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United Palace Landmark Plan Gets Thumbs-Up from Ydanis Rodriguez

 Councilman Ydanis Rodriguez will announce his decision on the landmark designation for the United Palace on Wednesday afternoon.
Councilman Ydanis Rodriguez will announce his decision on the landmark designation for the United Palace on Wednesday afternoon.
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DNAinfo/Nigel Chiwaya

WASHINGTON HEIGHTS — Councilman Ydanis Rodriguez will support the landmarking of the United Palace Cathedral, he announced on Wednesday afternoon.

The venue, which has been hosting movies and big-ticket musical performances for decades inside a former church space, got the green light early last year from the Landmarks Preservation Commission to get prioritized for landmark designation after being on the agency’s agenda for more than 40 years, officials said.

"I am proud that northern Manhattan will finally gain another New York City landmark," Rodriguez said in a statement, adding that the decision came after a month of deliberation. "I am also glad we were able to work through the concerns of the owner of the building with the City. The United Palace is a beautiful building eminently worthy of preservation and I want to thank the Eikerenkoetter family for keeping the building in the amazing shape it is in today."

The cathedral’s owners, led by Xavier Eikerenkoetter under the umbrella of the United Christian Evangelical Association church, had staunchly opposed the landmarking, and briefly had the support of Rodriguez after the LPC first floated the possible designation.

Rodriguez said at the time that he didn't want United Palace to be the only site in the area to be landmarked, because the LPC had failed to landmark other sites in Washington Heights — such as the Coliseum Theater on 181st Street and the Wadsworth Avenue Baptist Church on 148th Street.

Rodriguez believed that selective landmarking "would be a disservice to the historic nature of these buildings that would otherwise be put in danger," a spokesman explained at the time.

Rodriguez had still not made a decision about whether he would back the landmarking in recent months, even after the LPC granted landmark designation in December and Community Board 12 passed a resolution in support of the LPC decision, while also urging the councilman to do the same.

Wayne Benjamin, chair of Land Use, said the councilman expressed support for the landmark plan when he appeared before the board the board in 2015 during the vote supporting the historic designation.