Great cover on the first issue for 2008 of The New Yorker

One of several excellent lengthy stories in this issue is one by staff writer Burkhard Bilger on the destruction of a heritage building in Pearl Street in the downtown financial district, a street I walk down most days during my NY visits.

Here is one paragraph from that story which rang very loud alarm bells for me:

New York demolishes more old buildings every month than most American cities have standing. In a single week last September, the list of scheduled demolitions ran to six pages; in an average year, about two thousand buildings are torn down. As you walk through neighbourhoods like SoHo or Greenwich Village, it's easy to imagine Manhattan as one vast historic district, camera-ready for any period from the Civil War on. In fact, fewer than three percent of the city's million or so buildings are protected as landmarks.

Bilger's well-researched and detailed 10 page story illustrates the significant problem confronting New York if it is to maintain its many architectural glories built mainly in the first 40 years of the 20th century.

His essay should be compulsory reading for all New York residents ( particularly Mayor Bloomberg) and also for those worldwide who care about heritage buildings and their preservation.

And in the competitor magazine, NEW YORK, issue of January 7 ,there is a page devoted to photographs of some of the notable buildings lost in 2007. They report there were 3653 demolition permits in 2006 and 2952 in 2007. They describe the demolitions as collateral damage from the city's construction boom.