The Battle For Gotham Part 3

The actual reasons for pa.s.sage of the Landmarks Preservation Law in 1965 are misunderstood. It had more to do with Robert Moses than is at all recognized. The common a.s.sumption is that it was prompted by the highly publicized loss of Pennsylvania Station in 1963 and was meant to prevent future disastrous losses. This was definitely not the case. In fact, the demolition of Penn Station-universally recognized today as a monumental act of civic destruction-was at the time greeted with limited and polite opposition. The small group of citizens, preservationists, architects, journalists, and historians who picketed in front of the station did not inspire broad protests. Even an eloquent New York Times New York Times editorial written by Ada Louise Huxtable-"we will be judged not by the buildings we build but by those that we destroy"-had little impact. editorial written by Ada Louise Huxtable-"we will be judged not by the buildings we build but by those that we destroy"-had little impact.

When it was all over, when the last of the incomparable Corinthian columns was carted off to a New Jersey landfill, the full measure of the loss began to sink in. Perhaps the questioning of what is meant by "progress" was accelerated but nothing more dramatic than that. If it was true that the landmark law was a reaction to that loss, the administration of Mayor Robert F. Wagner would have seen pa.s.sed a very different law, a law with teeth. Instead, the 1965 law can be said to have produced a set of baby teeth; a mature set of teeth came almost ten years later.

The further a.s.sumption that New York's law immeasurably changed the nature of planning and architecture in the city and the whole country, as many suggest, did not really happen for many years. What actually changed everything was the 1978 U.S. Supreme Court decision that upheld the city's 1965 landmark law in the Grand Central Terminal case. Even the city's fight to save the law might not have happened if city and commission leaders followed their first inclination to give into Penn Central Corporation and remove landmark status from that stellar gateway to the city. Public pressure made them defend it.

New York was early but not first in the preservation game. In the 1930s, due to the advocacy of vigorous women's groups, New Orleans and Charleston, South Carolina, were the first nationwide in preserving historic structures and districts of styles that set them apart from most of the country, especially big cities like New York. Determination to preserve these cities' unique architecture was strong, and protectionist laws were established. In fact, women in Junior Leagues, garden clubs, and similar women's organizations in several other American cities were the real vanguard of the historic preservation movement nationally. From Providence, Rhode Island, to San Antonio, Texas, women led the fights to preserve their cities.

A PROBLEM GROWS IN BROOKLYN.

Weak as it was, this first iteration of the law in 1965 for New York City, perhaps late in the game, was an important turning point, psychologically for the public at least. Most important, it addressed a number of p.r.i.c.kly political problems faced by Mayor Wagner in the first half of the 1960s. Urban renewal, highway clearance, and a whole host of Robert Moses excesses had stirred up serious public discontent. The battles were fresh in the public's mind. Mayor Wagner needed something to pacify a disgruntled citizenry.

In Brooklyn Heights, a new civic battle was brewing over an urban renewal clearance project adjacent to what was to become the historic district. This activist neighborhood already had a track record of taming Robert Moses. In the 1950s, he wanted to plow the Brooklyn Queens Expressway through the neighborhood. The well-fought battle was resolved brilliantly with the expressway going under the Brooklyn Heights Esplanade that overlooks the New York Harbor.

In Greenwich Village, several fights (to be explored in the next chapter) had given Mayor Wagner a black eye: the plan to drive a road through Was.h.i.+ngton Square Park (1955-1956), the attempt to demolish most of the far West Village for urban renewal (1961), and the fight against the Lower Manhattan Expressway (mid-1960s)-all projects pushed by Moses and opposed by Jane Jacobs and others in the movement she gave voice to. Jacobs accused Wagner of still operating under Moses's rules, even though in 1961 he promised the Village that no "improvements" would happen that were not in keeping with "physically and aesthetically West Village traditions." And when he said "the bulldozer approach is out," Jacobs dismissed the promise as "pious plat.i.tudes."

So it is no coincidence that those two historic areas of the city-Brooklyn Heights and Greenwich Village-were the first to be designated historic districts, a move that mollified at least some of the partic.i.p.ants in the emerging gra.s.sroots community and historic preservation movements.

Other development battles also plagued the mayor. In 1957 Carnegie Hall was scheduled to be demolished and replaced with a forty-four-story vermilion and gold skysc.r.a.per surrounded by a sunken plaza lined with cultural exhibits. An elegant rust-colored brick building, Carnegie Hall is internationally famous more for its acoustics than its Renaissance Revival design of 1891, appealing as that may be. But it is clearly architecturally distinctive as well.

Lincoln Center was meant to replace replace Carnegie Hall and the Metropolitan Opera. The city opera and ballet companies were to share a new home at Lincoln Center, moving them out of City Center on Fifty-fifth Street. A very well-publicized protest against Carnegie's impending loss ensued, led by violinist Isaac Stern, his wife, Vera, philanthropist Jacques Kaplan, and Ray Rubinow, the administrator of Kaplan's foundation. The public hue and cry was deafening and incessant. But only the combination of the fame and determination of Stern et al., backed by a strong public sentiment, could overcome the formidable combined power of Robert Moses, John D. Rockefeller III (chair of the effort to build Lincoln Center), and Mayor Wagner. Carnegie Hall and the Metropolitan Opera. The city opera and ballet companies were to share a new home at Lincoln Center, moving them out of City Center on Fifty-fifth Street. A very well-publicized protest against Carnegie's impending loss ensued, led by violinist Isaac Stern, his wife, Vera, philanthropist Jacques Kaplan, and Ray Rubinow, the administrator of Kaplan's foundation. The public hue and cry was deafening and incessant. But only the combination of the fame and determination of Stern et al., backed by a strong public sentiment, could overcome the formidable combined power of Robert Moses, John D. Rockefeller III (chair of the effort to build Lincoln Center), and Mayor Wagner.

