Making the Case for Landmarking: Why Preservation Makes Sense in NYC in 2025

New York City is at an inflection point, with long-held beliefs and practices on a whole range of issues being questioned and challenged. One is the perpetual struggle between development and preservation, and where and how each fits into our city’s future as we tackle issues like affordability, quality of life, economic growth and stability, and sense of place.

Join us for a conversation with Village Preservation Executive Director Andrew Berman, in which we’ll hear why preservation matters and should be a cornerstone of planning for our city’s future, and why plans for unbridled development almost never bring the promised results.

Andrew will be interviewed and joined in the conversation by Dena Tasse-Winter, an architectural and landscape historian and lifelong New Yorker who’s worked in both the public and private sector on these issues for more than 10 years, and Juan Rivero, an urban planner and researcher who’s been immersed in planning and preservation issues in NYC for 20 years, in government, academia, and non-profits. They’ll examine issues ranging from how landmarking works and why it benefits everyone, from owners and tenants to the general public, to small business retention and housing affordability, and how they interact with preservation. Q & A to follow.

Andrew Berman has been the Executive Director of Village Preservation since 2002, during which time the organization has secured landmark designation for over 1,300 buildings and zoning protections to guide smart, contextual development and preservation for nearly 100 blocks. A lifelong New Yorker, Berman previously worked in government and politics and is an architectural historian by training. Village Preservation, a non-profit founded in 1980, is dedicated to documenting, celebrating, and preserving the special architectural and cultural heritage of Greenwich Village, the East Village, and NoHo. It is New York City’s largest neighborhood historic preservation organization, and has been responsible for groundbreaking landmark designations preserving sites connected to Black, LGBTQ+, immigrant, and artistic history.

Dena Tasse-Winter and Juan Rivero are currently the Director of Preservation and Research and the East Village and Special Projects Director at Village Preservation, respectively.