The Battle For Gotham Part 2

THE LUCKY BREAK.

Within my first year, I moved up from copy boy to editorial a.s.sistant, a move hardly worthy of the word up up. I answered phones and wrote plot lines for TV listings in the feature department, but all around me was the buzz of the real news business and I soaked it up.

In August 1963 I traveled to Was.h.i.+ngton, D.C., to attend the March on Was.h.i.+ngton. It was one of the most memorable events of my life. Editorial-page editor James Wechsler, who, like many people, didn't antic.i.p.ate the significance of the event, asked me many questions about it when I returned. He regretted not going and said, "This is something you will be happy to tell your grandchildren about." He was correct.

Months later, the hot topic in the City Room was all the political jockeying unfolding before the 1964 Democratic National Convention in Atlantic City. I was dying to go. But the New York Post New York Post management was notoriously tightfisted. The editors were happy to have me work at the convention as editorial a.s.sistant if I took vacation time to go, paid my own way to get to Atlantic City, and covered my own expenses. Once there, I was paid my normal salary. Of course, it was worth it. Mostly I ran errands, but it took me to the convention floor among the delegates. management was notoriously tightfisted. The editors were happy to have me work at the convention as editorial a.s.sistant if I took vacation time to go, paid my own way to get to Atlantic City, and covered my own expenses. Once there, I was paid my normal salary. Of course, it was worth it. Mostly I ran errands, but it took me to the convention floor among the delegates.

The convention was an emotional one, less than a year after Kennedy's a.s.sa.s.sination. I watched from the press box as Robert Kennedy addressed the cheering crowd and received a twenty-minute standing ovation before he said his first word. Tears welled in his eyes.

My big editorial break came on the last day of the convention. All staff reporters were off on a.s.signments. I was alone in our makes.h.i.+ft office with managing editor Stan Opotowsky. A press release came in announcing that President Lyndon B. Johnson would celebrate his birthday on the boardwalk with a big cake. Stan sent me up to take notes. The cake was in the shape of the United States. Johnson took his first slice out of the state of Texas. A more obvious story lead could not be handed to the most inexperienced reporter. I came back and instead of typing notes, as Stan had asked, wrote the story, starting with LBJ taking the first slice out of Texas. Stan was caught by surprise, edited the story, and sent it in immediately. It made the front page-no byline-under a photo of Johnson slicing the cake. The word spread around the City Room that it was my story, and many of the reporters cheered. They were now my friends and rooting for me.

Soon after the Atlantic City convention in August 1964, a Young Democrats event was scheduled to take place at Gracie Mansion, the official residence of New York mayors. LBJ was now the presidential nominee, and much was being made in the news about Texas barbecue replacing the elegant French food served in the Kennedy White House. Walter Jet-ton was Texas's most famous barbecue chef, and he was coming to New York. I was still only an editorial a.s.sistant at the Post Post, but I offered Dan Wolf the story for the Village Voice Village Voice. He said yes.

The story depicted Lynda Bird Johnson's New York political debut at this young citizens' event at Gracie Mansion, hosted by Robert Wagner Jr., son of the mayor. The Texas-style barbecue and Texas-sized portions of food marked the abrupt transition experienced by these young sophisticates, many of whom had first been politically energized by the youthful "vigah" and style of the Kennedys, not to mention the dominance of French food and understated elegance.

I don't know if that story in the Voice Voice advanced my standing with the advanced my standing with the Post Post editors, but two months later, I started my three-month "tryout" as a reporter. On my first day, Judy Michaelson, a veteran reporter, advised me, "Take your first a.s.signment, run right out of the office as if you know exactly what you are doing, and then call me from the nearest phone booth." As it turned out, I didn't need to. I was sent to cover a press conference held by proabortion advocate Bill Baird calling for legalization. Only a year or two earlier, I had had an abortion, forced to go to the infamous Women's Hospital in Puerto Rico rather than succ.u.mb to the illegal, unsafe backroom procedure available in the United States. I knew more than any reporter-even a new one-needed to know about the subject. editors, but two months later, I started my three-month "tryout" as a reporter. On my first day, Judy Michaelson, a veteran reporter, advised me, "Take your first a.s.signment, run right out of the office as if you know exactly what you are doing, and then call me from the nearest phone booth." As it turned out, I didn't need to. I was sent to cover a press conference held by proabortion advocate Bill Baird calling for legalization. Only a year or two earlier, I had had an abortion, forced to go to the infamous Women's Hospital in Puerto Rico rather than succ.u.mb to the illegal, unsafe backroom procedure available in the United States. I knew more than any reporter-even a new one-needed to know about the subject.

A few years later, abortion would become one of the issues on which I focused as a reporter. I covered efforts to change the law, wrote a six-part series on the issue, and then wrote the cover story for Ms. Ms. when the when the Roe v. Wade Roe v. Wade decision was handed down from the U.S. Supreme Court in January 1973. That was the height of the women's movement, and I was as much a part of it as my professional restrictions permitted. When editors allowed me, I wrote stories related to women's issues, not something many editors allowed at other newspapers. decision was handed down from the U.S. Supreme Court in January 1973. That was the height of the women's movement, and I was as much a part of it as my professional restrictions permitted. When editors allowed me, I wrote stories related to women's issues, not something many editors allowed at other newspapers.

Rape was another topic that I covered in depth in the early 1970s before the laws applying to it were liberalized. There was little talked about and less written about a subject fraught with myth and pain. Susan Brownmiller's Against Our Will Against Our Will, published in 1975, changed all that and catapulted the issue into the nation's consciousness. But when I was writing this series a few years earlier, corroboration requirements were so onerous, a "woman's word" so suspect, juries so doubtful, and policemen and district attorneys so unsympathetic that most women didn't even report the crime, and if they did very rarely achieved justice. I wrote a six-part series on rape in 1972, spotlighting the inequity of the law. What I learned over the months of research and interviews for that series angered me greatly. Att.i.tudes ranged from "women should relax and enjoy it" to "they ask for it." Blaming the victim was common. My slowly emerging feminism ratcheted up to full speed.

PROMOTED TO REPORTER.

In January 1965 I was promoted to full "general a.s.signment" reporter, byline and all, loving the daily routine of being sent all over the city on whatever news story was unfolding. Murders, press conferences, "daily close-ups" (features on personalities in the news-authors, bank presidents, actors, philanthropists, and so on), and everyday mundane a.s.signments consumed most of my time. But the full luxury of picking issues to write about came after several years of being a reporter.

