Jackie Peu-Duvallon, a historic preservation consultant, and Tara Kelly, Executive Director of Friends of the Upper East Side Historic Districts, check out buildings on East 83rd St.

By Paul Bisceglio

If you live in Yorkville, don’t be surprised if you see Tara Kelly or one of her volunteers standing on the street, notepad in hand, staring at your building.

“As soon as people know you aren’t a developer, they usually don’t mind,” Kelly said. “I tell them I’m from Friends, and they say, ‘Oh, I love Friends!’”

Kelly is the executive director of Friends of the Upper East Side Historic Districts, a nonprofit on Lexington Avenue whose mission is to keep the Upper East Side’s—and, right now, specifically Yorkville’s—diverse history intact.

“What we aim to preserve is any place that has a distinct sense of place,” Kelly explained. The organization, which was founded in 1982, primarily goes about preservation through architecture. The Upper East Side’s buildings have been built, rebuilt, torn down and altered for centuries, so Friends’ job is to sift through miles of architectural variety along the city’s streets to find what is worth holding on to.

To do so, Friends performs “cultural resources surveys,” which is a fancy term for walking through neighborhoods and taking notes on buildings—all buildings. In Yorkville, the organization is currently cataloguing every lot in the neighborhood. Since 2010, the project has been recruiting volunteers throughout the Upper East Side to fill out survey forms for every building on a block, accounting for things like each building’s style, materials, window type, similarity to others in the neighborhood and overall perceived historical value.

Jackie Peu-Duvallon, a historic preservation consultant who lives at East 89th Street and Madison Avenue, has volunteered with Friends for about a year. She joined Kelly last week to survey East 83rd Street from Third to Second avenues.

“I want to maintain a sense of place between what my husband [who was born on the Upper East Side] experienced and what my son will experience,” Peu-Duvallon said of her motivation for participating in the survey. “As a resident, it becomes disconcerting when you see things like Second Avenue becoming a canyon of glass towers. You wonder, is this the neighborhood that people used to know and love, or is this becoming something else now? Are we losing character in giving up historic buildings that may have gone unrecognized?”

Peu-Duvallon and Kelly overlooked no door, step or windowpane as they surveyed each building along East 83rd Street, chatting architecture, snapping pictures and cracking jokes about a couple of less-than-sound aesthetic choices. Kelly explained that Friends seeks out buildings of individual cultural importance—like St. Elizabeth of Hungary, an attractive old Catholic church on the block—and that contain details reflecting the neighborhood’s overall historic character.

Friends ultimately does not decide what buildings are preserved, though. That is the job of the city’s Landmarks Preservation Commission, a governmental agency with the legal power to designate single structures or entire districts as historical landmarks. Roughly 30,000 buildings in New York City—about 3 percent of all buildings—are landmarked either individually or within historic districts.

Kelly wishes there were more. A significant part of Friends of the Upper East Side Historic Districts’ resources are devoted to identifying and recommending landmarks worth of designation—an approval process which, according to Kelly, takes from three months to multiple years depending on feasibility and the commission’s interest in the proposed site—but Kelly says that her organization is also dedicated to exploring ways of teaching communities about their cultural landmarks when designation is not practical. If a neighborhood has historic door fronts, say, or interesting signage, Friends notes these details in their surveys, and may use them to create a photo exhibition on their website.

Kelly also noted that regardless of how many buildings are landmarked, her job will never be done. “The city is ever evolving,” she said. “Buildings built now are landmarks of the future. As long as there are new buildings, there will be landmarks to be designated.”

Question of the week: I’ve been going out with this guy for a couple of weeks now. It’s going really well but I’m feeling a bit nervous about meeting his friends. How hard should I try to make a good impression?

Ok, Bromance 101: Guys do talk to their bros about their girlfriends. Not always in a touchy-feely, “I like her so much sometimes I’m afraid I’m going to lose her” kind of way, but they do. They aren’t necessarily looking for approval though. And unless you’re a real b****, his friends will probably not tell him to dump you. In fact, us guys talk about you in a much less detailed way than you talk about us. Really, the only thing we want to know from our bros is this: Do you think she’s hot?