In 2003, Carnegie Hall went through a well-publicized, high-quality refurbishment under the guidance of Richard Olcott of the James Polshek Partners.h.i.+p. Polshek had been the architect for renovations and additions since its rescue in the 1960s. Inexplicably, an exhibit at Carnegie Hall about its rescue and restoration paid little attention to this earliest rescue. I subsequently taped an oral history of both Isaac and Vera Stern to record the story for posterity. Unfortunately, Kaplan was already deceased.2 MOSES INCREASED MAYOR WAGNER'S PROBLEMS More high-profile development controversies added to Mayor Wagner's public relations problems. During his administration (1954-1965), huge Upper West Side clearance projects-Lincoln Towers, the Coliseum, Manhattantown (now Park West Village), all Moses projects-saw a lot of historic and reusable urban fabric fall under the wrecker's ball, despite public opposition. And, quite significantly, in 1956, Robert Moses overreached the staunch editorial support he enjoyed from the New York Times New York Times when he tried to bulldoze a beloved patch of Central Park at Sixty-seventh Street to extend the parking lot for the privately run Tavern-on-the-Green restaurant. This was a favorite park location of a potent group of West Siders, including members of the press, along with theatrical and art-world celebrities. when he tried to bulldoze a beloved patch of Central Park at Sixty-seventh Street to extend the parking lot for the privately run Tavern-on-the-Green restaurant. This was a favorite park location of a potent group of West Siders, including members of the press, along with theatrical and art-world celebrities.

Angry protesting mothers with baby carriages facing down the bulldozer made news. A community group sued to stop demolition. But before the court case was decided, Moses, as he had done elsewhere, had the trees torn down and the patch of park cleared in the middle of the night. Despite the loss, the community did not let the battle end and continued its lawsuit. The well-publicized, extended battle continued. Moses experienced a humiliating defeat, forced to give up the parking plan to resolve the litigation. The Adventure Playground was built on that site instead. The well-publicized Moses defeat was his first big one. It is considered the beginning of Moses's descent from public hero status.

To add to the administration's public relations woes, New York Post New York Post investigative reporters Joe Kahn and Bill Haddad had been covering Moses excesses since 1956. They exposed corruption occurring in the West Side clearance project farther uptown, known as Manhattantown (now Park West Village, 97th to 100th Streets). Project sponsors, selected by Moses, did one of two things. They tore down buildings with no effort to move new construction forward and used empty sites as commercial parking lots. Or they let buildings stand, collected rents, but provided tenants with no maintenance or basics like heat or hot water. On top of this, only 20 percent of the displaced residents were given relocation a.s.sistance. Sponsors were paid handsomely to provide relocation service in full, whether or not those services were performed. investigative reporters Joe Kahn and Bill Haddad had been covering Moses excesses since 1956. They exposed corruption occurring in the West Side clearance project farther uptown, known as Manhattantown (now Park West Village, 97th to 100th Streets). Project sponsors, selected by Moses, did one of two things. They tore down buildings with no effort to move new construction forward and used empty sites as commercial parking lots. Or they let buildings stand, collected rents, but provided tenants with no maintenance or basics like heat or hot water. On top of this, only 20 percent of the displaced residents were given relocation a.s.sistance. Sponsors were paid handsomely to provide relocation service in full, whether or not those services were performed.

As Norval White and Elliot Willensky say of Park West Village in their AIA Guide to New York AIA Guide to New York: "This large and ba.n.a.l housing development was built in the aftermath of the 1957 Manhattantown urban renewal scandal urban renewal scandal. Developers had acquired six blocks of tenements at a reduced price a reduced price from the City under the federal urban renewal program. Instead of developing the site, they sat tight for five years, collecting rents, neglecting repairs, and inventing ingenious schemes from the City under the federal urban renewal program. Instead of developing the site, they sat tight for five years, collecting rents, neglecting repairs, and inventing ingenious schemes to exploit their unhappy tenants to exploit their unhappy tenants. Some say these disclosures marked the beginning of N.Y.C. construction czar Robert Moses' loss of power." Mayor Wagner endured unending political problems from the Moses backlash, adding up to a big public relations problem. For all these troublesome reasons and more, the 1965 landmark law had a broader political purpose for the mayor than a preservation one.

Wagner was known for addressing problems by first appointing a committee. So in 1962, before a law was pa.s.sed, Mayor Wagner appointed a temporary Landmarks Preservation Commission that came up with a list of twelve hundred buildings and two historic districts worthy of designation. While the law was pending, the flamboyant 1890 Brokaw Mansions, on Fifth Avenue at Seventy-ninth Street, that New York Times New York Times architecture critic Ada Louise Huxtable so eloquently immortalized, were demolished in 1964. To no avail, pickets protested in front of the chateaulike a.s.semblage of four townhouses built between 1880 and 1912. This debacle, following so closely the demise of Penn Station, pushed final pa.s.sage. architecture critic Ada Louise Huxtable so eloquently immortalized, were demolished in 1964. To no avail, pickets protested in front of the chateaulike a.s.semblage of four townhouses built between 1880 and 1912. This debacle, following so closely the demise of Penn Station, pushed final pa.s.sage.

A MOVEMENT GROWS.

These acc.u.mulated political headaches were not at all apparent to me when I was writing about historic preservation for the New York Post New York Post in the early 1970s. Certainly, the full measure of Robert Moses's impact on the city was not in my consciousness, nor the strong civic resistance to his decades of demolition and rebuild policies. Wagner may have had motives only slightly related to preservation, but what he and others did not count on was what was already unleashed-the gra.s.sroots preservation movement. It was a rapidly growing civic force, not yet large in numbers but significant in pa.s.sion and energy. in the early 1970s. Certainly, the full measure of Robert Moses's impact on the city was not in my consciousness, nor the strong civic resistance to his decades of demolition and rebuild policies. Wagner may have had motives only slightly related to preservation, but what he and others did not count on was what was already unleashed-the gra.s.sroots preservation movement. It was a rapidly growing civic force, not yet large in numbers but significant in pa.s.sion and energy.

Preservationists would not be mollified for long with a tepid toe-in-the-water approach to official preservation policy that the 1965 law represented. Satisfaction had lasted for a few years, however, while some obvious landmarks were officially designated. Then, in 1972, one developer, Peter Kalikow, overstepped the mark on Fifth Avenue across from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, not far from the site of the demolished Brokaw Mansions, a site in a neighborhood bound to gain considerable citywide attention. It became my first major preservation story.

Like many others, I had followed Huxtable's Brokaw articles and thought subsequent pa.s.sage of the landmarks law was a real solution. And I was certainly not politically astute enough or even aware of the growing impact of the Moses era and the political challenges then facing Wagner. But when I went to cover the story of the newly threatened Fifth Avenue mansions in 1972, I discovered the reality about the landmark law. It was a charade. Whoever heard of a law that functioned for six months and then went into hibernation for three years? I was stunned. I, like so many New Yorkers, thought the truth was different. I simply could not understand how significant buildings could be demolished with the landmark law in place.

