3. Landmark Designation for NYC’s Great Skyscrapers
Woolworth Building nearing completion. Photo from Library of Congress
While we take the skyscrapers of New York City, like the Woolworth Building, Flatiron Building, and Chrysler Building, as given landmarks, these were not obvious choices for designation early on. To Dolkart, a third success of the landmarks law was the designation of the great skyscrapers. He tells us that today, these buildings are “a defining part of New York City’s character. These skyscrapers were of little interest to the early commission and their designation was often not supported by owners at first, but what would New York be without them?” Indeed, as curator Donald Albrecht also mentioned in our curator interview, the preservation movement in the 1910s and 1920s was focused primarily on buildings that were considered historically significant, “the ‘George Washington slept here’ phenomenon.”
