ABSTRACT
Only weeks after Mayor Wagner’s appointment of the Committee for the Preservation of Structures of Historic and Esthetic Importance, and only days after its creation was reported in the New York Times, the news broke that Pennsylvania Station was again destined for demolition. From that moment on, the painfully slow process of drafting and ultimately securing passage of the Landmarks Law would always be a step or two behind the forces working to demolish the station. It would be under the increasingly darkening shadow of Pennsylvania Station, both before and during its long-drawn-out and highly public demolition, that the mayor’s new committee and its successor, the first Landmarks Preservation Commission, would undertake the politically charged task of trying to create a public policy to curtail New York’s seemingly insatiable appetite for consuming its past. Pennsylvania Station’s uncertain fate would make that task even more difficult while also complicating relationships between organizations, preservationists, and even brothers.
