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The glamorous era of New York preservation - the outcry over the demolition of the old Pennsylvania Station, Jackie Onassis picketing to save Grand Central Terminal - is long over.
But judging from Tuesday's weak-kneed decision by the city's Landmarks Preservation Commission to approve a scaled-back expansion of the Whitney Museum of American Art, certain New Yorkers have failed to catch on. To them, apparently, the overreaching goal is saving what's old - as if the loss of an undistinguished brownstone parallels the razing of a beloved landmark.
Essentially, for the sake of preserving a humdrum brownstone facade on Madison Avenue, the commission embraced a substitute design for the museum that transforms a generously proportioned public entrance into a more confining experience. The architect, Renzo Piano, drafted the alternative - which would save that brownstone, while demolishing another - when the museum realized that the addition was in danger of being voted down by the commission.
Aside from weakening a promising design, the commission's stubbornness proves that it is unable to distinguish between preserving the city's architectural legacy and embalming it. This is particularly galling given that the commission steadfastly refuses to meet on Edward Durell Stone's endangered 60's "lollipop" building at 2 Columbus Circle - a building that is far more essential to the city's historical fabric.
im in total agreement with ouroussoff on the whitney expansion and stones 2 columbus circle
Taken together, the two cases imply a complete disconnect with the changing realities of preservation in New York City. It is as if the commission believes that New York is still living under the threat of tabula rasa Modernism.
We no longer live in the 1960's. There is no Robert Moses, with the power to bulldoze entire neighborhoods in the name of urban progress. Jane Jacobs, the activist who took him on, now lives in Toronto. The old tradition-vs.-Modernism battles are irrelevant. On the contrary, many Modernist buildings are now landmarks worthy of preservation.