Walkabout: Here and Gone

In a constantly changing city, no building is guaranteed to be here forever. The preservation laws that created the Landmarking Preservation Commission are only forty-five years old.

Yes, we’ve only had landmarked districts and individual landmarks since 1965. Even with those laws, it is not always possible to save some of our most interesting and significant buildings.

Often, when I’m looking at old photographs and postcards of Brooklyn, I come across some really interesting and fine buildings that are only preserved by these pictures.

The buildings are long gone. Throughout the years, older frame buildings were replaced by newer stone and brick row houses, those in turn being replaced by apartment buildings.

In the days before a speedy firefighting force, and the science of fire prevention, a great many buildings fell to fire, the greatest destroyer of buildings.

Sometimes these buildings lose their original purpose and are torn down for more relevant buildings. Many a mansion has fallen to progress in this way, grand houses replaced by sometimes grand apartment buildings.

Rows of handsome houses torn down for mediocre, but needed housing. Houses of worship rise and fall.

Looking at what we’ve lost, it makes us appreciate what we’ve managed to save and protect.

Here, and on Flickr, are some of our lost buildings, and their replacements: great and small, memorable and not so memorable. It’s too bad some of the best of these are not with us still.