The Escalating Argument Over Historic Preservation

The movement to protect historic buildings seemed unbeatable for decades, but it has spawned sophisticated, well-funded critics — and critics of the critics. Is it really “a good idea that has gone too far”?

The demolition of New York City’s Penn Station in 1963 helped to build the historic preservation movement. (Museum of the City of New York)

It’s usually impossible to find the moment when a social or political movement took off. But when it comes to historic preservation in urban America, that moment is all but indelible in the permanent record: It was Oct. 28, 1963, when Pennsylvania Station, the early 20th-century architectural masterpiece beloved by generations of New Yorkers, met the wrecking ball on orders from the railroad that owned it.

That act of destruction horrified not only New York but much of America as well. It helped the National Trust for Historic Preservation, which had been around since 1949, to grow into a powerful pressure group and lobbying force all over the United States. Very quickly, the National Trust broadened its focus from venerable individual buildings to entire neighborhoods, and succeeded in protecting a good many of them. By 2022, there were more than 2,300 historic districts spread across every state.

And for much of its period of expansion, the preservation movement amounted to a consensus political favorite. Arguments challenging it were generally regarded as the product of fringe agitators with little mainstream support.