Remembering Nathan Silver: Architect and Chronicler of New York’s Lost Landmarks

Nathan Silver, an architect renowned for his 1967 book 'Lost New York,' which documented the city’s architectural heritage lost to demolition before the advent of landmark preservation laws, passed away on May 19 in London at the age of 89.

According to his brother Robert, also an architect, Silver died following complications from a fall that required surgery to repair a torn knee ligament.

Silver’s influential book emerged from a 1964 exhibition he curated while teaching at Columbia University’s architecture school. It served as a vital photographic record of buildings that had disappeared over decades, released at a time when New York’s preservation movement was gaining momentum to save other significant structures from destruction.

He wrote, “By 1963, it became urgent to advocate for architectural preservation in New York City. The announcement that Pennsylvania Station would be demolished, the impending fate of the 39th Street Metropolitan Opera — which was ultimately torn down in 1967 — and the replacement of Worth Street commercial buildings with a parking lot, all underscored the crisis.”

Silver emphasized that while cities must evolve to meet the needs of their residents, this progress should not come at the cost of reckless and irreversible losses to their architectural heritage.

His research uncovered archival photographs of outstanding architectural works that had vanished, including a post office near City Hall; the original Madison Square Garden at Madison Avenue and 26th Street; Richard Canfield’s gambling club on 44th Street near Fifth Avenue; the 47-story Singer Tower at Broadway and Liberty Street; the Produce Exchange at Beaver Street and Bowling Green; and the Ziegfeld Theater located at 54th Street and Sixth Avenue.