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| First Person: Money & Meaning |
Past Perfect
Barbaralee Diamonstein-Spielvogel
07/01/2005
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Barbaralee Diamonstein-Spielvogel is a landmarks activist and chair of the
Historic Landmarks Preservation Center in New York. She served on the New York
City Landmarks Preservation Commission for 17 years and was the city’s first
director of cultural affairs. In addition to her efforts in New York, she has
served on the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts since 1996 and on the board of the
U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum Council. Diamonstein-Spielvogel has been an
interviewer and producer for a number of television shows about the arts and architecture. Her 19th book, The Landmarks of New York: An Illustrated Record of
the City’s Historic Buildings, was published in May.
The preservation movement is one of the most successful and egalitarian
campaigns in our nation’s history. It involves people of all geographic,
socioeconomic and age groups. Preservationists have long discussed the
intangible social benefits of protecting the past from the wrecker’s ball.
Conserving our historical and physical heritage provides a reassuring chain of
continuity between past and present. A sense of continuity, an awareness that
some things last longer than mortal existence, is important to most people. Over
the centuries, many have recognized that cities, as the greatest communal works
of man, provide the deepest assurance that this is true. But today’s cities are
also the greatest source of conflict over balancing the past against future
economic growth.
 |  | | THE PLAZA Hotel, finished in 1907, and the Seagram Building, 1958, are among Manhattan’s prized architectural landmarks. |
During the past 40 years, landmarks laws have helped
transform the process of preservation from a series of brushfire rescues into an
integral aspect of city government. For those who are economically oriented, it
has been proven again and again that properties that are preserved create
greater economic benefits than most others. Of course, there will always be
detractors who complain that what they regard as the restrictions of preservation law are just too costly to implement. I don’t believe this is true.
Preservation does not mean economic stagnation. Properties are not frozen in
time, but are subject to review. Many, many landmark buildings are altered.
These changes, however, must be sympathetic to the original architecture, to a
building’s context and to its neighbors.
Many of the same developers who
protest—many of whom are among the quickest to defy preservation laws—are the
first to advertise their buildings as “landmarks,” because they too have become
aware that preservation endows properties with a special cachet and a higher
value. The struggle to “save” New York’s Plaza Hotel from new owners bent on
creating condominiums out of historic spaces has attracted many headlines.
Wherever there are emotions, property values and dominion at stake, conflict
follows. At the Plaza, I foresee that the spaces that will enhance the property
for the new owners, such as the Palm Court, the Grand Ballroom and the Oak Room,
will be designated landmarks and remain open to the public.
Historic Homesteads
Celebrated buildings like the Plaza garner the most
attention, but preservationists also focus on little-known buildings with
remarkable historic resonance.
The oldest surviving dwelling in Queens,
N.Y., dates from 1661. It is a modest structure, but an important example of
early wood-frame Anglo-Dutch architecture. More importantly, it is a monument to religious freedom. Nine generations of the same family have lived in this house;
prominent family members have included four mayors of New York, distinguished
educators, a leading abolitionist, one of the most celebrated early horticulturists and a
founder of the oldest public company in New York, the 230-year-old Bowne
Co.
The house originally belonged to John Bowne, who practiced the Quaker
religion there. Governor Peter Stuyvesant thought it was “an abominable sect,”
and banned its practice. Despite being exiled back to Holland, Bowne refused to
sacrifice his religious freedom and instead invited fellow Quakers to meet in
his house. His trial and subsequent acquittal helped establish the fundamental
principles of freedom of conscience and religious liberty, principles later
codified in the Bill of Rights. Of course, historic buildings such as Grand
Central Terminal are magnificent, but this house is also unique.
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