October 14, 2009
Article from the Fall 2007 Newsletter

Last spring the Brooklyn Historical Society opened its show “Landmark and Legacy: Brooklyn Heights and the Preservation Movement in America.” The show highlights the social and political history that led to the designation of Brooklyn Heights as New York City’s first historic district. The exhibit takes visitors from the 1950s and the establishment of the Brooklyn Heights Association, one of the first neighborhood associations in the country, through the struggle with Robert Moses from building the BQE in the middle of Brooklyn Heights to the implications of the national landmark and preservation movement in the present day.

One of the exhibit’s highlights is the use of rich archival materials: photographs by architectural historian Clay Lancaster, hand drawn maps from Otis and Nancy Pearsall’s years of preserved documentation, as well as objects from BHS’s collections. “Landmark and Legacy” illustrates and puts into context a particularly momentous time in the history of the burgeoning modern preservation movement in New York City and the United States.