An editor had handed me the press release, just another daily story a.s.signment. That release was written by a tall, articulate preservationist, Kent Barwick, who was director of a then little-known citywide group, the Munic.i.p.al Arts Society (MAS). The press release called attention to the imminent demise of one of the last remaining rows of low-rise Fifth Avenue mansions, despite the existence of the landmark law. Kalikow's intention was to replace almost the whole corner, including a townhouse and small apartment house on Eighty-second Street. The law, the release noted, was powerless to stop the demolition of these historic but undesignated mansions. Two of the Fifth Avenue limestone mansions were already down, but the most ornate of the original five still stood at the corner along with the one around the corner. The bulldozer was on site, ready to keep going. Mimi Levitt, a resident and townhouse owner on Eighty-second Street, was the catalyst of this fight. She was like so many fierce defenders of neighborhoods and historic preservation-mostly women-whom I have encountered on stories around the city and country.

Levitt was not previously a civic activist. But the threat to her neighborhood-including her own house-appropriately aroused her defensive instinct. The neighborhood group of which she was part, aided by Barwick's citywide Munic.i.p.al Arts Society, invoked a host of legal maneuvers to slow the process in an effort to thwart demolition. The buildings had not had a public hearing at the Landmarks Commission. The commission was on its three-year hiatus, but civic lawsuits stalled the demolition.

The battle continued through the courts for three years when a compromise was struck to resolve the lawsuit. The third mansion went down, but the rest were spared. The ornate mansard-roof Duke Mansion on the corner, built in 1901 for Benjamin N. Duke, director of the American Tobacco Company, was not included in the demolition plan and would have survived alone in the shadow of a ba.n.a.l tower. A conventionally dull twelve-story apartment house with a fake mansard roof went up in 1980 on the cleared site adjacent to the Duke. Actually, the "roof" is just a parapet on top of the facade. As a concession to the protesting public, ordered by the court, the developer had the facade of the new building designed by Philip Johnson with not much noticeable improvement.

For me in September 1972, writing the first of six stories over three years about this fight, it was an eye-opener. The more questions I asked, the more I realized the purposeful inadequacy of the law. The story revealed the major defect in the law as well as a timid att.i.tude on the part of the Landmarks Commission. With my editors' consent, I spent several months investigating the larger picture. Out of that came a series of articles highlighting the continuing and severe threat to the city's historic buildings and parks. Reading those articles today reveals the tenuous state of preservation only thirty-eight years ago.3 The New York then seems like a different city. The New York then seems like a different city.

The first of those articles, in January 1973, revealed the flaws in the law and its apparent intentional weaknesses. In the world of historic preservation, this was a bombsh.e.l.l. Most people who thought the landmark law was a great achievement and protective of the city's special buildings had no idea how limited was the commission's power. Most critically and little known was the provision that the commission could designate landmarks after a public hearing; but it could hold those hearings only every three years only every three years! What did people think would happen during the three years between designation periods? Once designated a landmark, of course, a building could not be torn down or externally altered without commission approval. Vulnerable buildings just didn't get designated and, often, still don't.

A LOT LEFT UNPROTECTED.

The law was interesting for its omissions. For one thing, it did not cover interiors. Thus, if the Grand Central landmark designation, at the time being challenged in the courts, was upheld, Penn Central would still be able to gut the interior so long as it left the facade alone. The law also did not cover scenic landmarks. Thus, Central Park, Prospect Park, and other treasured patches of green were not qualified for landmark protection.

The law was binding only on private owners. A privately owned designated landmark-such as the turn-of-the-century Plaza Hotel-could not be torn down or its exterior altered without commission approval. But the Metropolitan Museum of Art, also an official landmark, could simply ignore-and had-the commission's disapproval of plans for its new Lehman wing. If the administration had decided to tear down City Hall, the commission would have had no power to stand in its way. The commission's judgments on public buildings were not even a matter of public record.

And then there was the commission itself.4 Some critics went so far as to say that it was the worst enemy of the work it professed to do. Harmon H. Goldstone, an architect and former member of the City Planning Commission, was appointed the commission's first paid chairman in 1968. The chair is the only paid commissioner. Some critics went so far as to say that it was the worst enemy of the work it professed to do. Harmon H. Goldstone, an architect and former member of the City Planning Commission, was appointed the commission's first paid chairman in 1968. The chair is the only paid commissioner.

In December 1970, the commission declared a moratorium on landmark designations. Meeting in executive sessions, it decided without formal vote that no more designations would be made except when a building was in immediate jeopardy. Four "historic districts" and 54 individual sites were designated before the moratorium. Five proposals were rejected. The official explanation for the moratorium was the lack of "staff, s.p.a.ce and money" that commission chairman Goldstone said was needed to administer 360 individual landmarks and 18 landmark districts already designated.

The unofficial explanation-arrived at after an extensive investigation-seemed to be an extreme reluctance on the part of the commission to designate in the face of even mild opposition, a reluctance to designate properties that might stand in the way of antic.i.p.ated real estate development, and a reluctance to designate sites where property owners simply threatened a lawsuit. This was 1973, eight years after the law was pa.s.sed. Many notable structures the public probably already thought were protected by landmark status had not been designated.

PROTECTION CAME SLOWLY.

Everyone concerned acknowledged that selecting landmarks to designate was not easy. Many observers noted that this dilemma was just one element in the growing agony of many American urban centers where the quality of the built environment often collided head-on with the demands of real estate development. The heart and soul of historic cities were being erased by more than just real estate development; Moses-style highways and urban renewal projects were tearing the economic, social, and physical heart out of cities, taking down both plain and special old buildings and disrupting thousands of lives and businesses. Even the most ardent preservationist agreed that treasures of the past must sometimes be sacrificed for the needs of the present. At this point in time, the balance was nowhere near being struck, and the unspoken mission of the Landmarks Commission was supposed to be just that.

The Woolworth Building, for example, was the only skysc.r.a.per ever even considered for designation in the first seven years of the law. A striking Gothic tower built in 1913, Woolworth was called the Cathedral of Commerce and was for a while the tallest building in the world. Today it is filled with high-priced offices and condos. But, by 1973, Woolworth and such other New York icons as the 1929-1931 Empire State Building and 1930 Chrysler Building and 1932-1940 Rockefeller Center-all owned by very important real estate people-had not yet been considered for landmark designation.

The 1965 law was the first glimmer of hope on the preservation scene, and, considering the intense opposition of banking and real estate interest, it was an achievement that surprised the most cynical preservationists. But it was real estate people who spoke most highly of the results of the law. J. Clarence Davies, real estate commissioner under Mayor Wagner and a member of the commission for its first six years, told me at the time, "Opposition diminished because the commission turned out not to be as much a threat as expected. When people saw what was being preserved and understood the law, they were no longer worried."

