As any student of New York history can tell you, in the early 1960s the Pennsylvania Railroad Company committed one of the great architectural crimes of the century by demolishing Penn Station and replacing its Beaux-Arts grandeur with a warren of underground tunnels.<\/p>\n
It is sometimes forgotten that, just over a decade later, the Penn Central Transportation Company tried to do the same with Grand Central Terminal, the equally impressive train station on the East Side of Manhattan. But this time a newly energized organization, the Municipal Art Society, and its executive director, Margot Wellington, were standing in the way.<\/p>\n
In a multi-front war that included pop-up tours of the terminal and a lawsuit that reached the U.S. Supreme Court, Mrs. Wellington and her allies managed not only to save Grand Central, but also to establish the foundation of landmark preservation in the law, and in the public eye.<\/p>\n
Mrs. Wellington died on April 14 at a hospital in Manhattan. She was 91. Her stepson, the architect James Sanders, confirmed the death.<\/p>\n
Today, New Yorkers take for granted the wonderful old buildings and neighborhoods that give the city its character. Things looked very different in 1976, when Mrs. Wellington took over the Municipal Art Society.<\/p>\n
In the depths of its 1970s financial crisis, New York was looking for anything to revive itself, and it often turned to the easy answer, replacing old buildings and neighborhoods with gleaming new towers.<\/p>\n
Mrs. Wellington offered an alternate vision, rooted in her extensive travels in Europe. Yes, she admitted, the city and its buildings were looking a bit ragged. But instead of tearing things down, she said, the city should invest in them.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt just is interesting how people\u2019s perceptions change,\u201d she said in a 2012 oral history for the Municipal Art Society. \u201cYou see a dirty old building and you want to tear it down, or you see a potential loft that you\u2019d like to live in, and it\u2019s the same building.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mrs. Wellington began her campaign in the mid-1970s by expanding the Municipal Art Society itself. To boost membership, she offered everyone who joined a poster of Saul Steinberg\u2019s compressed cartoon of America as viewed from Manhattan. The promotion proved so popular that people across the country joined the group, just to get the poster.<\/p>\n
She organized public lectures and tours of the city. She led the establishment of the Urban Center, a one-stop shop of sorts where like-minded groups, including the Architectural League of New York, could have their offices, alongside a bookstore focused on urban design. (The Urban Center closed<\/a> in 2010.)<\/p>\n During her seven-year tenure, she led pioneering campaigns to form historic landmark districts, renovate blighted blocks and rescue threatened edifices like Radio City Music Hall.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you are running an advocacy organization, you\u2019d better be taking chances, you\u2019d better be filing major lawsuits, you\u2019d better be showing the public that you mean business,\u201d Laurie Beckelman, who served as her assistant and then deputy for four years, said in a phone interview. \u201cYou\u2019ve got to take no prisoners, and Margo did not take prisoners.\u201d<\/p>\n