November 30, 2025

Nathan Silver, the visionary architect and preservationist who gave us his poignant 1967 book Lost New York—a tribute to New York’s architectural treasures erased before preservation laws stood guard—died in May, in London.

A native New Yorker, Silver was a distinguished architect, author, and educator at Columbia University’s architecture school. His long career and inspiring work reflects his belief that landmarks “were vessels of human history.”

Silver made a rare return to New York from London to speak about Lost New York and the evolution of his theories on preservation at the Archive Project’s 2014 Bard Birthday Breakfast Benefit.

On the significance of Lost New York to him, preservationist Anthony Wood once recounted that the book “was a cri de coeur about the losses the city was experiencing […] It gave comfort to those trying to push back against that, and provided solace to people who cared about preservation and opened the eyes of a wider public.”

Silver was a driving force behind a national preservation conscience with Lost New York, and his legacy is defined by work that continues to inspire generations of preservationists who fight to protect historic places. §

This article was printed in the Archive Project’s Fall 2025 newsletter.