What Davies and others also understood is that the commission-by careful avoidance of designation-rarely stood in the way of real estate development, even for worthy buildings. At the same time, most preservation advocates were lulled into complacency. They didn't know what to expect. Those who did complain went unheard. And the snail's pace of action was useful to a cautious commission, as my second article, the next day, indicated.

Commission spokesmen liked to point out that they had lost only one of 360 designated landmarks to the wrecker's ball-the Jerome Mansion, at Twenty-sixth and Madison, the elegant house that was the home of Winston Churchill's grandfather and later the Manhattan Club. Critics argued that this is an empty boast. The Jerome Mansion could have been saved, they claimed, if the commission hadn't been anxious to have that one important loss to prove to the real estate industry how small a threat they were. "It's their only loss," commented Kent Barwick, "because the commission hasn't designated buildings that are in danger of coming down." The old Metropolitan Opera House, the Thirty-fourth Street Armory, the Beaux Arts Singer Building at 149 Broadway, and the old Ziegfeld Theater at Fifty-fourth Street were among those that were never designated and are now gone.

The Metropolitan Opera may have been outdated. The opera company may have needed more s.p.a.ce. But the overriding reason for its demise was the new Metropolitan Opera theater included in Lincoln Center. While great nineteenth-century opera houses all over the world have been renovated and modernized, it was not even considered here. The agenda all flowed from the Robert Moses plan for Lincoln Center (more on this later). A forty-two-story combined office tower and street-level school replaced the Thirty-fourth Street Armory. U.S. Steel's black and gla.s.s office tower on Broadway replaced the Singer Building, a masterpiece of renowned architect Ernest Flagg. A fifty-story office building with a new theater adjacent to it replaced the Ziegfeld Theater.

Few people, I noted, were aware of the two-year-old moratorium. One person who actively worked for the 1965 law and knew vaguely about the moratorium noted with a bit of embarra.s.sment: "I think a lot of us felt everything was in good hands after the law pa.s.sed so we went on to other things. But the fact is, the public doesn't realize just how weak the commission is. So little is known about the law and the commission that people have the impression it is more powerful than it has been."

The late city councilman Carter Burden (D-Man.), formerly on the staff of Senator Robert Kennedy and key in the establishment of the Bedford-Stuyvesant Restoration Corporation, introduced legislation based on a long study by the Munic.i.p.al Arts Society that would close some of the loopholes in the landmark law-primarily the three-year limitation. That crippling clause had been included after intense, mostly behind-the-scenes real estate opposition to the 1965 legislation. It was the price of pa.s.sage.

At the time of these articles, many potential landmarks were in imminent danger of loss. There was the row of Fifth Avenue mansions, about to be demolished for a luxury high-rise. A row of nineteenth-century townhouses in the landmark district of Mount Morris Park was left half-demolished by the State Narcotics Control Agency that had once planned to use them. Developers cast an eager eye on the yet unprotected Cast Iron district in SoHo, the largest remaining example of a unique American architectural form. The fate of the Renaissance Revival Police Headquarters on Centre Street was left precariously unresolved as the Police Department prepared to move into its new Pearl Street headquarters.

THE MANHATTAN FOCUS.

In the early years of the landmark law, aside from Brooklyn Heights, the focus of both the Landmarks Commission and the preservation advocacy community was Manhattan. The Flatbush Town Hall, as the next article in the series showed, was an exception, but that was due to a persistent local community organization. Brooklyn didn't have a vigorous landmark advocacy group beyond Brooklyn Heights, and, in fact, the borough still suffered from being overshadowed by Manhattan, an inferiority complex hard to believe considering its popularity today. The Flatbush Town Hall was a small window into rich Brooklyn history.

Built in 1875, it has played a part in Brooklyn life ever since. But it was then to be torn down and replaced by an eighty-car parking lot. The handsome Victorian hall was the center of civic and cultural life for the Town of Flatbush until 1894, when Flatbush was absorbed by the City of Brooklyn and the hall became a police station. It remained a police station until the Sixty-seventh Precinct moved to a new facility three blocks away. In July 1969 it was scheduled for demolition. For almost two years a group of community residents had been appealing to all levels of city government to let the community retain the building for a multiuse community center. The Landmarks Preservation Commission resisted designating because they didn't want to interfere with another agency. By law, of course, the commission had no power to consider designation of the town hall before June 1973, five months after the article was written. Demolition seemed imminent. The city council, at the time, was considering reform legislation that would eliminate that restriction. "Curiously," I wrote further, "the Landmarks Commission appears to be the only interested party not actively lobbying for its pa.s.sage." Councilman Burden told me, "I very definitely get the feeling that the commission is not anxious to have that power. Any landmarks issue is a nest of vipers because you're dealing with very powerful real estate interests." Goldstone had said unofficially that he wasn't for it because he would have more people wanting designations.

The Flatbush Town Hall is a building of considerable historic interest. It is of the same architectural vintage as the 1876 Jefferson Market Courthouse in Greenwich Village that was rescued through intense and well-organized community pressure before pa.s.sage of the 1965 preservation law. It was a rare early preservation victory. But Flatbush Avenue merchants claimed more parking s.p.a.ce was desperately needed, and the Traffic Department agreed. As the country became more and more car-centric, downtown merchants everywhere thought more parking was the answer to their increasingly diminis.h.i.+ng customer base. This is often still true today. In this case, an existing munic.i.p.al parking lot adjacent to the hall was somehow inadequate, merchants claimed. Teachers at nearby Erasmus High School were allowed to monopolize it. Parking has long been the most common excuse to tear down old buildings of all kinds. This continues today in many cities, towns, and neighborhoods where the actual number of existing parking s.p.a.ces and how well they are used are rarely known. Parking is just the easiest thing on which to blame a downtown's woes when, in fact, more fundamental things are usually askew.

The Flatbush Town Hall is not only significant as an individual landmark. It is part of a trilogy of history contained on one square Flatbush block. At the corner of Flatbush and Church Avenues is the 175-year-old Flatbush Reformed Church, which was granted its charter by Peter Stuyvesant, New York's last Dutch governor, and has occupied its present site since 1654. Next to that, in the courtyard of Erasmus High School, is the 185-year-old Erasmus Hall Academy, a wooden schoolhouse built as a private academy for the Dutch church that remains one of the oldest in the country. All three structures-the church, the school, the Hall-had been named national historic sites by the U.S. Interior Department, making them eligible for matching state and federal restoration and preservation funds. But during the first set of public hearings following pa.s.sage of the 1965 landmark law, the commission heard and later designated only two buildings in the this historic Flatbush triangle-the clapboard schoolhouse and the church. Eventually, the Town Hall was designated and stands today.

