by Lionel Bascom — November 3rd, 2007 — 1 comment
A “rare surving relic” of a 19th Century World Trade Center in New York is facing demolition.
A story in the International Herald Tribune says historians are fighting to save the Manhattan building, built as a warehouse in the style of Greek Revival architecture that is slated to be torn down to create space for a new Sheraton hotel in lower Manhattan.
“The warehouse was erected in 1831 — one of the earliest examples of the Greek Revival style of a cluster of buildings that made up the original world trade center in lower Manhattan, long before the 110-story twin towers that opened in 1970. The Pearl Street wholesalers specialized in dry goods they shipped to storekeepers all over the country.
New York “became like a funnel through which the wealth of the Western world would now have to pass,” according to a television documentary by Ric Burns called “The Town and The City.” Narrow lanes like Pearl Street “were transformed into the first district in the world devoted exclusively to commerce.”
On either side of the warehouse on 213 Pearl Street were two similar 19th-century buildings on a block now mostly owned by Rockrose Development, which has built a luxury high-rise there and is erecting a second tower.
All that remains of the building at 211 Pearl is its facade, and 215 already has been demolished, leaving 213 as “a rare surviving relic of the process that made New York into America’s great city,” said local historian Paul E. Johnson.
6:58 PM in Uncategorized, World Trade Center, Ground Zero, Related Stories, Freedom Tower News
This reminds me of the children’s book, _The Little House_ by Virginia Lee Burton. We just don’t seem to appreciate the treasures in our lives until they are lost forever. For this reason, we need to think carefully about what it is that we treasure because “where [our] treasure is, there will [our] heart be also” (Matthew 6:21).
Jeanne · November 3rd, 2007 at 11:38 pm