1st Edition

Preserving New York Winning the Right to Protect a City’s Landmarks

By Anthony Wood Copyright 2008
444 Pages
by Routledge

444 Pages 117 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

448 Pages
by Routledge

Preserving New York is the largely unknown inspiring story of the origins of New York City’s nationally acclaimed landmarks law. The decades of struggle behind the law, its intellectual origins, the men and women who fought for it, the forces that shaped it, and the buildings lost and saved on the way to its ultimate passage, span from 1913 to 1965. Intended for the interested public as well as... Read more

l. The Myth of Pennsylvania Station  2. Albert Bard and the City Beautiful  3. The Bridge, the Castle and Moses  4. Postwar as Prelude  5. The Civics Engage  6. The Bard Act  7. The Village People  8. The View from the Heights  9. Heard. Deferred. Referred  10. A Series of Near Misses  11. The Commission and the Station  12.Crisis and Sacrifice.  Epilogue

Biography

Anthony C. Wood is a preservationist, historian, teacher and grant maker. Currently the Executive Director of the Ittleson Foundation, he has worked for the J.M. Kaplan Fund and the Municipal Art Society. He is an Adjunct Assistant Professor of Historic Preservation at Columbia University and is the founder and Chair of the New York Preservation Archive Project.

"Preserving New York is a valuable, deeply researched account of a little-knowm aspect of the city's past...And the photographs are wonderful..." -- Francis Morrone, The Wall Street Journal, January 2008

"Preserving New York...makes an important contribution to our overall understanding of preservation history in New York City by focusing on one compelling story - the previously untold saga of the people and places, the buildings and battles, and the politics and policies that led to the passage of New York City's landmarks law in 1965." -- Preservation Advocate, newsletter of the Preservation League of New York, Issue 121

"Knowing the early history of the movement, which is detailed admirably in Anthony C. Wood’s recent book Preserving New York: Winning a Right to Protect a City’s Landmarks is key to understanding the persistence and fervor with which New York’s preservationists follow the actions of this small city agency [Landmarks Preservation Commission.]" -- The New York Times, March 2009 

"Anthony Wood’s Preserving New York helps us realize again that preservation is about passionate people, not about laws—itshould be required reading for all of us who care about preserving our history." -- Buildings & Landscapes 16, no. 2 , Fall 2009