The Landmarks Commission was not just Manhattan-centric, but East Side Manhattan-centric. The West Side still suffered from the image of blight, a slum of little value, an image perpetuated energetically by Moses, however erroneous the slum tag might be. He had declared several West Side areas ripe for urban renewal. Despite this, a vigorous local community took aim at one of the city's unique landmarks and pushed the Landmarks Commission where it was reluctant to go. The fourth article in this series told the story of saving the Ansonia at Seventy-second Street and Broadway, a landmark of incomparable value today. That the effort was so difficult reflects how little value was ascribed to most of the city's extraordinary historic architecture.

2.2 An old postcard of the Hotel Ansonia. Once threatened with demolition, it's now a magnificently restored upscale apartment co-op.

A WEST SIDE LANDMARK.

The curving, turreted Beaux Arts Ansonia-built as a hotel-is one of the city's most obvious landmarks, as well as the heart of its West Side community. Even the local post office is named in its honor-Ansonia Station. The hotel was built in 1904 by William Earl Dodge Stokes, a multimillionaire developer and amateur designer of the Phelps-Dodge family, who was one of the leading developers of Riverside Drive and the brownstone belt of the Upper West Side. It was the biggest and best of its kind, boasting a variety of construction and engineering firsts-including two huge swimming pools, one of them at the time the largest pool in the world. It quickly became a cultural treasure because of its unparalleled facilities for the teaching and practicing of the performing arts.

The seventeen-story chateau with mansard roofs and delicate ironwork is considered one of the most successful marriages of design and function. There are three-feet-thick concrete walls and specially insulated ceilings that allow entire orchestras to practice without letting neighbors hear a sound. A unique method of air circulation made it the first "air-conditioned" structure in New York. Its heyday was the first three decades of the century when just about every great name in music lived or practiced in its elegantly detailed suites-Caruso, Chaliapin, Elman, Pinza, Pons, Stravinsky, Toscanini. Other tenants included Babe Ruth, Theodore Dreiser, and Florenz Ziegfeld. The importance of the Ansonia to performing artists is so international in scope that Italian performers reported that news of the battle to save it was carried on Rome television. In recent years, the building had become more important as an arts center because of its proximity to Lincoln Center-the apparent reason that John D. Rockefeller III, retired chairman of Lincoln Center, had joined the campaign for landmark designation.

The Ansonia's threatened state was a perfect journalistic subject to demonstrate the impotence of the Landmarks Commission, as the fourth article demonstrated. It took seven years, two commission hearings, more than twenty-five thousand pet.i.tion signatures, a foundation-financed publicity effort, a sing-in protest on the steps of City Hall, support from Senators Javits and Buckley, John D. Rockefeller III, and other luminaries, and-most crucially-a threatened community lawsuit. But finally the Landmarks Preservation Commission declared the Ansonia a landmark . . . just when the owner was talking about tearing it down.

The citizen effort lasted more than a year with no response. Finally, a community group went to see Goldstone. They told him that foundations were interested in buying but that the owner refused to sell. And, they told him, they were prepared to testify at capital budget hearings that the commission had vacillated and therefore didn't deserve full funding. They said too that they were prepared to go to court to prove it was the commission's responsibility under the law to designate the Ansonia. A few weeks later the matter was unanimously approved by the commission.

The Landmarks Commission didn't actually ignore the West Side. But it turned down the designation of some worthy buildings that in later years would be designated: The Central Savings Bank across Broadway from the Ansonia-considered one of the city's finest examples of Italian Renaissance architecture-was turned down for landmark status after a hearing in June 1966. The AIA Guide to New York AIA Guide to New York describes it as a "a Palladian Palace. Wrought-iron lanterns and window grilles by Samuel Yellin are the finest features of this richly embellished limestone bank." The interior was designated after the law changed to permit interior designations. describes it as a "a Palladian Palace. Wrought-iron lanterns and window grilles by Samuel Yellin are the finest features of this richly embellished limestone bank." The interior was designated after the law changed to permit interior designations. The East River Savings Bank at Ninety-sixth and Amsterdam, which the AIA Guide AIA Guide describes as "a cla.s.sical temple inscribed with exhortations to the thrifty," was also turned down by the commission in 1966 but redesignated years later. describes as "a cla.s.sical temple inscribed with exhortations to the thrifty," was also turned down by the commission in 1966 but redesignated years later. Pomander Walk at Ninety-fifth and West End Avenue, also rejected in 1966, was described by the Pomander Walk at Ninety-fifth and West End Avenue, also rejected in 1966, was described by the AIA AIA this way: "Pomander Walk is a tiny street in the London suburb of Chiswick. It came to New York in 1911 as the name of a stage play. This double row of small town houses is modeled after the stage sets used for the New York production." this way: "Pomander Walk is a tiny street in the London suburb of Chiswick. It came to New York in 1911 as the name of a stage play. This double row of small town houses is modeled after the stage sets used for the New York production."5 Big swaths of the Upper West Side had been cleared under urban renewal: Lincoln Center, Lincoln Towers, the Coliseum at Columbus Circle, Park West Village, and the West Side Urban Renewal Area (Eighty-seventh to Ninety-seventh, Central Park West to Amsterdam). The public unrest caused by the sweeping scale of this demolition was part and parcel of the headaches that Mayor Wagner had to deal with.

The first seven years of the new landmark law seemed to be serving the mayor well, giving the public the erroneous impression that landmark protection was in place. "So after 10 years," Evelyn Haynes observed in my final article, "out of 5000 miles of streets in this city we have 360 landmarks. That's not a grain of sand in the desert. What is that, 30 a year? That whole list is as phony at a $3 bill because it's overloaded with public buildings over which the commission has no power and lots of churches which are nonsavable anyway if they are unused and falling apart. All you really have is the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval on some nice buildings."

Eight years after the law was enacted, preservation battles were no longer primarily in fas.h.i.+onable neighborhoods, mostly in Manhattan. The disputes crossed all borough and income levels. "Landmark designation has become one of the most potent forces stabilizing community life," Goldstone noted. "The demand for it far outstrips our potential."

