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A Tale of Two Cities
This exhibition of
more than 150 black-and-white photographs represents a cross-section of
the thousands of significant buildings that are protected by local landmark
designation in Chicago and New York City. The story of how this came to
pass is both as similar and as different as the cities themselves.
The preservation movement
in both cities was, in large part, a response to demolition threats that
occurred to significant structures during the building boom of the post-World
War II years. For New Yorkers, the call to action as the 1963 demolition
of Pennsylvania Station, a Beaux Arts masterpiece designed by McKim, Mead
& White (1902-04). Two years later, New York City passed legislation
that would help protect other significant structures from demolition or
damaging alteration, establishing the New York City Landmarks Preservation
Commission.
One of the key events
that inspired Chicago's preservation movement was the near demolition in
1957 of Frank Lloyd Wright's famed Robie House, located in Hyde Park on
the city's South Side. Another was the unsuccessful 1960 effort to save
Adler & Sullivan's Garrick Theater Building, an important early skyscraper.
Even H.H. Richardson's Glessner Huose on South Prairie Avenue seemed destined
for demolition in the early 1960's until it was purchased by a concerned
group of architects and preservationists.
As a response to these
growing preservation concerns, the City council of Chicago in 1968 established
the present-day commission on Chicago Landmarks, and empowered it to identify
and protect the city's historical and architectural heritage. Among the
first buildings to be given protective landmark status were those considered
to be the precursors of modern architecure, such as the city's pioneer
skyscrapers (Carson Pirie Scott, Monadnock, Reliance and Rookery) and such
milestones in residential design as the Charnley, Glessner, Madlener and
Robie houses.
The number of protected
landmarks in the two cities varies widely, as benefitting the differences
in their size and age. New York ha sdesignated more than 1000 individual
landmarks and 73 districts, including several building from the 17th and
18th centuries, such as the Conference House (1675) and Gracie Mansion
(1799). Chicago, on the other hand, has designated 145 individual landmarks
and 31 districts - only a handful prior to the Fire of 1871, such
as the Noble House (1833), Clarke House (1836), the I&M Canal Origins
Site (1836) and the Wingert House (1854).
Today the two cities
are paying increasing attention to landmarks from the recent past. Among
the newly-designated landmarks in New York City are the Lever House (1952),
the Seagram Building (1958), the Unisphere from the 1964 New York World's
Fair, the TWA Terminal (1962) and the Ford Foundation Building (1967).
Chicago's recent designations have included the Bachman House (1948), 860-880
Lake Shore Drive (1949), Crown Hall (1956), Inland Steel (1957) and the
Chess Records Studios (1957).
Photography is a critical
component of each city's approach to generating public support for landmark
designation. New York City's images are the work of young photographers
who were commissioned for the book Landmarks of New York III
by Barbara Lee Diamonstein. Chicago's landmarks were photographed by some
of the city's most notable photographers, commissioned at the time of the
proposed designation.
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