I.M. Bland, Stark

Sooner or later everything can be landmarked:

When New Yorkers talk about landmarking, they often think of genteel townhouses on tree-lined streets or distinguished cast-iron buildings. But concrete high-rises built in the 1960s?

Tuesday, the Landmarks Preservation Commission is expected to schedule hearings on preserving I.M. Pei’s Silver Towers, a modernist courtyard of concrete high-rises that towers above Greenwich Village.

“Even though this tower in the park superblock model was for the most part a failure, this was one of the most sensitive and well-designed ones,” said Andrew Berman, executive director of the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation, which has pushed for protecting the structures for five years. “The complex weaves itself more sensitively into the neighborhood than most, and it is one of the few superblocks in the country designed by one of the greatest architects of his era.”

. . .

“A landmark is something that was built years ago, that is historical,” said a longtime local resident who would only give her name as Dorothy. She added that she has lived in tenements in the neighborhood “for 80 years.”

“They look presentable enough, sure, but what were they built, 30, 40, years ago? That doesn’t sound like a landmark to me.”