Preserving South Street Seaport by James M. Lindgren is a powerful, if densely packed, history of the South Street Seaport historic district in southern Manhattan. Through this book, Lindgren explores the difficulties and nuances of perhaps the most complex and famous historic preservation initiative in the United States. This book resonates with me at a personal level, since, while studying at Columbia University, I visited the South Street Seaport with my historic preservation professors who had participated in the restoration of Schermerhorn Row. Lindgren’s exhaustive research into the mechanics of preservation work and museum management can be appreciated by anyone who has experienced the constant challenges, unexpected complexities, and disappointments that come with preserving historic places and/or curating exhibits. Lindgren’s book might be a history book but it has an interdisciplinary appeal for anyone who studies or works with historic preservation, museums (especially maritime museums), vernacular architecture, urban planning, or New York City’s history.
The scope of the book runs from the 1960s to 2014, recounting half a century of challenges and serving as a microcosm of urban renewal, development, and gentrification that would be observed over the rest of the city during the late-twentieth and early-twenty-first centuries. South Street Seaport, referred to as Seaport in the book, consists of eleven blocks dating to the early-nineteenth century and four piers nestled at the foot of the Brooklyn Bridge and split by FDR Drive on lower Manhattan’s east coast. The Seaport as a preservation project was ambitious from the very beginning, encompassing an open maritime museum featuring historic ships, the Fulton Fish Market, and the historic district, with the goal of maintaining authenticity that would go beyond the conservation of the physical fabric. Although the book has a defined beginning to the narrative, marking 1966 as the year that the project gained official recognition, it does not provide a clean ending, instilling instead a sense of urgency regarding the future of the Seaport museum and its ships. The unfinished nature of the narrative strikes a chord with anybody who has worked in historic preservation, as every project or intervention undertaken is only part of a historical continuum that goes beyond the scope of any individual’s participation.
The primary theme that weaves in and out of the narrative throughout the book is the function of the site. The questions of why the South Street Seaport is being preserved and for whom are central to the debates on competing approaches and strategies. Tension existed from the beginning among conservationists, ship lovers, and residents, who wanted to keep the Seaport “authentic” and accessible to all people, and Manhattan’s economic powerhouses that prioritized financial gain, first by threatening to demolish the district and later by gentrifying it. Although both groups were spearheaded by the city’s economic and intellectual elite, the former sought to create a democratic space, open to everyone. Whereas the latter sought to justify the existence of the space itself, such as some buildings and the view, by having it produce as much money as possible through neoliberal economic policies, while purposely applying exclusive policies toward the city’s poor and minorities.
Both groups, whether in favor of a communal space or gentrification, coopted the term “authenticity” in defining conservation and curatorial strategies. Some, like Joe Cantalupo, the influential Seaport board member who smoothed out potential disasters with the mafia, relished the dirty, smelly realities emblematic of the Seaport from the time of his childhood. The built fabric and its patina were to be kept, as well as the current residents, regardless of income, and its traditional use as a fish market. Others, such as James R. Shepley, president of Time Inc., sought to commoditize everything the Seaport had to offer, and with the support of large corporate interests ended up succeeding over the years. For Shepley and others like him, authenticity meant restoring the buildings to their “original” state, improving upon them if necessary, and making sure the district was as poverty- and smell-free as possible. With the blessing of city hall and with various neoliberal directors at the helm, the Seaport went from being the site of protest music festivals that offered maritime-based educational programs to underprivileged city youth to an upscale mall where even Sweets, the district’s oldest restaurant, dating from 1842, was forced out. The buildings were restored to pristine condition, and the resident demographic shifted from sailors and artists to members of the upper class.
Lindgren weaves multiple narratives in a loosely sequential manner, going back and forth in each chapter within a margin of twenty years. Although this system allows Lindgren flexibility in the storytelling, the names of the multiple players and dates can become somewhat confusing. The number of acronyms is challenging, but necessary when writing about bureaucratic history. Thankfully Lindgren offers an abbreviations section at the beginning of the book, which I would refer to when confronted with acronyms such as UDAG, UDC, and ULURP, often on the same page. The book is a who’s who of influential people in New York City’s urban and financial development during the second half of the twentieth century. Everyone is mentioned: from Robert Moses, the famous urban planner, to Pete Seeger and other folk singers; from New York City mayors spanning roughly fifty years to the hardboiled sailors curating the ships. The book is densely packed with too many remarkable events that are necessarily mentioned in passing. The relentless amount of activity going on within and around the Seaport, often simultaneously, gives recognition to and emphasizes the multilayered and complex realities faced by the district’s caretakers and stakeholders, along with the challenges these present.
Preserving South Street Seaport ends on a bittersweet note: the district beautifully restored, but the museum barely noticeable, and the ships under constant threat of being sold off. It is precisely this abrupt, incomplete, and depressing ending that makes this book an active part of the preservation project. It becomes a call to arms, challenging the reader to actively participate in the Seaport’s existence and to provide a more satisfying conclusion for the story of the South Street Seaport.
--------
[Review length: 1013 words • Review posted on December 15, 2015]