Unquestionably, the preservation movement had already outgrown the expectation of the 1965 landmarks legislation. As long as the economics of land use dictates that high-density new structures, whether commercial or residential, were more valuable than character, quality, and open s.p.a.ce, there was little doubt that the movement would continue to grow.

THE LAW CHANGES, BUT THE COMMISSION DOESN'T For seven years, a complacent, slow-moving Landmarks Commission had not come under fire in any major way, and City Hall was not feeling much heat. Putting the issue in the spotlight of the press, as the Post Post articles did, surprised a relaxed public, accelerating the momentum for reform and providing ammunition for key advocates. Ten months later, in November 1973, the city council amended the law. The changes were significant and form the backbone of the commission's strength today: articles did, surprised a relaxed public, accelerating the momentum for reform and providing ammunition for key advocates. Ten months later, in November 1973, the city council amended the law. The changes were significant and form the backbone of the commission's strength today: The three-year limitation was eliminated. Designation of publicly owned scenic landmarks was permitted. Designation of private interior s.p.a.ces was permitted, if accessible to the public. Commission reports on city-owned buildings were no longer to be kept secret and were made binding.

But the commission was still reluctant to change its pace of operation, even with newfound authority. The commission wasn't moving any faster than City Hall under Mayor Wagner would permit. Then came the lawsuit against the city over the fifty-six-story office tower proposed to be built over the 1913 Grand Central Terminal, owned by the Pennsylvania Railway Company. The proposed tower, designed by esteemed modernist Marcel Breuer, was turned down by the commission in 1969. Describing the terminal as "overpowering in its timeless grandeur," the commission noted at the time that "to balance a 56-story office tower above the flamboyant Beaux-Arts facade seems nothing more than an aesthetic joke. Quite simply, the tower would overwhelm the terminal by its sheer ma.s.s" and "reduce the landmark itself to the status of a 'curiosity.'"

After that proposal was rejected another was put forth that would demolish the terminal, except for the main concourse. That too was rejected. Penn Central then sued to overturn the landmark designation and to declare the landmark law unconst.i.tutional. The case moved slowly through the courts. Expecting to lose, the commission and other city officials were even more gun-shy, preparing in fact to pull the rug out from under their newly achieved powers.

In November 1974, I wrote an article revealing that the city was considering withdrawing the landmark designation of Grand Central Terminal after receiving indications it may lose a multimillion-dollar lawsuit challenging that designation. Although New York Supreme Court Justice Irving Saypol had not issued a written decision, he had made a number of statements from the bench that indicated he was leaning heavily in favor of the plaintiffs. If, as was then antic.i.p.ated, the city lost the five-year legal battle, it faced the possibility of paying upwards of sixty million dollars in damages. Judge Saypol appeared to be leaning toward ruling only on the specific application of the law to the Grand Central situation without ruling on the overall const.i.tutionality of the law.

Settlement discussions had been going on for several months between representatives of the plaintiff and the city. And the justice was asked to defer judgment in the hope the case could be settled beforehand. One of the proposals under discussion was a withdrawal of the damage claim if the city were to withdraw the landmark designation. This would have allowed the owner and developer to build the skysc.r.a.per the Landmarks Preservation Commission disallowed.

JACKIE KENNEDY ONa.s.sIS MAKES THE DIFFERENCE.

Civic groups, led by the Munic.i.p.al Arts Society, expressed outrage and gathered a delegation to meet with Mayor Abraham Beame, who had succeeded Wagner. That was when Jackie Kennedy Ona.s.sis famously stepped in, writing a letter to Mayor Beame, pleading with him to save the terminal.6 Her letter helped raise the alarm in the city and the nation. Historic preservation was now in the headlines. Jackie, the great arbiter of good taste in fas.h.i.+on, food, and architecture, raised the consciousness of the nation to the importance of historic preservation. The mayor was persuaded to continue the court fight after the first court ruling in Penn Central's favor. The case lasted until 1978, when it reached the U.S. Supreme Court. Her letter helped raise the alarm in the city and the nation. Historic preservation was now in the headlines. Jackie, the great arbiter of good taste in fas.h.i.+on, food, and architecture, raised the consciousness of the nation to the importance of historic preservation. The mayor was persuaded to continue the court fight after the first court ruling in Penn Central's favor. The case lasted until 1978, when it reached the U.S. Supreme Court.

In the years following the 1973 law change, under relentless and very public pressure from vocal preservationists, the commission responded to its new authority, gained a series of new chairs with each new administration, went beyond its emphasis on individual landmarks to focus on historic districts, took a stronger interest in all five boroughs, and wrestled with the City Planning Commission to finally take its place as a peer agency instead of being Planning's stepchild. In the early 1990s, as part of a city-charter revision effort, an attempt was made to bring the Landmarks Commission under control of the Planning Commission. It failed. Originally, the Landmarks Commission came under the Parks Department jurisdiction and was considered subservient to the Planning Commission.

Recognizing landmark preservation as an integral part of citywide and neighborhood planning and as a politically attractive issue took time, but it did take hold, even if not always applied consistently. But, more than anything else, it took the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in the Grand Central case in 1978 to gain expanded acceptance of and appreciation for historic preservation. The impact was profound also on planning and architecture in the city and in the whole country, giving the New York landmark law the substance that many people today a.s.sume it had when first pa.s.sed in 1965.

In the five intervening years between the 1973 amendment and the 1978 Grand Central ruling, more significant buildings were threatened and significant landmark battles undertaken. But all of this ensued in a new atmosphere in which the significance of preservation was not dismissed. But even after the Grand Central case and the celebrated partic.i.p.ation of Jackie Kennedy Ona.s.sis, it was at least another decade or more before widespread public acceptance of preservation took hold.

SIGNIFICANT LANDMARK BATTLES WERE MANY.

The 1970s was a decade of continual battles to save important buildings taken for granted today. Pier A (1886), Police Headquarters (1905-1909), Grace Church Houses (1883-1907), SoHo, the Flus.h.i.+ng Town Hall (1862- 1864), Empire Stores (1869-1885) on the Brooklyn waterfront, the Villard Houses (1884), and Radio City Music Hall (1931-1932), to name a few, were all threatened with demolition. Each one of them could have been lost without battles to stave off the wrecking ball. Pier A, the city's oldest covered pier, still standing regally on the Lower West Side waterfront, has been in limbo ever since its rescue, due to be a restored public s.p.a.ce. The grand old Police Headquarters was elegantly renovated into high-end condominiums. Grace Church Houses, due to come down to build a gymnasium for the Grace Church School, instead have that gymnasium on the inside. SoHo is SoHo, the ultimate chic former industrial neighborhood. The Villard Houses provide a grand entrance to an otherwise pedestrian hotel along with a restaurant in one of the city's most extraordinary interior s.p.a.ces, plus a wing of offices. And Radio City Music Hall? It is still amazing to think the attempt to tear it down really happened, but it did. I covered all these threats and more, believing that the unique historical, cultural, and aesthetic character of the city was under a.s.sault. Clearly, it was.

