ABSTRACT
Built in the 1920s under the direction of the legendary urban planner and "power broker" Robert Moses, Jones Beach is a New York state park of historical significance in recalling the technocratic optimism of planning and design in the interwar period. Historic preservation at Jones Beach is surely framed from the fabric-centered perspective. David Lowenthal's work has been credited as having moved the focus on heritage conservation from fabric to people. R. Mason crystalizes the issue as a tension between fabric and memory. Concerns over fabric focus on practices that fix the fabric, relegating memory to a static conception of significance. The public debate pro and con also took historic preservation values into account, as with the comment quoted above about the "peoples' historical beach." The ethnographic research would include the services—and facilities—rating questions the state park agency had formerly used in its visitor surveys.
