Servant of Beauty by Anthony C. Wood

Anthony C. Wood

Published to coincide with the 60^th anniversary of the passage of New York City’s nationally acclaimed landmarks law, award-winning preservationist and author Anthony C. Wood’s Servant of Beauty: Landmarks, Secret Love, and the Unimagined Life of an Unsung New York Hero has been long awaited.  It is the true story of the interplay between the two all-consuming passions of unheralded New York City civic champion Albert K. Bard (1866-1963): his love of beauty in the public realm that would forever change New York City, and his love for a younger man that would forever change Bard.

Throughout his long career as a preservationist and an attorney, Albert Bard fought unwaveringly for the right of cities to protect their architectural integrity, propelling him several times into David versus Goliath combat with the powerful urban planner, Robert Moses.  Bard’s unwavering commitment eventually paved the way, after four decades of advocacy, for the passage of New York City’s Landmarks Law (1965.) Today, the law protects over 37,000 of the city’s buildings, mostly in historic neighborhoods, and has inspired the call to civic advocacy in countless communities across the nation.

Bard though was both delighted and disappointed by his two enduring loves: one for a troubled younger man, the other for the protection of the beauty of New York City. Persevering against the odds, resilient in the face of disappointment, and a man who became embroiled in a spy scandal and at the same time served as a stand-in father to three, Bard is an uncelebrated renaissance man and civic hero.  His story, meticulously researched and told for the first time by Anthony Wood, will inspire and inform generations of citizens who continue his battle to preserve the beauty of the places they love.

Anthony C. Wood is a preservationist, historian, and grant maker.  Over a career spanning more than forty years, he has worked at the Landmarks Preservation Commission, the Municipal Art Society, The J.M. Kaplan Fund, and is currently Executive Director of the Ittleson Foundation. Wood is the founder and Chair Emeritus of the New York Preservation Archive Project; a past Chair of the Preservation League of New York State and Partners for Sacred Places; and has been an Advisor and Trustee of the National Trust for Historic Preservation.  Currently Chair Emeritus of the Historic Districts Council, Anthony Wood serves on the board of the Drayton Hall Preservation Trust in Charleston, South Carolina and for more than twenty-years was an Adjunct Assistant Professor of Historic Preservation at Columbia University. 

He is the recipient of New York City’s Fine Arts Federation’s Bronze Medal, the Historic District Council’s Landmarks Lion Award, and the New York Landmarks Conservancy’s Lucy G. Moses Award for Preservation Leadership. His previous, award-winning book, Preserving New York: Winning the Right to Protect a City’s Landmark, was published by Routledge in 2008.