The '60s art scene, very much a new "scene"-auctions, museum openings, artist personalities-was another reporting focus. Art auctions were now making big news on a regular basis. I had grown up in a household where art was a daily interest. The Whitney Museum, the quintessential inst.i.tution of the Village and then still on Eighth Street, was a favorite place for my mother, my sister, and me to visit. The Whitney moved uptown in 1954. Young, not yet well-known artists were my parents' friends, including Mark Rothko and his wife, Mel, who lived in our apartment house, and Milton Avery, whose daughter, March, was my sister's cla.s.smate and friend. My mother sold art by her friends, then still unknown, to her decorating clients.

And then, in May 1965, I married Donald Gratz, a metal manufacturer peripherally in the art and architecture business. Architecture was a new world for me, and I learned from him. My interest in art and architecture expanded, and I applied it to the reporting a.s.signments I requested.

At the same time, I reported on housing, urban renewal, and community battles for survival, on small successes and large failures, on historic preservation and neighborhood revitalization. I saw government policies repeat the mistakes of the past because vested interests, misguided a.n.a.lyses, and wrongheaded plans stood in the way of appropriate urban change. And I saw neighborhoods rebuild themselves despite government-created impediments. What I learned about the dynamic of cities I learned first in the neighborhoods of New York and from the people who fought to save and renew their turf. Residents and business owners in any place, the essential users, instinctively know what is needed and not needed to keep their community healthy or to make it better.

I covered the fight to build low-income housing in middle-income neighborhoods and wrote with colleagues Anthony Mancini and Pamela Howard a six-part series, "The Great Apartment House Crisis." I worked on another six-part series, this one about the newly opened Co-op City and its impact on the South Bronx, especially the Grand Concourse from which many of the residents had moved. I was stunned to observe such ma.s.sive relocation out of one neighborhood into another. Later, I investigated shady landlords and cheating nursing home operators, covered hot zoning battles and ongoing urban renewal clearance projects, and investigated Forty-second Street property owners purposely renting to illicit uses to make a case for city condemnation and payout for their properties.

THE APPEAL OF HISTORIC PRESERVATION.

Historic preservation grabbed me most of all, probably because so much of the city was threatened by demolition and I was so impressed by the local people I met in the neighborhoods fighting to save their communities and the things that made them special. Sometimes the battle was to save a building, other times to get a traffic light in front of a school or to prevent a rezoning that would permit an out-of-scale new project to intrude on a neighborhood.

Most of these gra.s.sroots warriors did not know the difference between architects H. H. Richardson and Philip Johnson, but they knew what the local church, school, library, or firehouse meant as an anchor to their neighborhood. They saw the row houses and modest apartment houses dating from the lost eras of quality and care being replaced by dreary, barrackslike structures or excessive scale, projects that undermined the fragile economic and social ecosystem on which any community rests. They knew what inappropriate new development could do. Planners, city officials, academics, and other experts either dismissed or ignored the common wisdom. Worse, many of them didn't even know how to hear it.

At the same time, some gra.s.sroots community rebuilding efforts were mobilizing to reclaim solid but abandoned buildings, trying to create affordable housing for people being displaced by demolition-style rebuilding all over the city. These efforts grew into the significant community-based redevelopment efforts that laid the groundwork for the renewed city, an observable truth ignored or minimized by most contemporary histories of the city. The Cooper Square Committee on the Lower East Side. The People's Firehouse. UHAB (Urban Homesteading a.s.sistance Board) on the Upper West Side. The People's Development Corporation and Banana Kelly in the South Bronx. Bedford-Stuyvesant Restoration in Brooklyn.

These groups didn't oppose development; there was no development to oppose. They created community-based housing organizations and renovated eighty thousand units, setting the stage for the private investment that followed. Collectively, they pushed for changes in the insurance laws that did more to discourage landlord-sponsored arson than any public policies. They developed new ways to finance the rehabilitation of housing, pushed for tenant protection, devised preservation strategies, and developed new and renovated units all over the city that helped stem the tide of abandonment and pave the way for new investment. Over the years, they advanced more redevelopment than for-profit developers did. "More importantly," notes Ron s.h.i.+ffman, former director of the Pratt Center for Community Development and longtime adviser to many community efforts around the city, "they have enabled many places to retain their genetic footprint, the form that gave the distinctiveness and unique character to that particular community. They helped sp.a.w.n the environmental justice and industrial retention movements. And they spurred greater attention to sustainable planning practices and green building approachers."

I watched these citizen-based efforts rebuild a city in ways officials despaired to understand. To this day, too many "experts" and public leaders fail to recognize the continued validity of this process, in New York City or elsewhere. These citizens all resisted official plans reflecting how experts said things should should work and how people work and how people should should live but not reflecting how people actually lived or that added to the vibrancy of urban life. These citizen groups were planning from the bottom up, and step by small step they were slowly adding up to big change. I was fascinated by these groups, and I learned from them. I didn't appreciate then that I was witnessing the precursors of the regeneration of the larger city. live but not reflecting how people actually lived or that added to the vibrancy of urban life. These citizen groups were planning from the bottom up, and step by small step they were slowly adding up to big change. I was fascinated by these groups, and I learned from them. I didn't appreciate then that I was witnessing the precursors of the regeneration of the larger city.

The only way to understand any city or any part of it is to walk the streets, talk to people who live and work in the neighborhoods, look at what works or doesn't work, and ask why, how, who. Direct observation, not theory. Instinct over expertise. That is the journalist's habit or should be. It was not the habit of many professionals who claim to know best the interests of the city.

THE 1960S.

In many ways, the city in the 1960s and 1970s seemed no different from the New York of my childhood. But in so many ways it was was different. The World Trade Center and Battery Park City were not yet built. Lincoln Center was in construction. The Metropolitan Opera and the McKim, Mead, and White Pennsylvania Station still stood. The New York City Landmarks Law-one of the earliest in the country-did not exist. different. The World Trade Center and Battery Park City were not yet built. Lincoln Center was in construction. The Metropolitan Opera and the McKim, Mead, and White Pennsylvania Station still stood. The New York City Landmarks Law-one of the earliest in the country-did not exist. New York Magazine New York Magazine was yet to be born, first as a supplement to the was yet to be born, first as a supplement to the Herald Tribune Herald Tribune. Pa.s.senger liners graced West Side piers. The Twentieth Century Limited still went from Grand Central to Chicago. Yankee Stadium had not been renovated the first time, and Shea Stadium was in construction.