TWEED COURTHOUSE: AN OLD CONTROVERSY.

In this context, the fight over what to do with Tweed Courthouse in 2003 seemed like a petty squabble after what had transpired in the 1970s. Given the state of preservation in the early years of that decade, Tweed's near loss at that time is understandable. I wrote five articles over three years on Tweed's doomed future. The first was June 14, 1974. In that and subsequent articles, I reported on the administration's determination to replace the undesignated landmark building with a redbrick mock-colonial structure. The decision, I wrote, threatened to "turn into the biggest architectural controversy since the demolition of Pennsylvania Station." Civic groups rallied in opposition and called on the administration to restore and reuse all the historic city-owned properties near City Hall. They included: The 1846 Sun Building (corner of Broadway and Chambers Street), a subdued five-story Italianate structure built to house A. T. Stewart Dry Goods Store, the first department store in America. The city eventually restored it and occupies the upper floors with retail on the ground floor. Next door to the Sun Building, on Chambers, the 1912 Emigrant Industrial Savings Bank, an ornate mixture of Beaux Arts and Art Nouveau built for the bank to serve the city's Irish Catholic immigrant population. It was once America's wealthiest savings bank, according to the AIA Guide AIA Guide. The city eventually restored and occupied this too. At one point in the 1960s, those two significant landmarks and the old Police Headquarters were due to be replaced by a new civic center.

The 1970s fight over Tweed Courthouse was a pivotal moment. But as then City Club trustee William Hubbard noted, "There's a predisposition in the city toward demolition. . . . There's a lot of rethinking being done in this field but it hasn't yet caught on in munic.i.p.al construction."

My last report on the eventual rescue of Tweed was the last one I wrote on any preservation issue before leaving the Post Post in 1978. The editors under new owner Rupert Murdoch saw no news value in the issue of landmarks preservation. I wrote that the Tweed Courthouse-described by one architectural historian as "the finest public building in the Italianate style in the country"-was coming back to life. in 1978. The editors under new owner Rupert Murdoch saw no news value in the issue of landmarks preservation. I wrote that the Tweed Courthouse-described by one architectural historian as "the finest public building in the Italianate style in the country"-was coming back to life.

Under the cunning guidance of city council president Paul O'Dwyer, the high-ceilinged, s.p.a.cious rooms were gradually being stripped of layers of dirt and rows of old file cabinets to make way for O'Dwyer staff people. Gla.s.s doors with graceful etchings of the city's seal were clean and glistening once again, milk-gla.s.s fixtures were being rescued from piles of debris and rehung, fireplaces long blocked with cartons now served as elegant ornamentation, and well-carved plasterwork had been stripped and repainted.

Clearly, the determination of O'Dwyer and his staff saved this well-known monument to civic corruption. But the economics of renting office s.p.a.ce for city use and the then fiscal crisis were what made using it acceptable to bureaucrats. The 90,000 square feet of Tweed office s.p.a.ce was rent free, saving $630,000 yearly. O'Dwyer was an old hand at fighting for preservation of the city's heritage, and he had long advocated making the civic center area around City Hall more of a tourist attraction. O'Dwyer's achievement was to rescue this storied landmark from destruction, to get the roof repaired, the building modestly upgraded, and, most important, get it back into use. It was not designated a landmark until October 16, 1984.

Twenty years later, during the administration of Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, under the determined guidance of Landmarks Preservation Commission chair Jennifer Raab, Tweed Courthouse underwent a three-year, $90 million full restoration. Little support existed within the administration for Raab's dogged determination to make this an achievement of her tenure, until, that is, the idea of using it as a relocation site for the Museum of the City of New York. The high-quality restoration job was led by one of New York State's preeminent restoration architects, Jack Waite. Nothing like this quality of restoration would have even been considered thirty years earlier. The current use of this venerable landmark by the Board of Education will be debated among partisans for years to come, but the miracle is that it still stands.

The most compelling argument for use by the museum was that the public should have full access to the extraordinary interior, with its sky-lighted five-story rotunda and modestly elegant rooms. The most compelling reason for use by the Board of Education was as a signal that Mayor Bloomberg considered public education reform the highest priority of his administration and that bringing the board next door to City Hall underscored his determination to give education major attention and to demand accountability.

As it turns out, something of a combination of the two is the result. Offices of the Board of Education are comfortably ensconced, and some of the small-scale public s.p.a.ces around the rotunda on the different floors are well used as meeting places. Two kindergarten public schools now occupy s.p.a.ce here.7 And the main floor of the rotunda is used for some public events. And the main floor of the rotunda is used for some public events.

RAISING PRESERVATION AWARENESS AMONG STUDENTS.

Bringing public school children to Tweed for any length of time is probably the most significant use of the building. Most public school children live in neighborhoods where the value ascribed to old buildings is almost nonexistent. Little of the reverence for historic buildings so evident in much of Europe and other foreign places is true in New York. Most often, the potential of the historic fabric in many neighborhoods is appreciated primarily by new relocating residents moving in. Many current residents whose landlords are loath to perform more than minimum building maintenance think only new construction should be aspired to. This is often true even if the new is flimsy, as it usually is, compared with the neglected old.

When I was writing the story about Flatbush Town Hall and the trilogy of history of the former village of Flatbush, I discovered a wonderful gem. In the courtyard of Erasmus High School, a Gothic confection typical of many of the city's public schools, is a little-known historic treasure-the 1786 Erasmus Hall Academy, a wooden schoolhouse built as a private academy for the Dutch church that remains, one of the oldest in the country. It's in the courtyard, yet no mention or use of it made its way into the curriculum of the high school surrounding it.

New York City schools, like most public school systems around the country, have been remiss in giving students reason to appreciate their own neighborhoods, especially their historic fabric. Is it any wonder these kids grow up with the idea that upward mobility means moving out to a suburban tract house? Only a new appreciation of where they now live can change that and, in turn, advance the stability of their neighborhoods.

