The landmarks project of New York has been launched as part of this city's centennial celebrations. The book is an elegant chronicle of the desire of people to keep part of their past intact. This impulse is always applauded semiautomatically as a civic good, yet it goes against the currents of American thinking, of New York City thinking especially. Here is the city of surging ambition, forward progress, and built-in obsolescence. Change and replacement are its presiding muses, its reigning goddess's function.
Landmarks are useless.
Ask that question and out trot the arguments that have occasionally prevailed over the years. Landmark buildings are tangible forms of history, and such things bring a special pleasure and education. Keep your eyes closed. I trust you. But it was probably due more to the sight of the ship, the remarkable huge resurfaced landmark or seamark cutting confidently through the Atlantic.