On Monday, May 4, author Anthony C. Wood will visit Sweet Briar for a moderated discussion about his book, Servant of Beauty: Landmarks, Secret Love, and the Unimagined Life of an Unsung New York Hero. Free and open to the public, the event will take place in the College’s Mills Chapel at 7 p.m. with a book signing to follow.
Published to coincide with the 60th anniversary of the passage of New York City’s nationally acclaimed landmarks law, Servant of Beauty tells the true story of the interplay between the two all-consuming passions of unheralded New York City civic champion Albert S. Bard (1866-1963): his love of beauty in the public realm that would forever change New York City, and his love for a younger man that would forever change Bard. Throughout his long career as a preservationist and an attorney, Bard fought unwaveringly for the right of cities to protect their architectural integrity, propelling him into David versus Goliath combat with the powerful urban planner, Robert Moses. Bard’s unwavering commitment eventually paved the way, after four decades of advocacy, for the passage of New York City’s Landmarks Law in 1965. Today, the law protects over 37,000 of the city’s buildings, mostly in historic neighborhoods, and has inspired the call to civic advocacy in countless communities across the nation.
Wood is a nationally recognized preservationist who started as a preservation advocate in New York City and has gone on to work for, found, serve on the board of, and chair preservation organizations including Friends of the Upper East Side Historic Districts, the Preservation League of New York State, and Partners for Sacred Places. He has won awards such as the 2020 New York Landmarks Conservancy Lucy G. Moses Award for Preservation Leadership. Wood has served on the adjunct faculty at Columbia University and founded the non-profit New York Preservation Archive Project, whose mission is to document, preserve, and celebrate the history of preservation in New York. Wood is also the author of Preserving New York: Winning the Right to Protect a City’s Landmarks.