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New Yorkers may finally be learning to respect their elders.
In a city where beautiful buildings often have a shorter shelf life than dairy products, a record amount of money is being spent on restoring historic structures. From the northern reaches of the Bronx down to Manhattan's harbor, New Yorkers are scraping the dirt off their skyscrapers and restoring the masonry of their mansions.
Small slice of total work
The Manhattan office of construction giant Lehrer McGovern Bovis Inc. has $250 million in current restoration contracts. Joan Gerner, vice president and director of Bovis' preservation division, believes that's just a small slice of the work now under way in the Big Apple. Ms. Gerner estimates her ongoing restoration work at Grand Central Terminal, Lincoln Center, the New-York Historical Society and the Center for Jewish History, among many others, may represent just "10% to 20%" of the preservation work in progress.
No one is keeping citywide statistics, but the $300 million in metropolitan-area preservation work claimed by Tishman Construction Co. seems to confirm Ms. Gerner's instincts. Tishman's customers include Carnegie Hall, the Museum of the City of New York and the New Amsterdam Theater at Times Square, recently restored to its Art Nouveau splendor.
The driving force behind the growing...