In 1973 the Customs Service vacated its grand headquarters in Cass Gilbert’s Beaux-Arts masterpiece for offices in the new World Trade Center. The fate of the building—dismissed by some as a “white elephant”—was uncertain. When the Conservancy was founded, the organization ardently championed the building, which became its first preservation initiative.

In addition to the Conservancy’s efforts, other attempts to preserve and revive the City’s architecture were prevalent in the 1970s. In 1974 the nine-year-old New York City Landmarks Commission, a city agency, granted individual landmark status to the Lyceum Theater. The Lyceum is an architectural gem in the Theater District and one of the oldest performing arts venues in the City.

It was not just the City’s monumental architecture that was being newly appreciated and saved. Intrepid New Yorkers had been on their own restoring brownstones, as seen in this photograph of 1974, until the Conservancy got involved. It has played an indispensable role in providing homesteading “brownstoners” with expert advice and funding.

Early landmarks preservation successes were all the more remarkable for taking place against the backdrop of a city in decline. Crime was so high that the Council for Public Safety issued a brochure for tourists advising them how to protect themselves.

New York was in financial trouble and facing insolvency. President Gerald Ford refused to spare the City from economic disaster, as the New York Daily News famously proclaimed: “Ford to City: Drop Dead.”

While early preservation successes, including those achieved by the Conservancy, were beginning to transform the City, a new optimistic mood emerged.  New Yorkers’ faith in their city–edged with a bit of never-say-die homegrown chauvinism–was given memorable expression in Milton Glaser’s bold image, often accompanied by an up-beat jingle sung by New York City officials and celebrities.

Parts of the South Bronx literally burned to the ground and became a national symbol of urban blight when visited by President Jimmy Carter. But once again, community groups and the City refused to give up and in subsequent decades the borough would witness a renaissance.

Saving the block with the historic Fraunces Tavern was another of the Conservancy’s early successes. In 1978 the Conservancy obtained funds from philanthropist Brooke Astor to purchase the five buildings, and the row was leased to a private developer for conversion to residential and commercial use.

In the mid-1970s, a decade after the loss of Pennsylvania Station, a
monumental gateway to the City, Grand Central Terminal was threatened. Supported by Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, the Landmarks Preservation Commission took a legal case all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. In 1978 the court ruled in favor of saving the terminal, sending a clear message that the preservation movement was here to stay.