Suburban malls had not yet made an impact. All the department stores were in their rightful places along Fifth Avenue-Bonwit-Teller, Bergdorf-Goodman, Saks, Lord & Taylor, Best & Co. Fifth Avenue was "the Avenue," and Thirty-fourth Street was still the preeminent "pedestrian" shopping street. B. Altman's was at the Fifth Avenue end of Thirty-fourth, Macy's and Gimbels at the Sixth Avenue end. Ohrbach's was in between, along with dozens of small shops, both chains and locals. Soon, malls would vacuum the heart out of many American Main Streets. But while malls killed much of downtown America, they only partially injured New York City. The density of this city guaranteed a less dramatic impact than the sh.e.l.l shocks that crippled so many other cities.

On Forty-second Street, stores sold foreign newspapers, hats, costumes, and a great variety of entertainment-related goods. The sparkling marquees of great first-run movie houses were lined up one after another along that still quintessential street. A mix of low-end entertainment outlets, holdovers from the 1920s, gave the street its seedy feel. A few grind houses could be visited. Hubert's Museum, a Coney Island-style sideshow, had a flea circus, snake charmer, belly dancer, and wild man of Borneo. The p.o.r.nography was soft core with hard core soon to come in the late 1960s. As newspaper exposes revealed, disreputable property owners welcomed the degenerate uses as tenants to strengthen their push for a publicly funded city renewal scheme and generous bailouts that would handsomely enrich them. Contrived or accelerated deterioration has long been a property owner's excuse for seeking financial concessions from the city. This pattern was common elsewhere in the city but most glaringly at the time on Forty-second Street.

Beneath its glittering gaudiness, the Times Square district overflowed with great original musicals (Fiddler on the Roof, Funny Girl Funny Girl, Cabaret Cabaret, h.e.l.lo, Dolly h.e.l.lo, Dolly) and dramas (Golden Boy, Tiny Alice Tiny Alice, The Subject Was Roses The Subject Was Roses). The regal Astor Hotel had not yet been replaced by a die-stamped, gla.s.s-walled office tower. The Astor replacement was the first of many similarly ba.n.a.l ones that followed.

Until the bulldozer of urban renewal and misguided city-planning policies took their toll, the city's neighborhoods often had their own thriving entertainment centers with at least one movie house, local restaurants, and neighborhood retail to keep many residents happy. Times Square, Broadway theater, and Manhattan nightspots were for the Big Nights on the town and first-run films. By the 1970s, little of that was left, and the days were numbered for what remained. Times Square was New York's epicenter, and even that was in decline, and not an entirely natural decline at that.

The Upper West Side was like the set for the long-running musical West Side Story West Side Story (opened in 1957), and years away from becoming chic. (opened in 1957), and years away from becoming chic.4 Run-down brownstones, their high quality intact, lined the side streets. Neglected but elegant apartment towers dominated Central Park West. I loved my first one-bedroom apartment in that small building overlooking Central Park, but walking the side streets was something one did quite cautiously. Nighttime crime in the park was a constant. Run-down brownstones, their high quality intact, lined the side streets. Neglected but elegant apartment towers dominated Central Park West. I loved my first one-bedroom apartment in that small building overlooking Central Park, but walking the side streets was something one did quite cautiously. Nighttime crime in the park was a constant.

The Upper East Side was then the enclave of the rich and the famous. And Brooklyn was another world. Visits to Coney Island and relatives were about the limit of my Brooklyn experience until then. When we lived in the Village, my grandfather occasionally came from Brooklyn for Sunday breakfast, bringing pickled herring, white fish, lox, and bagels from Brooklyn's Avenue J. When I returned to New York as an adult, he would meet me at the Horn & Hardart on Forty-second Street for a Sunday meal. He was intimidated by Manhattan and knew only the one subway stop at Forty-second Street from Brooklyn. The Bronx was out of my consciousness-except for the zoo and Botanical Garden-though I used to visit relatives there too as a child. Queens I hardly knew, and Staten Island I don't remember even having visited.

THE 1970S.

New York hit bottom in the late 1960s and '70s, and even optimists could not foresee the rebound that has occurred. Crippling events and conditions scarred the decade. Crime, drugs, police corruption, munic.i.p.al strikes, litter, housing abandonment-anything that could go wrong did. Even a cable on the Brooklyn Bridge snapped in the mid-1970s.

1.3 "Ford to City: Drop Dead" was the New York Daily News New York Daily News front page that summed up the state of the city. front page that summed up the state of the city. New York Daily News New York Daily News.

The famous headlines are the stuff of legend. "Ford to City: Drop Dead" screamed the front page of the New York Daily News New York Daily News on October 30, 1975, when the president refused to help bail out the city's near bankruptcy. A few days later, he reversed the decision and loaned the city $500 million. In 1979, when Chrysler seemed destined for bankruptcy, the federal government easily extended $1.2 billion in loan guarantees. The same benefit had not been offered ailing New York City. The "fiscal crisis," as it was appropriately called, had reached the point when the city could no longer sell the bonds it needed to fund its budget. Sympathy from around the country was nonexistent. In the 1970s, New York was probably the most unloved city in the country. on October 30, 1975, when the president refused to help bail out the city's near bankruptcy. A few days later, he reversed the decision and loaned the city $500 million. In 1979, when Chrysler seemed destined for bankruptcy, the federal government easily extended $1.2 billion in loan guarantees. The same benefit had not been offered ailing New York City. The "fiscal crisis," as it was appropriately called, had reached the point when the city could no longer sell the bonds it needed to fund its budget. Sympathy from around the country was nonexistent. In the 1970s, New York was probably the most unloved city in the country.

"There it is, ladies and gentlemen, the Bronx is burning," noted Howard Cosell as he looked up during a game at Yankee Stadium in 1977 and noticed a building on fire. "The Bronx is burning" became the catch-phrase of the day. Arson-both landlord and tenant initiated-was rampant in poor neighborhoods, not just in the Bronx. Few saw a bright future for the city. The South Bronx served as the poster child for the collapse of the country's inner cities. The worst conditions were visible there. The movie Fort Apache Fort Apache, starring Paul Newman, took place in the South Bronx and highlighted the grim reality of uncontrolled crime. That movie wasn't made until 1981 and kept the worst image alive. Tom Wolf's Bonfire of the Vanities Bonfire of the Vanities, also set in the Bronx at its worst, was published in 1987. A big hit, it, too, kept the worst images alive.

