Architects Get Clever
By Alex Padalka

Tired of boring corporate greeting cards with generic non-denominational graphics and holiday wishes about as warm-hearted and cheery as C-SPAN? If you are a client of Elmhurst-based Graf & Lewent, your card would be different. Each year, the staff of this architecture firm selects a different Queens building to spotlight on their corporate holiday cards as a gesture of pride in the borough they work in.

“It makes our clients here more aware of the types of buildings we have in Queens, and for the people who don’t live in Queens it shows that New York City’s history is not just in Manhattan,” said Howard Graf, a partner with the firm. “It also relates more to what we do for a living.”

Now in its 15th year, the card has featured the LaGuardia control tower, a house that looks like it’s straight out of Archie Bunker, the New York pavilion and the Elmwood movie theatre. Some of the buildings have been projects Graf & Lewent worked on themselves, while others have been structures the architects find “architecturally fascinating.” The architects don’t go for the obvious Queens landmarks, instead finding treasures that people might not know about or have already forgotten.

“We do a lot of research, and we don’t pick the most famous buildings,” Graf said. “We try to pick something a little below the radar to make people aware of the environment around them. We feel that, being architects, we have several roles in society and one of them is to encourage better building and better environments.”

The firm holds a contest among its 10-member staff, half of whom live in Queens, to select the perfect candidate, as well as come up with a clever word play on the structure, a brief history of the site’s architecture and use over the years. In a real team effort, the whole staff joins in on researching, sketching and wri¬ting. The end result is a black and white line art sketch accented with a seasonal red.

“We approach it like any other project, like the work we do with airlines, universities and medical facilities. We try to get plans for the structure and find the best way to present it for people to truly appreciate the site’s design,” Graf said.

Graf & Lewent Architects is known for its work in airport facility design, educational and institutional buildings and specialty technical and medical laboratory projects. Their portfolio includes the renovation of Flushing Town Hall, laboratory renovation at St. John’s University, and several projects in the airline business, including the John F. Kennedy and LaGuardia airports and JetBlue.

Graf decided to base his business in Queens because of what he saw as a little boy growing up on Long Island.

“At one time my father owned a bakery on Casino Blvd., and Queens always seemed like an area where a lot of things were going – very active and very diverse,” he said.