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Guide to the Papers of Harmon Hendricks Goldstone
1906-1979 (bulk 1966-1979)
  MS 256

New-York Historical Society
170 Central Park West
New York, NY 10024
(212) 873-3400


New-York Historical Society

Collection processed by Valerie Paley and Jan Hilley, with later assistance by Alison Barr.

This finding aid was produced using ArchivesSpace on April 19, 2023
Description is in English. using Describing Archives: A Content Standard

Biographical Note

Missing Title
1911 Harmon H. Goldstone born in New York City.
1928 Graduates from Lincoln School.
1932 Receives BA from Harvard, majoring in Fine Arts.
1936 Receives Architectural degree from Columbia University School of Architecture.
1936 Joins architectural firm of Harrison & Fouilhoux (later Harrison & Abramovitz), where he helps develop the Trylon and Perisphere, symbols of the "World of Tomorrow" at the 1939 New York World's Fair. He remains for 16 years, although he leaves for a year of government service in Washington and three years in the Army as an economist and statistician.
1952 Leaves Harrison & Fouilhoux to form own architectural firm, Goldstone and Dearborn (known later as Goldstone, Dearborn & Hinz, and Goldstone and Hinz); projects include the Aquatic Bird House at the Bronx Zoo (1964), the Osborn Laboratories of Marine Sciences at the New York Aquarium at Coney Island (1965), and the remodeling of the Christie's auction house at Park Avenue and 59th Street (1977)
1961 Goldstone, then president of the Municipal Arts Society, named by Mayor Robert F. Wagner to the Committee for the Preservation of Structures of Historic and Aesthetic Importance, a forerunner of the Landmarks Preservation Commission.
1961 Goldstone also named to the City Planning Commission, the first architect in many years to serve.
1968 Goldstone succeeds Geoffrey Platt as the Chairman of the Landmarks Preservation Commission, and becomes the first to be paid a salary. On his watch, 7,271 buildings were designated for preservation. Many historic districts were authorized, including 60 blocks of Greenwich Village and 26 of SoHo. Also during his time on the panel, plans for a tower over Grand Central Terminal were rejected, touching off a legal battle that ended in a 1978 U.S. Supreme Court decision vindicating the landmarks law.
1974 Goldstone finishes tenure as Chairman of the Landmarks Preservation Commission, leaving it, in Ada Louise Huxtable's words, "at a new threshold of power and influence."
2001 Goldstone dies on February 21, 2001, at the age of 89, in New York City.

Additional information may be found in Mr. Goldstone's obituary in The New York Times, February 23, 2001.