Skip to main content

architectural preservation

The wrecker’s ball swings in every city in the land, and memorable edifices of all kinds are coming down at a steady clip.

There are places on this earth, in Europe particularly, where conservation is taken to mean the preservation of the notable works of man as well as nature.

As featureless new buildings replace the old, the faces of our cities are going blank. But evocative relics of an earlier, ornate age are being rescued, to stand once more in a unique garden in Brooklyn.

Home to royal and republican governors, host to a century of great men, stately Shirley Place in Roxbury, Massachusetts, is falling into ruin

The Mansion is what the children of the district call it, knowing nothing of its history. It stands narrowly on its once rural hill, as it has these 200 years, in a peripheral Boston slum where the tide of middle-class respectability ebbed two generations ago.

Enjoy our work? Help us keep going.

Now in its 75th year, American Heritage relies on contributions from readers like you to survive. You can support this magazine of trusted historical writing and the volunteers that sustain it by donating today.

Donate