The Revitalist

Two recent NY Times articles profile a pair of high profile people in the world of preservation and planning.

Now that there is some water under the bridge, so to speak, some people are starting to look at the legacy of Robert Moses, the man who lead NYC through urban renewal, with fresh eyes.  Three exhibitions opening soon will explore different aspects of Moses' initiatives and their positive and negative impacts. It's an interesting time to look back on the subject because several projects have been around long enough that they are in their second lives, like Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village recently bought by MetLife for rehab. Also, Anthony Flint, one-time Globe reporter turned urbanist thinker, is working on a book about the relationship between antagonists Robert Moses and Jane Jacobs due out next year. Looks like it will be interesting.

 Also, the Times was nice enough to give NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission Chairman Robert Tierney some time to defend himself. He and the Commission have been the objects of much criticism lately for what is interpreted as their inability to defend the city's landmarks against big money developers. Tierney says, "There is just an enormous responsibility to keep intact what we already have, keep it healthy, used, and animated. That said, we make discretionary decisions all the time. You can't designate everything. Choices have to be made." While Tierney points out the political intricacies of his job, I think we would all like to see our preservation commissions doing just what the article title says: distinguishing the remarkable from the merely old. And we would like to see them stand up to famous and demanding neighborhood activists as well as to the politically connected, deep pocketed developers.