Is Preservation Elitist?
One of the Saving Place public programs at the Museum of the City of New York

While many of New York’s designated historic districts are known for their grand architecture (such as Brooklyn Heights and the Upper East Side), an increasing number of others – including Tin Pan Alley, Flushing, Weeksville, and Chinatown– are famed for their distinctive cultural character. But how exactly do you preserve a “culturally distinctive” place? In some cases is formal preservation actually a hindrance to saving what a community loves best about its neighborhood? What are the other protective strategies to ensure such places retain tradition, culture and even its population? Join a panel of community activists, preservationists and architects as they discuss the challenges of preserving these unique neighborhoods, whose greatest asset lies in the histories they contain, rather than the quality of their buildings. This program delves into the themes of our exhibition Saving Place: 50 Years of New York City Landmarks.

Reception to follow!

Claudette Brady, Founder of the Bedford Stuyvesant Society for Historic Preservation
Kerri Culhane, Two Bridges’ Associate Director
Nikolai Fedak, YIMBY Founder
Tia Powell Harris, Weeksville President & Executive Director
Paimaan Lodhi, REBNY Vice President for Urban Planning
Laurie Beckelman (moderator), Founding Partner of Beckelman+Capalino

Co-sponsored by Weeksville.