Quote:
Originally Posted by Submariner
“Its goal seems to be to preserve anything that will maintain the streetscape, whether or not the individual structures have significance. Entire blocks are frozen on the logic that the first buildings ever put there are also the best that could ever be imagined there.”
Does anyone have this guys number? I'd like to buy him a drink.
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The thing is, the preservationist movement started at a time when most new buildings were really ugly, and the theory guiding urban development was terribly misguided and led to the wholesale obliteration of communities in cities all over the country. People want to preserve old buildings because they
are often better than what they get replaced with.
That doesn't excuse the ninnies who complain about shadows in Central Park, or oppose genuinely high-quality new developments just for the sake of opposing them. But it doesn't seem misplaced to me to want to preserve older buildings when those buildings are better than what would replace them.
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