And then there was a whole year of the serial killer Son of Sam, who preyed on young women and couples, increasing the city's unease from anxiety to full-blown fear. The media heyday culminated in "CAUGHT," the Post' Post's dramatic 1977 headline at his capture. And while feeling a sense of relief, the elevated anxiety level of the city did not diminish. Son of Sam seemed to symbolize the crime wave the public feared, a condition common in all American cities in the '70s. High crime rates depressed everything. Revelations of systematic police corruption did not help public confidence in the era of high crime.

Beyond the memorable headlines were the endless psychic wounds underscoring the city's sinking state. In 1972, The Tonight Show The Tonight Show abandoned Broadway for Burbank, California, as if leaving a sinking s.h.i.+p. The city became a favorite target of late-night talk-show jokes. Mayor John V. Lindsay appeared on the d.i.c.k Cavett panel show and in defense of New York said, "It isn't true that people get mugged all the time in Central Park." Replied Cavett: "No. They just get murdered." abandoned Broadway for Burbank, California, as if leaving a sinking s.h.i.+p. The city became a favorite target of late-night talk-show jokes. Mayor John V. Lindsay appeared on the d.i.c.k Cavett panel show and in defense of New York said, "It isn't true that people get mugged all the time in Central Park." Replied Cavett: "No. They just get murdered."

That same year revealed an even deeper wound when Mayor Lindsay tried to build needed public housing in the middle-cla.s.s neighborhood of Forest Hills in the borough of Queens. "Scatter-site" projects-smaller increments of public housing inserted in middle-cla.s.s communities-were offered as a socially progressive alternative to the postwar urban renewal format of high-rise ghettoes that evolved into new slums. The conflict sparked a virulent debate about race, cla.s.s, and the post-civil rights era goal of integration. The large-scale project challenged the commitment of the heavily liberal and predominantly Jewish Forest Hills community. Representing the resistant community was a little-known Queens lawyer, Mario Cuomo.5 Cuomo helped fas.h.i.+on a compromise that downsized the proposed public housing apartment buildings to half the planned size. Celebrated Cuomo helped fas.h.i.+on a compromise that downsized the proposed public housing apartment buildings to half the planned size. Celebrated New York Daily News New York Daily News columnist Jimmy Breslin turned the spotlight on Cuomo's defense of the average middle cla.s.s and catapulted him into the political spotlight. Cuomo had successfully represented another fighting Queens neighborhood in 1966. At that time, the city was condemning sixty-six private homes in Corona to build a school. Cuomo challenged the city's plan to take the properties by eminent domain, a right formally expanded by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2005 to allow taking property from one private owner to give to another private owner without the conventional public purpose. columnist Jimmy Breslin turned the spotlight on Cuomo's defense of the average middle cla.s.s and catapulted him into the political spotlight. Cuomo had successfully represented another fighting Queens neighborhood in 1966. At that time, the city was condemning sixty-six private homes in Corona to build a school. Cuomo challenged the city's plan to take the properties by eminent domain, a right formally expanded by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2005 to allow taking property from one private owner to give to another private owner without the conventional public purpose.

Two years after the Forest Hills project, in 1974, a portion of the West Side Highway collapsed, putting the deteriorated state of the city's infrastructure in the spotlight. Cutbacks in maintenance dated back to the heyday of big new projects and highway building when maintenance and rehabilitation neither scored political points nor provided enviable photo opportunities. A hugely expanded proposed replacement, Westway, became the lightning rod for the debate over the ongoing reshaping of the national landscape for the automobile. Opponents forced recognition of the importance of reinvesting in public transit after years of frenzied highway building at transit's expense. The battle marked the decade. The defeat in the mid-1980s marked a turning point in the regeneration of the city. (See chapter 9.) In 1976 Mayor Lindsay promised the South Bronx a rejuvenated neighborhood when he committed $25 million to renovate Yankee Stadium-"the centerpiece of another New York City neighborhood renaissance," a city hall announcement boasted. When it was finished in 1977, the cost had escalated to $120 million, but not a penny of the promised $2 million had been spent improving the surrounding neighborhood. One can be sure that with the completion of the new Yankee Stadium, the city and ball club will take full credit for the regeneration of the surrounding neighborhood that occurred long before the stadium's current re-creation. Maybe the public will eventually forget the important local parks taken from the community, the expanded traffic-generating publicly paid-for parking garage given to the Yankees, and the millions in public subsidies for the stadium. Maybe the community will eventually accept the new park on top of a parking garage counted as a partial replacement and a scattering of replacement parks that will take years to deliver.

While the city invested in the stadium in 1976, the South Bronx was losing five thousand housing units yearly in rows of private houses, apartment buildings, and small businesses. Nothing comparable was invested in the renovation of potentially viable but partially abandoned neighborhoods. Arson for profit was the property owner's way out of neighborhoods the city had glaringly given up on. The city cut back on fire services, closing firehouses in the most vulnerable of neighborhoods, as if to say "Let it burn." Community groups, not government, took the initiative to enduringly rebuild Bronx neighborhoods block by block while official city priorities were elsewhere.

FROM BAD TO WORSE.

The deep decay of our cities poisoned the decade. Across America, conditions varied only in degree, not in kind. Every social ill imaginable was blamed on the urban condition. None of the big-project bromides meant to rejuvenate cities were working anywhere. St. Louis had demolished its economic heart on the waterfront to build the Saarinen Arch in the 1950s and kept losing economic strength and population. Chicago had erased the dense neighborhoods of the South Side for the parade of dysfunctional public housing high-rises now being torn down and replaced, but that city's decline continued. Pittsburgh had wiped out the vibrant black community of the Hill District made famous by August Wilson to build an arena and arts center (not built), and left vast unused land empty around it for decades. Los Angeles had wiped out its authentically urban downtown when it leveled Bunker Hill. An interstate highway had wiped out Miami's vibrant and historic black community of Overton. Buffalo had wiped out at least half of its downtown to build a highway and then watched the unused cleared land lie fallow as the rest of the city continued to fall apart. Boston had cleared its bustling West End. By the 1970s, urban challenges had gotten worse. All the big visions had mushroomed. All the big visions had made things worse.

