nErD aLeRt!

tomorrow marks the 50th anniversary of the protest by architects' group AGBANY (terrible name) to save the old pretty penn station from being turned into a peeps-and-poops-soiled nightmare. it failed, obvi, but is noted by most to me the beginning of the modern architectural preservation movement. the new york times recounts the story of the dedicated new york architects who tried to save her.

Philip Johnson was impeccably present, in the company of the peerless Elizabeth Bliss Parkinson, a trustee of the Museum of Modern Art, who would soon be its president. There was Aline B. Saarinen, the widow of Eero Saarinen, who had been until 1959 an associate art critic at The New York Times. Agbany counted Eleanor Roosevelt, Stewart Alsop, Jane Jacobs and Norman Mailer among its supporters, along with many of the most respected names in architecture and architectural criticism. (via)

poor saps.