This Queens Mid-Century Modern Building Is A New Landmark

QUEENS, NY — Elegant. Distinguished. A tour-de-force of mid-century modern architecture hiding in plain sight.

Those words are architectural historians and city officials describe a Queens building that's one of New York City's newest landmarks.

The city's Landmarks Preservation Commission members unanimously voted Tuesday to give an individual landmark designation to the Barkin, Levin & Company Office Pavilion.

The mid-20th century building at 12-12 33rd Ave., near the Noguchi Museum and Socrates Sculpture Park, has long garnered notice and awards for its elegant, minimalist design.

"Praised by architectural historians, it has been called 'by far the most elegant' post-World War II building in Long Island City, as well as a 'tour-de-force of midcentury design hiding in plain sight,'" a landmarks commission brief states.

Architect Ulrich Franzen — who worked with I.M. Pei, the famed designer behind the Louvre Pyramid — designed the building early in his career from 1957 to 1958 as a factory complex for a manufacturer of women's coats, the brief states.

The company, Barkin Levin, closed the original facility in 1961 and leased it to the Structural Display Company. It currently houses a DHL facility.

City landmarks commissioners took notice of the building this year as an example of modern architecture. They voted Tuesday to designate it as a landmark along with the Modulightor Building in Manhattan along 58th Street near Second Avenue, officials said.

"New York City’s streetscape has always served as a canvas for some of the world’s most creative minds, and the buildings designated today highlight two exceptionally innovative designs by internationally prominent modern architects, one at the start of his career, and the other towards the end of it,” said Landmarks Preservation Commission Chair Sarah Carroll, in a statement.