The lost neighborhoods had mixtures of working poor, industry, small manufacturers, and strong social networks and inst.i.tutions that bolstered the difficult lives of their residents. The social upheaval caused by these physical changes was catastrophic. Baltimore, Portland, Seattle, Miami, Indianapolis, you name it, urban renewal or highways demolished large swaths of the urban fabric in almost every city, weakening almost beyond repair the remaining urban threads. Few cities stood firm against the bulldozer like Savannah, which, as one native recalled, "resisted urban renewal as a communist plot." All of the bulldozed neighborhoods, of course, were either predominantly low-income African American and Hispanic or a mix of residents, small businesses, and industries, or both.

Decades of postwar federal investments in highways and suburban developments coupled with decades of financial inst.i.tutions' abandonment of urban dwellers and their properties had done the trick. The suburban ideal reached its height, the urban alternative its depth. Throughout the 1970s, the bleak condition of urban America was on the front pages of newspapers across the country.

These were turbulent times, to be sure. New York City was at the point of collapse. Over the s.p.a.ce of a decade, the city went from bad to worse. Strikes by sanitation and subway workers occurred and even briefly by police and doctors in city hospitals. The blackout of 1965 had brought out the best in everyone. People came through it with grace and dignity. We patted ourselves on the back with the slogan, "When the going gets rough, New Yorkers get going." Everyone was ineffably polite. The riots of the 1960s, both in New York and in other cities, had focused mostly on black rage, racial injustice, and the until then out-of-sight, out-of-mind dire conditions in urban ghettoes. But by the blackout of 1977, looting marked the day, taking the city to the brink of disaster. More than two thousand stores were burned in twenty-four hours. Areas of Brooklyn, the Bronx, Harlem, and the Lower East Side, after years of tumultuous physical and social reengineering, seemed to implode. It was as if the rug had been pulled out from under the city. City planners predicted the population would drop precipitously from just under eight million to five.6 The limits-and question of usefulness-to the projections of planners and urban economists come into focus every few years. As New York Times New York Times columnist Joyce Purnick pointed out in a December 31, 2006, article, "New York, Where the Dreamers Are Asleep," "The city's population has had a way of taking on a life of its own. Zoning consultants in the 1960s advised city officials that New York's population would grow to 8.5 million in 1975-it may well have if not for the fiscal crisis that was at its worst in 1975. Instead, the numbers dropped so sharply-to 7.2 million in 1980 from 8 million in 1970-that some social scientists advocated 'planned shrinkage' in city services." Purnick also noted that by 1990 the city's population was up to 7.6 million, "an increase that was also unantic.i.p.ated." With that growth came the need for some schools to build annexes in prefabricated trailers to handle the equally unantic.i.p.ated increase in students. Families with children living in the city-what a concept! How things had changed. columnist Joyce Purnick pointed out in a December 31, 2006, article, "New York, Where the Dreamers Are Asleep," "The city's population has had a way of taking on a life of its own. Zoning consultants in the 1960s advised city officials that New York's population would grow to 8.5 million in 1975-it may well have if not for the fiscal crisis that was at its worst in 1975. Instead, the numbers dropped so sharply-to 7.2 million in 1980 from 8 million in 1970-that some social scientists advocated 'planned shrinkage' in city services." Purnick also noted that by 1990 the city's population was up to 7.6 million, "an increase that was also unantic.i.p.ated." With that growth came the need for some schools to build annexes in prefabricated trailers to handle the equally unantic.i.p.ated increase in students. Families with children living in the city-what a concept! How things had changed.

Jim Dwyer reflected in a July 14, 2007, New York Times New York Times column, "Only the deranged or visionary could have imagined on that summer night in 1977 that New York in 2007 would be fat, happy and standing-room only; perched here in 2007, many would find it hard to believe that 2,000 stores were burned or looted inside of 24 hours." column, "Only the deranged or visionary could have imagined on that summer night in 1977 that New York in 2007 would be fat, happy and standing-room only; perched here in 2007, many would find it hard to believe that 2,000 stores were burned or looted inside of 24 hours."

SMALL STEPS, BIG CHANGE.

As despairing as the 1970s were, symbolic events helped boost the city's fragile ego. For example, in 1976, to honor the Bicentennial, the Tall s.h.i.+ps from around the world sailed into New York Harbor on a glorious summer weekend, reminding New Yorkers and the world of the treasure that is the city. The event, along with the decadelong debate over Westway, reminded the city that it had turned its back on the untapped resource of 572 miles of waterfront.

New York Magazine celebrated New York's celebrities throughout the 1970s and coincidentally celebrated the city itself. Aspiring cities across the country sp.a.w.ned similar city-focused publications, fueling the aspirations of the urban boosters. celebrated New York's celebrities throughout the 1970s and coincidentally celebrated the city itself. Aspiring cities across the country sp.a.w.ned similar city-focused publications, fueling the aspirations of the urban boosters.

Exuberant nightlife flourished, personified in John Travolta's performance in Sat.u.r.day Night Fever Sat.u.r.day Night Fever. Studio 54, the headline-grabbing discotheque, opened in 1977, demonstrating to the world that New York life could be hard, but entertainment and nightlife still thrived. The Bronx, too, was giving birth to a unique music scene, hip-hop, born in the unglamorous first-floor community room in "an otherwise unremarkable high-rise just north of the Cross Bronx and hard along the Major Deegan," wrote David Gonzalez in the New York Times New York Times. There, in 1973, Clive Campbell, known as DJ Kool Herc, spun together the tunes that spilled out onto nearby streets and parks, eventually spreading worldwide.7 In 1978, in the gritty, crime-ridden meatpacking district on the Lower West Side, a Frenchman, Florent Morellet, opened a diner and French-bistro hybrid where longsh.o.r.eman ate at Formica countertops next to a rising number of well-heeled customers, raising the neighborhood's profile that today is the epitome of chic. The cla.s.sic diner structure was a centerpiece of this once vibrant food-focused district of low-rise buildings with projecting canopies and cobblestone streets. By 2008, Florent had had enough and closed the restaurant. By then, the Gansevoort Historic District was one of the city's most upscale.

New York had become the center of the international art world in the 1960s but came into full bloom in the 1970s. With the defeat of the Lower Manhattan Expressway, SoHo blossomed into both an arts district and an exemplary reborn industrial neighborhood. SoHo helped change the way the country viewed cities. New York Magazine New York Magazine declared SoHo "the most exciting place to live in the city." Loft living became the new chic. Other cities followed suit. Urban resilience was the wave of the future. declared SoHo "the most exciting place to live in the city." Loft living became the new chic. Other cities followed suit. Urban resilience was the wave of the future.

