Over the past two decades, Congress has established some 80 new parks, containing thousands of historic structures. National park visitation has soared from 180 million in 1980 to almost 270 million last year, with only a 20 percent increase in appropriations.
The deterioration of such "parkitecture" is "a manifest representation" of more general ills, said Roger G. These specialists and top managers in the park service say that the service is too overextended to preserve some of its great rustic lodges and also thousands of anonymous buildings - entrance gates, museums, patrol cabins, fire towers - often unseen by the public. "These structures are a significant part of America's heritage, essential to the spirit of the parks." Kaiser, an authority on park architecture. "The instinct for preservation has not been placed high on the National Park Service agenda," said Harvey H. The magnificent officers' club chimney is now an osprey nest the most frequent visitor is the wind.Īs a budget-conscious Congress debates the fate of the country's 369 national parks, preservation specialists are worried that many of the 20,000 or so historic structures in the park service's care may deteriorate beyond repair.
But since the National Park Service took it over in 1972 as part of the Gateway National Recreation Area, time has not been kind to the Greek Revival mansions of Officers' Row or the fort's 193 other historic buildings. To stand in this elegant wreckage, one of 19 abandoned Victorian mansions that once were the proud sentinels of New York Harbor, is to recognize the fragility of history. Not so long ago, the officers' club at Fort Hancock on the New Jersey coast was a boisterous place where two-star generals dined in splendor and lieutenants and captains whirled their sweethearts on the dance floor. IT is all a ruin now: the ballroom separated by french doors, the coffered ceilings, the flocked wallpaper, the parquet floors.
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