''Architecture Worth Saving in Onondaga County'' is a 1964 book that surveyed buildings across Onondaga County, New York, and discussed their historical value. Undertaken by the

New York State Council on the Arts The New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA) is an arts council serving the U.S. state of New York. It was established in 1960 through a bill introduced in the New York State Legislature by New York State Senator MacNeil Mitchell (1905–1996 ...

, and compiled by a group of professors at the Syracuse University School of Architecture, the book was initially well received by historians and architects who hoped the book would be the first of several profiling buildings with historic and architectural value around the United States. However, the book was out of print by 1975, and many of the buildings listed had been destroyed.

Writing and publication

The

developed ''Architecture Worth Saving in

Onondaga County Onondaga County ( ) is a county in the U.S. state of New York. As of the 2020 census, the population was 476,516. The county seat is Syracuse. Onondaga County is the core of the Syracuse, NY MSA. History The name ''Onondaga'' derives from ...

'' in the early 1960s. It was created as a "pilot project", and the Council intended that similar studies would be conducted in other places. William Hull, assistant director of the Council, started the project, while the Syracuse University School of Architecture led by Harley J. McKee carried it out. Other architects at the school involved in writing the book were Patricia Day Earle, Paul Malo, and Peter Andrews. A forward was written by John H. MacFayden. Most of the photographs included were taken by Gilbert Ask.

Content

The book includes descriptions of 64 buildings across 206 pages. They considered buildings for their "architectural merit, unisequences of style, representation of period and historical value," with a focus on commercial buildings in the downtown area, which were considered to be at the greatest risk for destruction. ''Architecture Worth Saving'' also offered suggestions on how to save the architecture, including ways to re-purpose old buildings. Buildings listed included: * John Gridley House * Gen. Orrin Hutchinson House * Dr. John Ives House * Delphi Baptist Church * Small Jewett House * Whig Hill * Roosevelt Hall * Weighlock Building * John Monro House *

Syracuse State School The Syracuse State School was a residential facility in Syracuse, New York for mentally disabled children and adults. Founded in 1851 in Albany, New York as the New York State Asylum for Idiots, its first director was Hervey B. Wilbur, a student ...

* Gridley Building * Syracuse Savings Bank Building * White Memorial Building * Gere Bank Building * Dan Bradley House * John McViccar House * Harvey Tolman House * Junod House *

First Presbyterian Church of Marcellus The First Presbyterian Church of Marcellus is a local Presbyterian church in the village of Marcellus, New York. Located at the intersection of North Street (New York State Route 174) and East Main Street (also NY 174) in downtown Marcellus. The c ...

* Reuel E. Smith House *

Church of St. John the Evangelist (Syracuse, New York) The Church of St. John the Evangelist was a church in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Syracuse on 215 North State Street from 1855 to its closure in June 2010. Since 2014 the church building has housed the Samaritan Center, Syracuse's largest soup ki ...

St. John the Baptist Greek Catholic Church St. John the Baptist Ukrainian Catholic Church is a parish of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church located in Syracuse, New York, at the corner of Tompkins Street and Wilbur Avenue. Constructed in 1913, it was the first Eastern Catholic The Eas ...

* McCarthy Warehouse * Grace Episcopal Church * First Baptist Church of Camillus * St. Mark's Episcopal Church * St. Paul's Episcopal Church *

Crouse College Crouse College, also known as Crouse Memorial College and historically as John Crouse Memorial College for Women, is a building on the Syracuse University campus. It was funded by John R. Crouse, a wealthy Syracuse merchant (principal donation) w ...

* Alexander Brown House * Martisco station * Onondaga County Poor House *

Community Place Community Place, in Skaneateles, New York, was built in 1830. It was photographed by the Historic American Buildings Survey in 1963 and was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1979. It was a relatively successful Fourierist comm ...

* Hamilton White House * Wesleyan Methodist Church *

Hall of Languages The Hall of Languages is a Syracuse University building designed by Horatio Nelson White in the Second Empire architectural style, and built in 1871–73. It was the first building constructed on the Syracuse University campus and the building ori ...

* Lucius Gleason House * Third Onondaga County Courthouse

Reception

A review published in '' New York History'' praised the book as a "worthy volume" that would hopefully be the first of several surveys creating "unique collections" of commentary and images on New York's historic architecture. Upon publication, an article in ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

'' wrote that after sending out information on the report to various officials and programs, " e response in replies ha far exceeded the council's expectations." Ada Louise Huxtable considered the work a "significant pilot report" and described it as a "remarkably competent survey of buildings of architectural value and historical importance." Huxtable also hoped that the book would be the first of a series of several such projects in other American cities. A 1975 article in ''Pioneer America'' by Peirce F. Lewis argued that "the historic preservation movement in the United States has been, and continues to be, a thundering failure." He noted that the book had gone out of print, "perhaps because it has become obsolete so many of the 'worth saving' buildings have been destroyed since the book was published, less than a dozen years ago." In a 1976 article Clifford E. Clark cited the book as one of the best studies of American domestic architecture.

References

{{reflist Architecture books Historic sites in Onondaga County, New York