SoHo grabbed the headlines, but the real early stirrings of rebirth were totally citizen generated in neighborhoods out of the mainstream consciousness. The Back-to-the-City and Brownstone Movements began slowly in the 1960s all over New York City and in cities across the country. The increasing urban appeal gained strength in the 1970s. Historic architecture, great financial values, and urban lifestyles were the draw. Young middle-cla.s.s families-called "urban pioneers"-began repopulating run-down neighborhoods around the country. It seems incomprehensible today to think that Georgetown in D.C., the Vieux Carre and Garden Districts in New Orleans, the Victorian Districts in San Francisco and Savannah, Back Bay in Boston, Rittenhouse Square in Philadelphia, and so many other now chic neighborhoods were once deteriorated slums.

And in the either abandoned or half-empty neighborhoods that most pioneers overlooked, new immigrants found shelter and opened new businesses. By the late 1970s, seventy-five thousand immigrants a year were coming to New York, twice the number of New Yorkers leaving for the suburbs. Immigration laws were loosened in 1965, but it wasn't until the 1970s that one could observe the full flowering of these changes.

The enormous positive impact of the new waves of immigrants took a long time for experts to acknowledge. To this day it is a rare expert who acknowledges the long-standing and full positive impact because with that acknowledgment should come recognition of the organic nature of what has occurred, in that it was not developer or government driven.

Early in 2009 during the debate over the size and nature of the congressional stimulus package, Thomas L. Friedman wrote a column, "The Open-Door Bailout," advocating a nonprotectionist bent to the legislation. He pointed out how critical to our past and recent national history have been the waves of immigrants. In the recent context, he cited a study showing that more than half of Silicon Valley start-ups of the last decade were founded by immigrants. Another study showed that increases in patent applications parallel increases in H1-B visas. Friedman quoted the somewhat tongue-in-cheek stimulus advice from Shekhar Gupta, editor of the Indian Express Indian Express newspaper, "All you need to do is grant visas to two million Indians, Chinese and Koreans. We will buy up all the sub-prime homes. We will work 18 hours a day to pay for them. We will immediately improve your savings rate-no Indian bank today has more than 2 percent nonperforming loans because not paying your mortgage is considered shameful here. And we will start new companies to create our own jobs and jobs for more Americans." newspaper, "All you need to do is grant visas to two million Indians, Chinese and Koreans. We will buy up all the sub-prime homes. We will work 18 hours a day to pay for them. We will immediately improve your savings rate-no Indian bank today has more than 2 percent nonperforming loans because not paying your mortgage is considered shameful here. And we will start new companies to create our own jobs and jobs for more Americans."8 In effect, that is what happened in New York in the 1970s and '80s with the great immigrant influx. In effect, that is what happened in New York in the 1970s and '80s with the great immigrant influx.

REBIRTH'S BEGINNINGS The seeds of recovery were being sown off the conventional radar screens, real even if unseen. Far from the public consciousness and not spotlighted in the press, local groups in the 1970s started forming in the worst of neighborhoods, too. The creativity and innovation that often evolve out of struggle were laying the foundation for the resurgence to come. The renaissance began in a mult.i.tude of small ways, all of which would eventually add up to big change. The 1970s allowed for positive measures emanating from the most local level because government was out of ideas and money and desperate for new solutions. When given the opportunity, local citizen-led groups were innovative and productive agents of urban change. Small steps collectively made a big impact.

Urban economist Dr. Saskia Sa.s.sen points out that an infusion of young women began making an impact. "In the 1970s, a lot of young people were coming to New York, including many professional women coming for things like publis.h.i.+ng," she says. "Women were leading the lives they wanted and not leaving the city after marriage."

Significantly, in 1977, Congress pa.s.sed the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) that provided a lifeline for moderate-income home buyers and local housing groups and forced financial inst.i.tutions to find ways to reinvest in the same neighborhoods they had taken money out of years before. This critical access to capital had been missing from poor neighborhoods for decades. Financial inst.i.tutions were now required to serve the qualified poor as well as the rich. The CRA was the result of a vigorous national campaign, led by Chicago activist Gale Cincotta, founder of the National People's Action. Banks, following strict standards, were now required to make loans to qualified qualified borrowers of all income levels in the neighborhoods from which deposits originate. The act allowed for community challenge of bank policies that negatively affected low-income neighborhoods, forcing many banks to reexamine their former redlining policies that gave them license to use investment dollars earned in cities to build suburbia. Eventually, some bank executives admitted that if the CRA had not forced them into it, they would never have discovered what turned out to be a profitable market of underserved low-to moderate-income home buyers. The CRA made possible a needed infusion of resident and business investment in deteriorated neighborhoods. borrowers of all income levels in the neighborhoods from which deposits originate. The act allowed for community challenge of bank policies that negatively affected low-income neighborhoods, forcing many banks to reexamine their former redlining policies that gave them license to use investment dollars earned in cities to build suburbia. Eventually, some bank executives admitted that if the CRA had not forced them into it, they would never have discovered what turned out to be a profitable market of underserved low-to moderate-income home buyers. The CRA made possible a needed infusion of resident and business investment in deteriorated neighborhoods.

Former City Limits City Limits editor Alyssa Katz, looking back in 2006, wrote, "By the summer of 1977, more than 20,000 buildings in New York would be abandoned. At the end of that year, the city owned 6,000 buildings and was poised to foreclose on 25,000 more. Yet pockets of hope took hold in besieged neighborhoods across the city. With the support of community groups, tenants were taking charge of their buildings as the landlords abandoned them. The earliest of these efforts had won the backing of the administration of Mayor John Lindsay." editor Alyssa Katz, looking back in 2006, wrote, "By the summer of 1977, more than 20,000 buildings in New York would be abandoned. At the end of that year, the city owned 6,000 buildings and was poised to foreclose on 25,000 more. Yet pockets of hope took hold in besieged neighborhoods across the city. With the support of community groups, tenants were taking charge of their buildings as the landlords abandoned them. The earliest of these efforts had won the backing of the administration of Mayor John Lindsay."9 Alphabet City on the Lower East Side, Kelly Street in the South Bronx, UHAB on the Upper West Side, Bedford-Stuyvesant in Brooklyn, and many other low-income communities in between all had rejuvenating projects bubbling up. The Cooper Square Committee, Adopt-a-Building, organized in East Harlem to reclaim abandoned buildings and spear-headed other groups on the Lower East Side, then called Loisada, into joining Mobilization for Youth and Pueblo Nuevo Housing and Development a.s.sociation, all of them working in small segments that eventually spread over a large area.

