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BOARD OF DIRECTORS Anthony C. Wood, Chair Elizabeth R. Jeffe, Vice-Chair Stephen Facey, Treasurer Lisa Ackerman, Secretary Daniel J. Allen Eric Allison Michele H. Bogart Susan De Vries Kent Diebolt Amy Freitag Shirley Ferguson Jenks Otis Pratt Pearsall Gina Pollara Anthony W. Robins Bradley J. Vogel Duane A. Watson NEWSLETTER FALL 2013 Welcome to the nineteenth edition of the newsletter of the New York Preservation Archive Project. The mission of the New York Preservation Archive Project is to protect and raise awareness of the narratives of historic preservation in New York. Through public programs, outreach, celebration, and the creation of public access to information, the Archive Project hopes to bring these stories to light. Bard Birthday Breakfast Benefit 2013 ___________________ December 10, 2013 8:15 a.m.: Breakfast BARD 8:30-10:00 a.m.: Program Save the Date! Manhattan Penthouse th Join Us for the 10 Annual Bard Birthday Breakfast Benefit 80 Fifth Avenue, at 14th Street New York City Tickets are now available for the Tenth Rossi has spent the last 13 years producing, Annual Bard Birthday Breakfast Benefit on directing, shooting, and editing national December 10th! programs for public television. In 2012, Tickets: Rossi received an Emmy Award for his Benefit Committee Tickets:$250 Fifty years ago, in 1963, the demolition of work as coordinating producer of the PBS Benefit Tickets: $125 New York City’s Pennsylvania Station began. children’s engineering series, Design Squad This monumental loss came as a shock to Nation. His production credits for American Student Tickets: $65 many and is regarded as a major galvanizing Experience include Building the Alaska Highway, influence on preservation advocacy and The Gold Rush, and We Shall Remain, a five- To purchase tickets, or if you have policy in the United States. To commemorate part television series and multimedia project any questions about the event, please this anniversary, join the Archive Project in on Native American history. Rossi has also visit our website at www.nypap.org a special benefit celebration of what would contributed to PBS’s Frontline, including or contact Matthew Coody at the have been Albert S. Bard’s 147th birthday. a thirty-minute documentary entitled The Archive Project office: Michael Rossi, an independent documentary Silence. [email protected] film and non-fiction television producer, will or 212-988-8379. be the featured speaker. Rossi is currently A graduate of the B.A./M.A. program producing a film about the construction in U.S. history at Boston College, Rossi Your support of our annual benefit of Pennsylvania Station for the award- began his career at PBS in the educational will enable the Archive Project winning PBS series American Experience. programming department at WGBH While researching this documentary, Rossi Boston. In addition to work in public to continue its efforts to record has delved into extensive archives on the television, his company, Rossi Films, has and document the history of the doomed terminal, and he will discuss the completed a variety of production work preservation movement in New York significance of archives in the process on documentaries, feature films, television City. We are very excited about this of creating historical documentary films. shows, music videos, and commercials. upcoming event and sincerely hope Introducing Rossi will be Lorraine B. Diehl, Rossi’s documentary on Pennsylvania Station you will join us on December 10th! author of The Late, Great Pennsylvania Station. is expected to air on PBS in 2014. Page 1 was made. You were part of that delegation that met with the staff of the Landmarks Preservation Commission. You sat in on the meeting with your local elected officials. You witnessed the community board debate on that issue. You participated in the meeting with The New York Times editorial board. You were in the room when the deal was made. You worked for that agency, that politician, that not-for-profit, that developer; you served on that community board. Years ago, following an Archive Project program, I received a note from the planner and community activist, the late Walter Thabit. In it he revealed the important yet almost invisible role Raymond Rubinow, long-time civic activist and “philanthropoid” extraordinaire, played in opposing the demolition of Pennsylvania Station. Thabit credited Ray with recruiting dozens to the cause and helping structure AGBANY— Action Group For Better Architecture in Vest covered in preservation advocacy buttons; New York—and “leaving the architects and Courtesy of Anthony C. Wood other high visibility supporters the run of the effort to stop the demolition.” The role of this civic veteran in an effort frequently Chairman’s Column: depicted as fueled by young architects offers us a more nuanced appreciation of the Be Your Own Preservation Archivist! dynamics of that effort. Without