Few New Yorkers have contributed more to the cause of preserving preservation’s own history than architect and author Robert A.M. Stern. His monumental five-volume New York book series captures and meticulously documents the architecture, development, and urbanism of New York City from just after the Civil War to the millennium, including decades of preservation efforts. Whether it is preservationists’ battle with city planner Robert Moses over Castle Clinton or the campaign to save Two Columbus Circle, thanks to Stern’s efforts New Yorkers can read about some of the most significant moments in local preservation history. The New York series has helped to fill a gap in the narrative of our City’s history and they have become an invaluable resource for those seeking to understand preservation in New York City before and after the passage of the Landmarks Law. Above all, they have given preservationists the empowering gift of their own story.

Therefore, the New York Preservation Archive Project can imagine no better recipient for its second Preservation Award—created to honor outstanding contributions to the documentation, preservation, and celebration of the history of preservation in New York City—than Mr. Stern. The breakfast also featured Mr. Stern in conversation with Anne H. Van Ingen, a fellow advocate for heritage preservation.

The Bard Birthday Breakfast Benefit, the Archive Project’s signature fundraising event, is held each year to memorialize civic figure Albert S. Bard (1866-1963) on what would have been his birthday. Bard was a leader in working to protect the aesthetic values of special places, drafting the New York State legislation which authorized New York City’s Landmarks Law and advocating for City Beautiful concerns ranging from billboard control to zoning.

Also a man of many hats, Robert A.M. Stern is a practicing architect, teacher, writer, committed preservationist, one of the foremost historians of New York City’s architecture and urbanism, and an early and ardent advocate for the preservation of 20^th-century buildings: his “35 Modern Landmarks-in-Waiting” was published in The New York Times in November 1996. Founder and Senior Partner of the 300-person New York-based Robert A.M. Stern Architects, Stern served as Dean of the Yale School of Architecture from 1998 to 2016. Before returning to Yale, where he earned his Master of Architecture degree in 1965, he was Director of the Historic Preservation Program at the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation at Columbia University. Stern continues to be an influential proponent of the importance of preservation’s past, and the Archive Project was thrilled to present him with its Preservation Award.

After the award ceremony Mr. Stern was joined in conversation with Anne H. Van Ingen. Ms. Van Ingen is the Chairman of the Board of the Preservation League of New York State. She also currently sits on the boards of Pratt Institute, the Adirondack Museum, and the James Marston Fitch Charitable Foundation, and is the President of the St. Regis Foundation, a land trust in the Adirondacks. In addition, she is an Adjunct Assistant Professor at Columbia University. From 1983 until 2010 she was the Director of the Architecture, Planning & Design Program and Capital Projects at the New York State Council on the Arts. Prior to that she ran a historic preservation consulting business and worked for several not-for-profits and public agencies in New York and Massachusetts. She also served as an Advisor to the National Trust for Historic Preservation from 1999 to 2008.

Location:
The Yale Club
50 Vanderbilt Avenue
New York, NY 10017
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