Historic Resources Committee

Historic Salem Inc. and the Peabody Essex Museum are sponsoring a symposium “Mightier than a Wrecking Ball, How Ada Louis Huxtable Saved Salem” Friday afternoon September 25, 2015 in Salem, MA. An article by renowned architecture critic and champion of preservation, Ada Louise Huxtable, published in the New York Times in October 1965, decried Salem’s urban renewal plans and became a harbinger of the National Preservation Act of 1966. Tickets and more information are available at historicsalem.org or pem.org

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David Hart AIA
David M. Hart Enterprises
Salem MA
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How ironic that 50 years later the great critic's last column before her death was instrumental in saving the New York Public Library main branch from a terrible contemplated alteration. In 1963 she marched with the NYC architectural community to try to save the doomed Pennsylvania Station, a demonstration often marked as the start of the modern historic preservation movement. I still enjoy rereading her columns and books and her several interviews on the Charlie Rose Show.

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Edward R. Acker AIA
Semi-retired Architect
Winchester VA
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