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Category Archives: Preservation
Really saving New York City
Authorities in the Big Apple, including, it now seems, the state’s new governor, Kathy Hochul, have bought into a vision of Manhattan’s future that privileges the greedy moguls of high finance and their camp followers in high office. So what … Continue reading
Notre-Dame falls to Disney?
Officials overseeing reconstruction of the Cathedral of Notre-Dame announced, on Sept. 18, that the landmark would open in time for the Paris Olympics in 2024. Good! However, the UK Telegraph has just run an article based on leaked plans to … Continue reading
Why no windows or doors?
Not long after neighborhood opposition prevailed over insensitive development proposals for historic Fox Point and College Hill in Providence, a new developer and a different architect have arisen to propose a new house on the vacant land just east of … Continue reading
Update on Mack restoration
With bigwigs and celebs jetting away at last from Scotland’s global climate summit, what else is afoot in the city of Glasgow? The famous 1909 Glasgow School of Art by Charles Rennie Mackintosh has not been rebuilt after its near … Continue reading
Posted in Architecture, Preservation
Tagged Alan Dunlop, Charles Rennie Mackintosh, Glasgow, Glasgow School of Art, Restoration, Scotland, Steven Holl
2 Comments
Two visions of New York City
Two recent panels held by the Empire Station Coalition discussed rebuilding Penn Station in its original 1910 design and growing opposition to former Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s Empire Station Complex, which would clog the area around Penn Station with glass-box skyscrapers. … Continue reading
Posted in Architecture, Development, Preservation
Tagged Alexandros Washburn, Andrew Cuomo, Empire State Development Corporation, Empire Station Coalition, Empire Station Complex, Josh Alan Friedman, Madison Square Garden, McKim Mead & White, New York, Penn Station, Rebuild Penn Station, ReThinkNYC, Vornado Realty Trust
1 Comment
Liverpool loses heritage status
Seventeen years after its bestowal, Liverpool has lost its status as world heritage site by an act of Unesco, the United Nations’ chief cultural agency. Sixteen years ago, in June 2005, I attended a symposium at RISD, which had partnered … Continue reading
Posted in Architecture, Preservation
Tagged Arthur Mark, Liverpool, Providence RI, RISD, Royal Society for the Arts, Will Alsop
2 Comments
History wins on Williams St.
For a year or more the vultures circled over an old cottage between Williams and John streets just off of historic Benefit Street. A developer’s plan to add an ultra-modernist addition to a historic cottage at 59 Williams, and then … Continue reading
Stick by our “stuck bridge”
As usual, city authorities, including Mayor Elorza, are trying to find new ways of screwing up Providence by throwing non-existent money at it. In this case, they want to take a perfectly good old 1908 bridge, stuck engagingly in the … Continue reading
Save a Jamaica Plain house
Sadly, a beautiful Greek Revival house in Boston’s Jamaica Plain neighborhood, erected as long ago as 1841, is on what seems a sure path to demolition. The fate of 305 Chestnut Ave. is not sealed, however, and in a world … Continue reading
A Duck & Bunny mystery
On Easter weekend a colonial-style building at 312 Wickenden St., in Providence, was razed by its new owners, who also owned the Duck & Bunny Snuggery, which was shut for the pandemic. I heard about this calamity on Sunday and … Continue reading
Architecture Here and There 