The first rooftop windmill, solar panels, composting, and recycling efforts were undertaken by some of these groups. On East Eleventh Street a small apartment house was reclaimed and a windmill and solar collectors installed on the roof. This effort was led by the Energy Task Force with the Pratt Center designing the building. The People's Development Corporation, Mid-Bronx Desperados and Banana Kelly in the Bronx, the East Harlem Renegades in Harlem-all over the city gra.s.sroots efforts were the precursors to the city's future rebirth.

Robert Schur, a.s.sistant housing commissioner, left his city position and formed the a.s.sociation of Neighborhood Housing Developers, a coalition advocating on behalf of local groups. This was a unique coming together of gra.s.sroots groups and technical capacity provided by advocacy planners mostly a.s.sociated with the Pratt Center for Community Development in Brooklyn.10 These were the people whose homes, businesses, social networks, and family connections had been destroyed under the Moses bulldozer and who had been displaced and relocated one too many times. "Enough," they declared. They dug in their heels where they were and set about rebuilding their lives, their communities, and, eventually, the city itself. Their ingenuity and determination emerged in spite of minimal resources. These were the people whose homes, businesses, social networks, and family connections had been destroyed under the Moses bulldozer and who had been displaced and relocated one too many times. "Enough," they declared. They dug in their heels where they were and set about rebuilding their lives, their communities, and, eventually, the city itself. Their ingenuity and determination emerged in spite of minimal resources.

This primarily community-based housing movement, with foundation funding, ignited a momentum for change that persuaded conventional developers-and their inst.i.tutional lenders-to follow their lead with new investment in the very neighborhoods they had previously redlined and declared hopeless. Smart city officials, cajoled by community advocates, responded to proposals for new innovative housing policies that by the end of the century had restored or replaced almost all of the city's once-endless supply of vacant and deteriorated buildings. Eventually, establishment developers and financial inst.i.tutions followed, building on the foundation of local efforts and, of course, took credit for it all. Their only measure for success was developer investment. Nothing was real to them without developers. But, incontrovertibly, it was the gra.s.sroots, citizen-based movement that regenerated the city that developers and Wall Street took over. This organic, diverse, and incremental renewal process, not so-called economic development projects, revived New York and simultaneously took root in many communities across the country.

The precursors of regeneration took many forms and were allowed to evolve fully because there was no money or interest from either government or the private sector to interfere. Even the country's community-garden movement had one of its earliest starts in the most down-and-out neighborhoods of this city. The Green Guerillas tore down barbed-wire fences, cleaned up garbage, and cultivated abandoned lots first on the Lower East Side but eventually all over the city and beyond. The term guerilla gardening guerilla gardening was born here. This early effort matured into a revival of urban agriculture in low-income neighborhoods around the city. was born here. This early effort matured into a revival of urban agriculture in low-income neighborhoods around the city.

The Union Square Greenmarket overcame official resistance and the cynicism of the experts to get off the ground in 1976, part of a then small national revival of farmers' markets nationwide that is now a big-time national success. On the West Coast, Alice Waters had opened Chez Panisse in Berkeley, buying from a network of local farmers and ranchers dedicated to sustainable agriculture and beginning a slowly contagious national trend championing locally grown food, small farms, and fresh ingredients. Similarly, new restaurants opened around Union Square, taking advantage of the immediate access to fresh products from regional farmers. The ripple effects were widespread. Now Greenmarkets blanket the city, giving many low-income communities access to fresh, healthy food direct from farmers.

1.4 The necklace I never take off. Sandra Morris. Sandra Morris.

All of this was part of the renewal process, one that took root in communities across the country, not just New York. One charismatic leader did not make these things happen. Nothing happened quickly. This bottom-up change came out of the city's culture of confrontation, contention, and caring. More important, none of this positive change was about stadia, convention centers, big clearance projects, tourist attractions, or other officially embraced baubles encased in rejuvenation rhetoric.

Preservation was the most visible of the bellwether issues indicating good things to come. For this reason, the next chapter recalls early landmark history to understand preservation as a framework for change. Reporting on landmark preservation revealed my eventual pa.s.sionate commitment to the issue.

When New York seemed to hit bottom and outsiders derided everything about it, New Yorkers rose up in defense, forming block a.s.sociations, planting trees and flower boxes, organizing house tours, finding many ways to demonstrate their loyalty. In response to external hostility-particularly the "City Drop Dead" headline-the "I Love New York" campaign took hold. I had always been one of those New York boosters and wrote a little feature story on the things one could buy to flaunt one's New York chauvinism. Not much was available, but I still have and regularly wear the gold necklace I found at B. Altman's with the words "I Love New York." That was all I could find for the story. The "Big Apple" and "I Love New York" campaigns came later, an outgrowth of New Yorkers' shared chauvinism.

Nationally, too, not everything was negative. In September 1975, a National Neighborhood Conservation Conference was held in New York City. Gra.s.sroots urban preservation and historic neighborhood repopulation efforts were under way in forty-five cities, including New York. Most historic preservation efforts started in response to the urban renewal clearance projects in each city. Representatives from those efforts came together in New York to compare "war stories" and learn from one another.

The Bicentennial celebration in 1976 unleashed a new interest and pride in ethnic roots and national history, so much of which is urban based. The historic preservation movement grew in popularity as the fight to save Grand Central Terminal scored a dynamic victory in the U.S. Supreme Court in 1978. The appreciation of the authentic city, the fight to protect neighborhoods targeted for "renewal," and the self-help inclination of local people were all visible and gaining momentum in the 1970s.

Jane Jacobs's principles were in their ascendancy. The Moses-style strategies were in a free fall and fiercely resisted. Where they might have continued, the cessation of the federal money flow did the trick. Today, the New York City neighborhoods with the strongest appeal are the ones that reflect best Jacobs's teaching; the ones in need of greatest help are the ones erased and replaced with Moses-style visions.

The world and this city have changed enormously in the intervening years. Change is the constant, unfolding in sometimes dramatic but often subtle ways. Yet as much as things change, the more they stay the same. Many of the kinds of things I wrote about in the 1960s and 1970s still go on today in different guises. In this book, I use some of the earlier New York stories to spotlight the larger issues they ill.u.s.trate. Useful lessons and parallels can be drawn from many of those stories. Most a.s.suredly, however, the contrast of the city now and then reflects today's stark contrast to the topsy-turvy world of the 1960s and 1970s when a girl could be called a boy and n.o.body would blink an eye.

