by ArchitectureWeek

The National Trust for Historic Preservation (NTHP) has announced its 2007 list of the "11 Most Endangered Historic Places" in the United States.

The NTHP list for 2007 includes a typically wide variety of sites, from individual houses of remarkable men to broad landscapes scattered with accumulated marks of history. Few of the sites are the work of famous architects, but all speak to the cultural significance of buildings and places.

Most of the sites are threatened by development, whether new construction encroaching around a site or potential demolition of the site itself for redevelopment purposes — with public policy, neglect, and lack of preservation funding often paving the way.

In the second half of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th, the then-independent city of Brooklyn, New York, became a center for industry, from sugar refining to rope manufacturing. The docks were busy, and factories sprang up nearby. With this industrial growth came new workers, most of them immigrants. Today, Brooklyn's waterfront boasts a diverse mix of warehouses and other industrial buildings from that era. But these historic buildings are at risk of demolition to make way for new residential and commercial uses, facilitated by the New York City government.   >>>

Discuss this article in the Architecture Forum...

Rubble of the demolished Old Dutch Mustard factory lies near the Austin, Nichols & Company Warehouse. Photo: © Robert Guskind SUBSCRIPTION SAMPLE Brooklyn's industrial waterfront has been listed as endangered by the National Trust for Historic Preservation. Here, a new high-rise building is under construction adjacent to the threatened 1915 Austin Nichols Warehouse. Photo: Municipal Art Society of New York   Click on thumbnail images to view full-size pictures.