New York State has its share of buildings in need of attention, and a quartet of them made the 2012 Watch List announced on Tuesday by the World Monuments Fund. Along with the troubled modernist landmark at 510 Fifth Avenue, the lesser known New York Studio School of Drawing, Painting and Sculpture in Greenwich Village is on the list. Sitting just west of Fifth Avenue at 8 West 8th Street and showing a shade of Chupirrific pink, this was the original site of the Whitney Museum. In 1907 Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney started to put together a number of buildings for galleries and studios that make up the current site, opening the official museum in 1930 with a one-man show for Edward Hopper. In 2008, a portion of the decorative plaster cornice of the Whitney Studio collapsed, and its since been undergoing interior preservation with the help of WMF.
Also on the list is the Orange County Government Center in Goshen, NY which was recently evacuated following Hurricane Irene. This geometric stack of cubes in glass and concrete was designed by architect Paul Rudolph and completed in 1970, but has suffered from neglect in recent years. Now local officials are pushing for demolition, but there is a grass roots effort to save and preserve the iconic structure.
Up in Garrison the Russel Wright Design Center at Manitoga is also on the watch list. Set on 75 acres, the home and studio known as "Dragon Rock" is where Wright developed many of his designs and ideas for living, using it as a "learning laboratory" up through the 1970s. The envelope of the house is intact, but the grounds are in need of help so that Wright's full vision can be kept alive.
Head over to Flickr to see a gallery showing many of the 67 special sites around the world included on the 2012 World Monuments Watch List.
· 2012 World Monuments Watch [World Monuments Fund]
· World Monuments Watch List 2012 [Flickr]