2.

LANDMARKS PRESERVATION.

Precursor of Positive Change Preservationists are the only people in the world who are invariably confirmed in their wisdom after the fact.DONOVAN RYPKEMA, economist For this reporter, community and landmarks preservation battles were always a good story. The little guy versus the big one, a citizen taking on the heartless government and/or greedy developer, the local residents' resistance to inappropriate change. It always added up to good journalistic fodder.

When I first started covering the occasional landmark struggle in the late 1960s, preserving old buildings was considered by many as simply a means of opposing progress or change. People were accused of not wanting change in their backyard or for other so-called illegitimate reasons. However, when I listened carefully to the local voices, this was clearly not the case, as this book argues in many ways. More than physical structures were at stake. The values of memory, human connection, vanis.h.i.+ng quality, and public purpose were all wrapped up in architectural beauty.

As I kept writing about preservation, I observed the full spectrum of local issues and incremental change of which preservation was just one part and recognized it as a precursor of genuine positive change, the kind that fertilizes and enriches, not undermines and erodes. In many communities, people weren't just fighting to preserve old buildings. They recognized that the threatened buildings and the varied uses contained in them were important threads in the urban fabric. And they weren't just fighting to save them. They were buying some of them, fixing them up, opening new businesses, committing themselves to their community-all precursors of more good things to come, to be sure.

Of course, many demolition projects were opposed for reasons other than preservation. But, Jane Jacobs observed, "if you listen closely to people at public hearings, you will understand their fears." Most opponents of a demolition and replacement plan were resisting the particular manifestation of change, not change itself; erosion, not progress, as Jacobs articulated. I found their stories compelling.

Urban planning professor Robert Fishman notes, "The city was caught up in this riptide of destruction that seemed to have no end" that combined with "a rolling wave of abandonment and sprawl in the terrible period of the '70s and '80s," challenging some to wonder if cities were viable.1 So, to me, the great value and real meaning of historic preservation were not just about preserving neighborhoods but about preserving urbanism and the city itself. So, to me, the great value and real meaning of historic preservation were not just about preserving neighborhoods but about preserving urbanism and the city itself.

New York was not alone. Increasing numbers of civic resisters fought both highway and urban renewal projects across the country. With the 1956 Federal Highway Act, many places were gaining a reputation among citizens for decision making by bulldozer that left a legacy of urban blight and empty cleared land still evident today. Preservationists not only valued what was being lost but recoiled in horror at the ribbons of concrete and barracks of brick that emerged to replace long-established places and communities.

Historic preservation is an indicator of urban change. This is true in all cities. In retrospect, I think it is one of the things that gave me reason for optimism in the 1970s. The resilience of the city and its people was clear in these battles. The city was bleak and, to some, seemingly hopeless. But as I watched the positive personal and communal energy expended on behalf of places around the city, it was clear something creatively new was under way.

THE TIDE TURNED.

Early in the new administration of Mayor Michael Bloomberg, a controversy arose over the use of one of the city's premier landmarks, the Tweed Courthouse, an imposing neocla.s.sical building located directly behind City Hall. This was early in 2003 and in itself was an incredible sea change from the mid-1970s when the administration of Mayor Abraham Beame planned to demolish and replace that legendary 1871 building.

2.1 The Tweed Courthouse today. It was almost torn down in the 1970s. Jared Knowles Jared Knowles.

Who should get to use this monumental landmark became a high-level, much publicized fight. What a novelty! What a milestone! How far the very concept of historic preservation had come in New York; the fight was now over how to use how to use a landmark, not a landmark, not whether to lose whether to lose a landmark. a landmark.

Nowhere was this extraordinary turnaround noticed-at least publicly during the 2003 controversy. New York had forgotten its recent history. Looking at New York through the prism of changes in historic preservation-its victories, its losses, its laws, public policies, and public att.i.tudes-spotlights some of the differences between the city of the 1970s and now.

Today, the restoration and continued use of such notable buildings as Tweed Courthouse-especially publicly owned ones-are almost taken for granted. This marks a total reversal of conventional thought and public policy of a mere thirty years ago. And while a significant number of real estate developers profiting from the conversion of landmark buildings now extol the virtue of the historic preservation they disdained not that long ago, their appreciation is limited by how much they experience interference with their own development plans.

People no longer a.s.sume an old building has outlived its usefulness. New is no longer a.s.sumed to be automatically better and more economically viable. That was the convention in the 1960s and '70s. And while today developers with the right political connections can still keep landmark status off their property, they can't change either the preservation experts' or the public's judgment of a building's worthiness for designation. As people witness the need for total renovation of relatively young buildings dating from the 1960s and '70s, they recognize even more the inherent value of the solidly built old. So many buildings built in the 1960s and '70s require more drastic upgrades than buildings twice their age.

A request for approval for demolition of a designated landmark from the Landmarks Preservation Commission is almost unheard of today. How actual landmarks are handled can be a different issue. In fact, now many developers instead request the official landmark designation they need to qualify for lucrative federal preservation tax credits. The weekly calendar of the commission is filled with applications to restore and upgrade landmark buildings of all kinds in every corner of the city. Many developers seek the zoning breaks available with the restoration of a designated landmark. Restoring a landmark is now a prestigious endeavor. For developers, preservation now pays. The record is clear: no designated landmark has shown to be an economic failure because because of its designation; in fact, most are a financial success. of its designation; in fact, most are a financial success.

PRESERVATION ACCELERATES CHANGE.

To appreciate where preservation in New York and, in fact, the country, is today, one must understand the progression of the past thirty years. New York set the standard for the country. The rescue, and reuse, of Tweed Courthouse is, in fact, a small measure of how much things have changed from the New York City of the 1970s. Considerable mythology has grown up around the background to pa.s.sage of the law and the history of landmarks preservation in New York.

Few remember-if they ever knew-that the 1965 Landmarks Preservation Law was almost meaningless in its first iteration. The law's administration was unimpressive for several years after pa.s.sage, but it lulled the public into a.s.suming significant progress was occurring. Some obvious buildings were being designated landmarks, but important buildings were falling all over town to make way for the postwar definition of progress that only meant new. Amazingly, under the new law, the Landmarks Preservation Commission was allowed to designate for only six months every three years. It is important to fully understand what that meant-six months of designations followed by three years of unstoppable demolition. This became clear to me only, as this chapter will show, while covering what appeared to be a routine protest over a building demolition in the early 1970s.