any new construction within New York's historic districts, under siege from a
variety of preservation groups, will inevitably be a compromise, and probably
a far worse one that what would have originally been wrought.

Sharpshooter,

You got a point. What is the story something like if God had built the
elephant by committee consensus then it would look more like an aardvark?

I don't think anything worthwhile comes from trying to satisfy everyone. I
heard Al Gore on NPR interviewed last week talking about how now he is not
running he can say what he thinks, and he said it. I was wondering why he
never spoke what he thought for real before now, that is, without opinion
polls to guide his words.

Then again, I think if there is not a pressure and acknowledgement on the
part of the design professional to be sensitive to existing fabric we can
quickly end up with all sorts of abominations. Bad design is bad design
regardless of what anyone says or thinks about it. Mr. Stern from what I have
heard him say seems inclined to preserve historic fabric by removing it or
swallowing it up in new design.

As to Ada Louise Huxtable's quote I think it runs a bit to daft. We should
worry about little nit picky things because if we don't then who will?
Quality and compromise are subjective. It does not help that histo presto be
perceived as a pedantic pursuit of the unsurvivable and trivial detail of a
lost ancestry that nobody really wants to be bothered with.

Persistence of compromise leads to cheese that tastes like bland putty and
beer that never rises above water. Which leads me to wonder, kicking a bit of
dirt with my shoes here, is compromise of the built-environment possible
without free-market capitalism?

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