Sept. 11 reaffirms trust's mission to 'save history'

I think there was a time when the preservation movement deserved the criticism that it was elitist and removed from the concerns of everyday Americans. I don't think that's true anymore, although sometimes the perception exists. I think we've become much more relevant. People's first instinct now is not necessarily to tear down a building, but rather to see it reused. There are exceptions to that, but there's been a sea change in terms of attitude.

What new challenges face the National Trust?

We're at an interesting point because a lot of post-World War II architecture is coming online as historic, which, according to the technical time frame, means it's 50 years old. This gets us into the whole issue of modernism and what's worth saving. We're finding that a lot of postwar modernist buildings are threatened by demolition, and people don't think of them as historic. What we try to persuade people to see is that this is always happening. [At one time], a lot of people didn't like Victorian - and now we can't preserve enough of it, or [of] Art Deco. So this is always changing and always will, because tastes change, styles change. That's what makes life interesting, but it's a struggle.

So do you think the trust is going to move into preserving high-rise buildings, for example?

If they're high quality, yes.

Any particular buildings?

I'm not familiar with any high-rise buildings at risk, but there certainly are a lot of modernist buildings that are coming under threat: the TWA Terminal at Kennedy International Airport in New York, the Wilde Building in Hartford, Conn., and others like that.

What is one of the biggest changes you've seen since becoming president of the National Trust almost nine years ago?

Sprawl is such a huge preservation issue, and it wasn't back then. It's an obvious one because it tends to suck the economic and social life out of whole communities. Part of fighting sprawl involves revitalizing old communities, so that you don't have a demand for sprawl, and you keep people in their [current] communities.

How does the trust establish priorities?

We go in a lot of different directions, but, to a certain extent, this is not determined by us, but by what is happening in the country, out in the communities. What we try to do is be a support mechanism. (Former Speaker of the House) Tip O'Neill said all politics is local. Well, all preservation is local, and what is happening in Boston or Philadelphia is driven by people living in those communities, and it should be. Increasingly, preservation has evolved over the last 50 years from saving significant individual sites to saving places, which has involved whole neighborhoods and communities. One of the things we've found is it's easier to save a building if you save its context.

Haven't small towns been aware of this for some time?

Yes, we've learned a lot from small towns. One of the most important National Trust programs is Main Street, whereby we go in and work with the local business community to revitalize deteriorated downtowns. These communities realized early on that the health of downtown is essential to the health of the community as a whole. That's been a fabulously successful program that we've now taken to larger cities, to neighborhood commercial districts.

Each year the National Trust for Historic Preservation selects 11 sites, landscapes, and buildings (or building types) threatened by neglect, insufficient funds, inappropriate development, and insensitive public policy. The sites on the current list are:

Historic American movie theaters.

Bok Kai Temple in Marysville, Calif., a focus for Chinese immigrants who came to the US during the Gold Rush.

Telluride valley floor in Telluride, Colo., a region rich in mining history.

CIGNA campus in Bloomfield, Conn., a prototype for suburban office parks.

Carter G. Woodson Home in Washington, D.C., residence of the "father of black history."

Ford Island, Hawaii, at the heart of the Pearl Harbor historic district.

Miller-Purdue barn in Grant County, Ind., a classic built in the 1850s.

Stevens Creek settlements in Lincoln, Neb., home to many farming immigrants.

Prairie churches of North Dakota.

Los Caminos del Rio, a 200-mile stretch along the US-Mexican border where cultures have blended.

Jackson Ward Historic District ("the Harlem of the South") in Richmond, Va.

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