Chronicle urban design critic John King tells a little secret about last year’s controversial vote by the Historic Preservation Commission to declare the North Beach Branch Library a city landmark. King, of course, argued against it in print and afterward he says a half a dozen respected local preservationists privately thanked him for it. “They, too, felt the library fell far short of landmark status, but hadn’t wanted to say so publicly.”
The upshot, he says: “Too many dubious ‘landmarks,’ and at some point the common person will come to see the preservation movement as just another single-issue special interest group.”
