From The New York Times of March 26th, 2000:

"In 1983 the Schermerhorn Row block [a Federal style row of 1811 brick
 warehouses] was restored - or perhaps over-restored.  In 1983 Paul
Goldberger, the architecture critic for The New York Times, said 'One of the
city's real treasures, a vibrant pile of buildings that seemed almost to
pulsate with the memories of the generations of riverfront commerce it
contained, the row has been turned ... into something flat and dull.' "

The restoration architect, Jan Hird Pokorny, thinks Goldberger's remarks were
shallow and unfair. Both he and Jack Beyer - who is now doing further work on
Schermerhorn Row - say that the 1983 restoration was fine, and neither would
do it any different today, if given the opportunity.

Yet, to my eye also, the restored Schermerhorn Row is indeed "flat and dull".
 Can anyone  on the list better analyze this discrepancy?

Christopher Gray   (deckhand, SS James Davidson, 1969)