To my mind, then, if use of the Tweed Courthouse by the Board of Education does that for the current generation of public school students, it will be a worthwhile achievement. If they can see the value in something old, they may not be deceived into equating new with better. Equally important is the a.s.surance of the intrinsic and lasting lasting value of this stately edifice. The Board of Education will probably not be located there forever, but the building at least exists to accept an unpredicted future use. value of this stately edifice. The Board of Education will probably not be located there forever, but the building at least exists to accept an unpredicted future use.

The days where buildings like this one could be considered deserving of the garbage dump are over-at least in New York. Many American cities lag far behind New York in this evaluation, even though in New York vulnerable buildings still don't get landmarked if a well-connected real estate owner wants an area of the city redeveloped.

The fundamental dilemma of the Landmarks Preservation Commission is the conflict between preservation and new development in a city where real estate owners.h.i.+p trumps all else in access to power and influence. How well preservation has prevailed over the years from administration to administration often depends on which prominent owner is involved. But when a site does get put on the commission calendar to be considered for designation and when owners seek permission to alter a landmark, the public hearing process is quite admirable. The public is not just heard. People who testify are really listened to by the commissioners. The measure of the commission is not just what gets designated a landmark or a landmark district. The key is what the commission avoids doing.

Opponents continue to argue that preservation is about freezing the city-embalming is the favorite word-about stopping change or stopping progress. Facts to the contrary make no difference in the public debate. Notable new buildings exist in many historic districts. An endless array of additions to historic buildings exist all over the city. The historic preservation movement rescued cities from the bulldozer of urban renewal and cataclysmic change, thereby rescuing urbanism itself. Preservationists first fought to preserve not only buildings but the urban fabric itself, all those elements now extolled by mainstream planners and urban designers-importance of density, real mixed-use and mixed-income neighborhoods, walkable streets and community gathering s.p.a.ces. Through preservation, everything is connected. is the favorite word-about stopping change or stopping progress. Facts to the contrary make no difference in the public debate. Notable new buildings exist in many historic districts. An endless array of additions to historic buildings exist all over the city. The historic preservation movement rescued cities from the bulldozer of urban renewal and cataclysmic change, thereby rescuing urbanism itself. Preservationists first fought to preserve not only buildings but the urban fabric itself, all those elements now extolled by mainstream planners and urban designers-importance of density, real mixed-use and mixed-income neighborhoods, walkable streets and community gathering s.p.a.ces. Through preservation, everything is connected.

For the most part, preservationists are too defensive. Once and for all, the time is now to acknowledge that preservation is about city building in the most expansive way, about enhancing the new by preserving and adaptively reusing the old, about moving forward and looking back at the same time. Preservation is about building anew on a.s.sets that exist, about Urban Husbandry at its best.

3.

GREENWICH VILLAGE.

Jacobs, Moses, and Me The Village is amorphous; I can shape it into any place. . . . Everything in the Village . . . seems haphazard, accidental. When we first moved there, the old-timers told us the Village had Changed. The Village does not change, not really. The Village-the real Village, the one bounded by Fifth Avenue on the east and the Hudson River on the west-remains an accident.MARY CANTWELL, "Manhattan When I Was Young"

I was a four-year reporter in 1969-almost a "veteran"-when I was one of nine was a four-year reporter in 1969-almost a "veteran"-when I was one of nine Post Post staffers sent to the neighborhoods of their youth to write a series of articles meant to dramatize the changes wrought by time. Anthony Mancini went to the Northeast Bronx, Judith Michaelson to Flatbush, Timothy Lee to Park Slope, Jerry Tallmer to Park Avenue, Lee Dembart to Jackson Heights, John Mullane to Kingsbridge, Carl J. Pelleck to the Lower East Side, Arthur Greenspan to the Grand Concourse, and I to Greenwich Village. staffers sent to the neighborhoods of their youth to write a series of articles meant to dramatize the changes wrought by time. Anthony Mancini went to the Northeast Bronx, Judith Michaelson to Flatbush, Timothy Lee to Park Slope, Jerry Tallmer to Park Avenue, Lee Dembart to Jackson Heights, John Mullane to Kingsbridge, Carl J. Pelleck to the Lower East Side, Arthur Greenspan to the Grand Concourse, and I to Greenwich Village.

For the most part, except for Park Avenue, the neighborhoods retained their working-cla.s.s character. The Northeast Bronx, the Grand Concourse, and Kingsbridge, along with Jackson Heights ("the poor man's Forest Hills"), were already on the upward-mobility route. The Northeast Bronx had not lost its rural feel, although the not-so-distant Co-op City, then in construction, was looming large. Park Avenue had already been transformed into mostly cooperative apartment houses with only twenty rental buildings left. And the Grand Concourse had not yet lost its "insular, isolated existence" primarily for Jews.

In every neighborhood, however, were signs of "city services getting bad, buildings getting shabby . . . and a tension that wasn't there before," as one wrote. The city had not hit the downward spiral that marked the 1970s, but its slow beginning was evident. Every neighborhood, it seemed, was in flux. Dramatic, if slow or subtle, s.h.i.+fts were unfolding, not the normal change of a healthy city. Moses's ma.s.sive urban renewal and highway building projects were increasingly causing disruptions that rippled throughout the city and were a primary cause of out-migration.

Too many chroniclers of the exodus from urban America are either unaware, choose to ignore, or downplay the enormous destabilization caused by the ma.s.sive clearance projects that wiped out whole residential and industrial districts that would today be gentrified hot spots of renewing districts. Few acknowledge the significant impact of the push-pull effect. The riots of the mid-1960s accelerated that migration to the expanding suburbs. And the decade of the 1970s brought us to the brink of the deep abysmal fiscal crisis that marked so much of that decade.

THE STATE OF THE NEIGHBORHOODS.

A few themes run through most of the reporters' recollections. As a group, these observations reflect New York as it entered the 1970s. Many older people were still "in the neighborhood," having been in the same residences for decades. People didn't seem to move often. Many of their kids had left, although Jackson Heights, according to Dembart, was still considered by many "the first push to the 'suburbs'" from the Bronx and Brooklyn. Every neighborhood was experiencing a changing ethnic makeup, often making longtime residents nervous. Some noted that each group "stayed to themselves" and didn't "bother with one another." Others were quick to blame creeping downward trends on "them." The "them" varied from neighborhood to neighborhood. Often, the new arrivals were the displaced of the latest "clearance" project elsewhere in the city. Many of those interviewed said the problems were being caused by their own kids, not as well behaved as they used to be.