So yes, it is important that his friends like you, or at least that they don’t hate you. But really, they don’t have to love you either. In fact, that would probably be a bad idea.

Don’t be trying to win them over, hoping that the next time you and your guy clash about his obvious lack of desire to wear pants on Sundays, they will take your side and, you know, talk some sense into him. Probably not gonna happen, and if it does, well I don’t know that it would be such a good thing.

You also don’t want them texting you when your boyfriend is off to see his auntie in Jersey for the weekend. So really, what we are looking for here is a middle ground.

I guess I’m going to make myself useful now. So here are a few tips to come off as the cool laid back, sexy and awesome girlfriend that you probably already are:

1. Don’t be shy. Sure, sitting in a corner, holding his hand and politely smiling at everyone won’t make them hate you, but they won’t like you either. Engage conversation. Ask them questions. Talk about yourself. Also, make sure to keep your guy in the loop if he’s the jealous type. You don’t want to be ignoring him either.

2. Don’t try too hard to look cool. You don’t want to come off as if you’re absolutely trying to impress. Just be yourself! (Hey, I’m doing this pro-bono. If you want some less cliché phrasing go ask Cosmo. Oh wait, nevermind…)

3. Have a beer! Or eventually a whisky. If you don’t like either, well, maybe a gin tonic will do the trick? But seriously, a beer will make you infinitely cooler. Just try to avoid Appletinis.

4. Don’t talk about sex. Also, stay away from any kind of flirting. If one of them does flirt with you, politely ignore him. The last thing you want is to lead them on. If you do, you can be sure that their next talk about you won’t be all unicorns and rose petals. Or maybe slutty unicorns. And no Spring Break stuff either please.

5. Almost forgot the most important tip of all: Just relax! I’d say the best way to do that is probably to disregard everything I just said.

Send your questions to mmaier@manhattanmedia.com or via twitter @N_YPress.

Words to live by, surely, are these offered 10 years ago at the memorial service for plane-crash victims Lauren Bessette, Caroline Bessette Kennedy and John F. Kennedy Jr. They were delivered by the women’s uncle, Jack Massina. And this will be a short column so they can be “boxed” for you to clip, reproduce and post anywhere and everywhere: share with family, friends and also power people in government, media, and mental and physical health care, including the spiritual kind.

About the spiritual care—the last column’s assertion that “clergy need to change what they preach,” should be tempered to read, “We must share our thoughts on what needs to be preached.” Mine include sermons and lessons about how to fulfill the “love one another” creed central to most religions, how to find the balance (in all things), how to cherish our dearest—who are often not the physically nearest—and how to contribute to and be part of the community, which encompasses not only where we live, but civic, philanthropic and religious ones as well.

And, of course, the balance between work and family means including family members too often excluded from “the couple” or “parents and dependent children nuclear family” unit. John F. Kennedy Jr.’s paternal grandfather strongly believed that the clan’s greatest strength lay in its close extended family support system; would that the surviving Kennedys would make this a societal dictum or platform.

And here’s to setting Massina’s words to music; if ever a balance were needed, it’s equal time for family and friendship love songs. Ditto for all entertainment themes! As for beneficent lyrics, America the Beautiful’s aren’t for patriotic holidays only, especially the line, “God mend thine every flaw, confirm thy soul in self control, thy liberty in law.” Madison Avenue Presbyterian Church’s July 5th prelude, postlude and congregational hymn so thankfully featured this most movingly beautiful anthem, with so many lessons to teach and subjects for sermons, including drug and alcohol dependence.

Ah, but we’re losing another physically “nurturing” everyday place: the bank at 80th and York with its large picture windows and wonderfully high ceilings about which the manager said wistfully, “They don’t make them like that anymore.”

“First do no harm,” should be climate environmentalists’ oath, so only safe and healthy energy-efficient/pollution-reducing ways are employed, not depressing lights and claustrophobic ceilings (or small cars). But thanks, dear bank and sweet-natured tellers and managers, for making it a comfortable place to do business all these years. The “everyday place ambience,” like the “everyday people temperament,” matter—a lot!
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