The National Trust for Historic Preservation has announced “America’s 11 Most Endangered Historic Places for 2009.” The announcement was made at one of the sites announced as at risk, the Century Plaza Hotel in Los Angeles, California.
The list is as follows:
- The Century Plaza Hotel in Los Angeles, California; the “West Coast White House.” Two skyscrapers are to take its place.
- The Manhattan Project’s Enola Gay Hangar at Wendover Airfield in Utah, is at risk of irreparable damage.
- Frank Lloyd Wright’s Unity Temple in Oak Park, Illinois, is in disrepair due to a lack of restoration money.
- New Mexico’s Mount Taylor, sacred for 30 Native American tribes, is in endangered by uranium mining activity.
- The Ames Shovel Shops North Easton, Massachusetts — a 19th-century industrial village — may be razzed for new development.
- Galveston, Texas 19th-century buildings with cast-iron storefronts, running for 12-blocks, is trying to survive following Hurricane Ike damage in September of 2001.
- Miami Marine Stadium in Virginia Key, Florida, has been vandalized, and is in continued deterioration, having never recovered from the 1992 Hurricane Andrew, making it a prime target for development.
- Dorchester Academy in Midway, Georgia; formerly a school for freed slaves, is deteriorating without funds to save it.
- The Art Deco Human Services Center, which includes 11 historic buildings, in Yankton, S.D., must be destroyed by order from the state.
- Lanai City, Hawaii and its historic building are threatened by commercial development.
- Memorial Bridge, connecting Portsmouth, N.H. to Kittery, Maine. This bridge is the first major lift bridge in the eastern portion of the U.S.A. The bridge needs maintenance and without proper funding, the bridge could be destroyed.
Read more about it in the April 28, 2009 edition of USA Today.
