{"id":255169,"date":"2026-06-04T13:30:15","date_gmt":"2026-06-04T13:30:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/255169\/"},"modified":"2026-06-04T13:30:15","modified_gmt":"2026-06-04T13:30:15","slug":"landmark-status-and-preservation-editors-notebook","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/255169\/","title":{"rendered":"Landmark Status and Preservation\u00a0 \u2014 Editor\u2019s Notebook"},"content":{"rendered":"

I recently received correspondence from Geoffrey Arend Sr., who commented on my April 2026 Editor\u2019s Notebook article, \u2018An Art Deco Icon at Newark Liberty International Airport\u2019<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Geoffrey Arend Sr. is an aviation historian and author who led campaigns in the 1970s and 1980s to preserve Newark Airport\u2019s historic 1934 Building One, an Art Deco masterpiece. As publisher of Air Cargo News<\/a> and author of Great Airports: Newark International, he launched a massive 1979 public campaign that successfully prevented the structure from being demolished. Arend\u2019s advocacy highlighted the building\u2019s architectural and historical significance, including its status as the first commercial passenger terminal in the New York metropolitan area and the nation\u2019s first municipal airport. His work laid the groundwork for the Port Authority\u2019s eventual $8 million restoration of the building, which was rededicated in the early 2000s.<\/p>\n

Beyond Newark, his preservation legacy includes spearheading the 1980 restoration of the famous \u201cFlight\u201d mural at LaGuardia Airport\u2019s Marine Air Terminal.<\/p>\n

Mr. Arend sent me a link to the Flying Talkers Broadcast \u2013 \u2018Spotlight on a Newark Airport Landmark<\/a>\u2019 and wrote:\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u201cDear Ms. Blum, Saw your coverage at Newark. Thought you might like to give this a listen at some point\u201d.\u00a0
Kind regards, Geoffrey Arend<\/p>\n

P.S. \u201cHere is a picture I took of \u2018The Eagle Terrazzo Floor 1934\u2019 in the lobby of that building when I first saw it and decided to dedicate part of my life to saving the place\u201d.<\/p>\n

\"EWRThe Eagle Terrazzo Floor 1934, Newark. (Geoffrey Arend Sr.)<\/p>\n

The Flying Talkers Broadcast \u2013 \u2018Spotlight on a Newark Airport Landmark\u2019 delves deeper into instances where elements of a landmark\u2019s aesthetic core are often downgraded or edited for its reuse. When this is the case, the takeaway is that history doesn\u2019t protect itself. Saving our history requires people to notice when adaptive reuse turns into quiet erasure and to do right by a landmark.<\/p>\n

True preservation means actively safeguarding cultural, architectural, and environmental heritage for future generations. Committed networks and dedicated advocates across the country turn this mission into daily action through restoring historic buildings, advocating for policy changes, and volunteering for hands-on ecological stewardship; the careful, responsible, and ethical management of something entrusted to one\u2019s care.\u00a0<\/p>\n

I want to thank Mr. Arend for sharing his valuable insights, for his decades of work to save and preserve our New York and New Jersey metropolitan airport landmarks, and for his continued fidelity to the features that define these treasured places.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"I recently received correspondence from Geoffrey Arend Sr., who commented on my April 2026 Editor\u2019s Notebook article, \u2018An…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":255170,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[9,24,63,134,136,135],"class_list":["post-255169","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-staten-island","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-staten-island","tag-staten-island-headlines","tag-staten-island-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/255169","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=255169"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/255169\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/255170"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=255169"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=255169"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=255169"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}