With Special Guest Speaker: New NYC Council Landmarks Chair Christopher Marte.

At the end of 2025, Village Preservation released an updated version of its first-of-its-kind report, “Analyzing New York City Landmark Designations, A Review of Mayoral Influence and Policies: 1965-2025,” which now covers the entirety of nine Mayoral administrations, up to Eric Adams. For the first time ever, the report catalogued every landmark designation in NYC since the law first allowed them in 1965, and analyzed how each Mayor performed. The results were stark.

Under Mayor Adams, landmark designations reached an all-time low — not reflecting a gradual trend over six decades, but rather a steep drop off in recent years. In spite of promises to ensure that preservation reached every corner of the city and reflected every community, designations were actually dramatically down in all categories and each section of the city. Perhaps even more disturbingly, the few designations taking place scrupulously avoided historic sites that were endangered or vulnerable, or where designation might make a substantive difference in terms of offering protections that were lacking, and instead leaned increasingly on largely honorific choices for sites that faced no current or foreseeable danger, where layers of protections already existed, or where landmark designation would provide little meaningful long-term preservation value. 

Join Village Preservation Executive Director Andrew Berman as he presents the findings of the report, and the leaders of our cosponsoring citywide and local preservation organizations as they discuss the findings and their own experiences with seeking landmark designations today and their thoughts about where we go from here. The program will be introduced by newly appointed City Council Landmarks Subcommittee Chair Christopher Marte, who represents Lower Manhattan, and will culminate in a Q & A with members of the audience. 

If you’d like to help change the city’s recent resistance to landmark designations, CLICK HERE to send messages to city officials. 

Co-sponsored by:

Historic Districts Council

City Club

Landmark West!

Friends of the Upper East Side 

East Village Community Coalition

Lower East Side Preservation Initiative 

Bowery Alliance of Neighbors 

Carnegie Hill Neighbors

CNU NYC

Image: (l.) Village Preservation’s new new report; (r.) Penn Station being demolished.