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JIM THORPE, Pa. - Carolyn Pitts pushes open a side door to St. Mark's Episcopal Church and descends into a dark, dank passageway. One wall is carved out of the hills that cradle this coal town at the foot of the Pocono Mountains. A small stream trickles along the floor. ``This is fascinating,`` she says. ``But do you have any problems with the dampness?``
Her guide, the Rev. Robert K. Gildersleeve, admits that it does make the paint peel. What's more, he says, the building never really warms up.
But dampness and all, St. Mark's is a candidate for Miss Pitts' list. As architectural historian for the National Park Service, she has driven here from Washington, D.C. to see whether the 19th-century church, one of the architect Richard Upjohn's last commissioned works, might qualify for the distinction of National Historic Landmark.
Unlike her colleagues in the Park Service's Cultural Resources Division, who concentrate on forts and places where George Washington slept, Miss Pitts scours the country for churches, houses, office buildings and even prisons that are nationally significant because of their design and historical integrity. The distinction is reserved for ``the creme de la creme,`` she explains. ``It's the Academy Awards of buildings.``
Not every building owner welcomes such notice, however. In fact, Miss Pitts says that a large part of her job is to ``pull things out of the fire`` of developers' plans. National-landmark status doesn't stop a building's owners from renovating, selling or even razing it, as happens to many local landmark designations. But their distinction does help to create a ruckus when word of such plans...