Walter’s note, how would we ever know? By Anthony C. Wood, Founder & Chair In addition to the specialized information We all have memories of those seismic You may have special knowledge that will be stored between your ears, imagine what historical events that have touched our lost forever if not somehow “downloaded” historians could learn from the papers lives. “What were you doing when you for the future. stuffed in your file drawers, piled in the back heard that President Kennedy had been of that closet, or perhaps stored in that extra shot?” or, more pertinent for younger This was underscored to me over a recent shower stall? Your clipping files probably generations, “Where were you on 9/11?” lunch conversation with Margot Wellington, don’t contain unique information, but your Those events are indelibly etched on the former executive director of the Municipal correspondence and working papers certainly national consciousness and on our own. It is Art Society. We were discussing the “sliver” do! Did you keep notes of the organizing true that our personal memories add to the building outbreak in Manhattan in the early meetings of a preservation campaign? Did richness of that shared history, but in most l980s and the resulting successful campaign you head up a working committee? Do you cases our stories are not essential to establish to control them. Margot recounted that a have the list of the delegation that met with the “historic record.” The opposite is true City planning staffer had told her that the the borough president on that issue? when it comes to capturing the history of reason those narrow towers had started preservation in New York City. to pop up was an “innocent” change in Even simple records, where little else mandated parking requirements for new exists, can provide an invaluable window You and I have singular roles to play in residential construction. How long would into the past. Again, an example from the documenting the history of preservation. it have taken a researcher to connect those Pennsylvania Station story: thanks to the If you’ve been involved in a preservation dots, let alone gain the other insights Margot papers of Costas Machlouzarides, the effort—whether fighting to save a building, and her civic colleagues could provide into treasurer for AGBANY, we have a partial restoring an historic resource, achieving that chapter of civic history? list of those who contributed financially designation for an historic district, or battling to AGBANY. Since AGBANY’s flame an ill-conceived project—your memories From your work in the preservation burned brightly yet briefly, and its efforts and records can provide singular insights trenches, you too have “insider” knowledge. were appreciated more after the fact than at into that episode of preservation’s history. “You were there” when preservation history the time, having factual information about Page 2 its supporters and its finances is a real gift to historians. From this simple financial document we learn that as of the date of its preparation, Philip Johnson Associates, Frances H. Jones, and Alfred A. Knopf were AGBANY’s largest donors, each at $100. And what about preservation ephemera? Who doesn’t have preservation memorabilia kicking around the house? How many “Save [fill in the blank] buttons” are in your collection? Do you still have preservation campaign T-shirts, posters, hats, you name it? In some future exhibition, the history of preservation can be brought alive by these Past LPC Chair Gene Norman speaks at the Albert S. Bard Cultural Medallion Dedication Ceremony; items as well as by the brick you salvaged Courtesy of Charles Starks from that landmark we lost, the piece of decorative molding you snatched from that gutted interior, or a salvaged piece of terra NYPAP Events cotta you retrieved from the dumpster. Our Public Programs Continue to Celebrate, Educate & Inspire The Archive Project has been working with preservationists to both capture This year marks the 50th anniversary of the lessons can be used to guide contemporary their memories and preserve their papers demolition of New York City’s Pennsylvania preservation struggles. and preservation ephemera. However, to Station, a loss that became an influential paraphrase a line from an old R&B song, force in the passage of the City’s Landmarks * * * “So many preservationists, so little time.” Law. In fact, most historians cite this On September 23rd the Archive Project The only way to truly capture the inspiring watershed moment as the beginning of teamed up with the Historic Landmarks and instructive history of preservation the modern preservation movement in the Preservation Center to host a dedication efforts in New York is for you to unleash the City. But numerous actions to advance some ceremony for the Albert S. Bard cultural archivist within. Become your own archivist. form of landmarks protection predate this medallion at the Broad Exchange Building, famous episode.