusing or difficult to understand, are major. —Kusma (talk) 21:42, 2 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for these comments. I've managed to fix most of them now, except for the "Reception" section. Regarding the info about the original appearance of the building, I considered moving down some of the historical details from "Architecture" to "History", but I decided to keep them in "Architecture" so all the architectural info is in one place. Since the building's appearance hasn't changed significantly over the years, except in the 2010s and maybe in 1912, there isn't much historical content in the "Architecture" section. Epicgenius (talk) 13:50, 3 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
That's OK. I think we're almost there! —Kusma (talk) 15:21, 4 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

General comments and GA criteria checkbox

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Starting (a bit later than expected; I blame the terrible wifi on my train yesterday) with a rough look at infobox and images.

  • File:Clock Tower Building.jpg: are you sure this was published before 1928? Caption needs a bit of work
  • Is "108 Leonard" the name or the address? (According to the infobox the address is "346 Broadway").
    • Well, the legal address was 346 Broadway until the NYC government sold it about a decade ago. It gets weird because there are two other addresses, both of which are perfectly valid. The NYC Department of City Planning cites 50 Lafayette Street as the primary address. The main residential entrance is at 108 Leonard Street, and this is the address used by more recent sources. So to answer your question: it's both the building's current official name and one of its addresses. Epicgenius (talk) 23:04, 2 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • For the old images, it would be nice to say in the captions what time they were taken (even just "before 1911" for those published in 1911 would do).
  • Other images are fine.
  • Article is stable, broad, and neutral in its coverage. The amount of detail is perhaps slightly excessive, but not enough to prevent a pass in "focus".
    • Yeah... the sources were very detailed. Even though I limited myself to three paragraphs per subsection (and tried to summarize minor details), I still ended up with tons of info about the building's architecture and history. Epicgenius (talk) 23:04, 2 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Good Article review progress box
Criteria: 1a. prose () 1b. MoS () 2a. ref layout () 2b. cites WP:RS () 2c. no WP:OR () 2d. no WP:CV ()
3a. broadness () 3b. focus () 4. neutral () 5. stable () 6a. free or tagged images () 6b. pics relevant ()
Note: this represents where the article stands relative to the Good Article criteria. Criteria marked are unassessed
Thanks for the detailed review Kusma. I hope to tackle these comments tomorrow. Epicgenius (talk) 23:04, 2 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Sourcing and paraphrasing spotchecks:

  • 10b fine.
  • 61 Eliot Gregory said that in 1899, which should be mentioned.
  • 114a fine
  • 116 could not access
  • 154 fine
  • 196 could not access enough of the text

Generally, sources look fine, with a question mark over the rather primary "Condominium Offering Plan for 108 Leonard Condominium". But this is not FAC :) I will look at your edits and responses when you've finished everything. —Kusma (talk) 20:06, 3 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Epicgenius: I think there are just three points left to work on; check my most recent edit to this review if I managed to confuse you which ones they are. —Kusma (talk) 12:08, 8 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Kusma, thanks. I think I got everything now. – Epicgenius (talk) 15:50, 8 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Excellent, good work. —Kusma (talk) 16:02, 8 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Request to edit the page

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  • Specific text to be added or removed: The developers also faced several legal challenges. In late 2015, political operative Dan Hoeg sued Peebles, claiming that the firm had refused to give him 25 percent of the project's profit as part of an agreement with Peebles.[1] Peebles denied that Hoeg had any equity stake in the building, and he countersued the next year, claiming that Hoeg had lied on his resume.[2][3] former Peebles executive Daniel Newhouse had also sued Peebles for a stake in 346 Broadway's profits, but Newhouse had withdrawn his suit in 2015.[4] Preservationists sued in the New York Supreme Court, the trial-level court of New York state, to prevent the conversion of the clock tower into a private residence.[5] The Supreme Court revoked the LPC's certificate of appropriateness in March 2016,[5][6] despite the city government's own assertion that the building's owners did not have to maintain the clock.[7] Peebles and El-Ad also had an issue with an appraiser when Peebles sought to have El-Ad buy out his stake in the project.[8] A panel of state judges upheld the Supreme Court's ruling in November 2017.[9][10] Peebles and El-Ad developers also sued each other the same year, accusing each other of trying to derail the project. If the developers did not sell at least 35 apartments by August 2018, the city could take back ownership of the building.[11][12] By November 2017, Peebles and El-Ad had resolved their legal disputes.[13][14]
  • Reason for the change: The court case discussed has nothing to do with this building at 108 Leonard Street. Therefore, it's irrelevant to the subject.

UkObong (talk) 18:49, 13 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  1. ^ Bockmann, Rich (September 3, 2015). "Ex-Peebles "partner" claims he was cut out of JV". The Real Deal New York. Archived from the original on August 27, 2022. Retrieved August 27, 2022.
  2. ^ Cullen, Terence (February 26, 2016). "Peebles Corporation Counters That Jilted Partner Fibbed on Resume". Commercial Observer. Archived from the original on August 27, 2022. Retrieved August 27, 2022.
  3. ^ Stulberg, Ariel (February 29, 2016). "Peebles countersues former 346 Broadway "partner"". The Real Deal New York. Archived from the original on August 27, 2022. Retrieved August 27, 2022.
  4. ^ Stulberg, Ariel (August 26, 2015). "Ex-Peebles exec withdraws appeal in compensation case". The Real Deal New York. Archived from the original on August 27, 2022. Retrieved August 27, 2022.
  5. ^ a b Cite error: The named reference nyt-2016-04-01 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  6. ^ Malesevic, Sue (April 1, 2016). "Peebles' efforts to silence landmarked clocktower at 108 Leonard foiled". The Real Deal New York. Archived from the original on August 27, 2022. Retrieved August 27, 2022.
  7. ^ Dunlap, David W. (June 8, 2016). "In a Rarity, New York Tells 2 Developers No". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Archived from the original on June 16, 2022. Retrieved August 30, 2022.
  8. ^ "First Amended Verified Complaint". New York State Unified Court System. May 4, 2017. Retrieved 2024-03-20.
  9. ^ Walker, Ameena (December 5, 2017). "Tribeca clock tower conversion will not include triplex penthouse". Curbed NY. Archived from the original on August 27, 2022. Retrieved August 27, 2022.
  10. ^ Baird-Remba, Rebecca (December 1, 2017). "Landmarks Advocates Score a Victory in Clock Tower Building Case". Commercial Observer. Archived from the original on August 25, 2022. Retrieved August 25, 2022.
  11. ^ Pilgrim, Lexi (August 10, 2017). "The battle of (346) Broadway: Peebles and Elad keep trading blows over Clock Tower project". The Real Deal New York. Archived from the original on August 27, 2022. Retrieved August 27, 2022.
  12. ^ Warerkar, Tanay (August 11, 2017). "Tribeca clocktower building's future as condos is in jeopardy". Curbed NY. Archived from the original on August 27, 2022. Retrieved August 27, 2022.
  13. ^ Walker, Ameena (November 6, 2017). "New look at Tribeca clocktower building's condo-fied future". Curbed NY. Archived from the original on August 27, 2022. Retrieved August 27, 2022.
  14. ^ Putzier, Konrad (October 5, 2017). "Peebles and Elad settle their spat over Clock Tower project in Tribeca". The Real Deal New York. Archived from the original on August 27, 2022. Retrieved August 27, 2022.
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