i CHARLESTON CONTRADICTIONS: A CASE STUDY OF ...

no legal recourse to prevent the owners from demolishing the beloved city landmark.
This galvanized the preservation movement and led to later legislation that helped to
preserve other landmarks, including Grand Central Station in New York, which was
slated for a Marcel Breuer skyscraper addition that would have ruined its character.
One of the most cited benefits of historic preservation is the economic impacts it
can have on a city. Today, several states offer residential tax credits for restoring a
private home that is listed on or eligible for the National Register, as long as it follows
the Secretary of the Interior Standards for the Treatment of Historic Properties and is
approved by the SHPO in that state. The federal government also offers reinvestment tax
credits, through the National Park Service, for projects involving income-producing
properties. Historic preservation has also gotten involved in the current sustainability
movement, touting the environmental impacts of restoring and reusing an existing
building versus constructing a new one. As Marianne Cusato points out, “… the most
sustainable building of all is one that people love and don’t want to tear down” (Cusato,
et al. 2011, 12).
Today, the field of historic preservation is largely stratified by practice at the
federal, state, local, and private levels. Interestingly, it is a decentralized process, with
much of the actual power concentrated at the local level, where cities appoint boards of
architectural review to regulate changes and ensure that new construction is compatible
with existing historic districts. Private citizens continue to be very active in historic
preservation, as the number of local, non-profit preservation organizations attests.
Charleston, for example, continues to be a hub of historic preservation activity and is
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