In Preserving South Street Seaport James Lindgren tells the story of the South Street Seaport, a landmarked historic district that is home to the largest concentration of early 19th-century mercantile buildings in the city, a maritime museum with a (shrinking) fleet of renovated sailing ships, and a modern urban festival market, a retail, entertainment, and tourist destination once more in the process of redevelopment. Focusing on the history of the past half century, Lindgren explains how preservationists mobilized in 1966 to save the last piece of lower Manhattan’s old port and how urban renewal plans by the City failed to find a formula that could sustain the complex goals for the museum and the broader economic development project.
James Lindgren
Dr. James M. Lindgren is part of the history faculty at SUNY Plattsburgh where he teaches courses on America’s maritime heritage and its preservation. His previous books include, Preserving Maritime America: Public Culture and Memory in the Making of the Nation’s Great Marine Museums and Preserving Historic New England: Preservation, Progressivism, and the Remaking of Memory.