Government "Protects" And Ruins
The Strand, an oceanliner of a bookstore in New York City, is in a building that has been given landmark status -- or rather, had landmark status forced on it -- and the business may not survive it, says one of the owners.

Nancy Bass Wyden of The Strand writes in the New York Daily News:

I'm the third-generation owner of the Strand Bookstore, a 92-year-old institution that countless New Yorkers and I love dearly. My dad's proudest moment came in 1996, when he finally saved up enough money to buy the building that had housed the store since he was a young man. He'd watched rents climb and he'd seen enough competitors go under to know that making that purchase was key to ensuring the Strand's survival.

This week, that security vanished. By designating the store a landmark, the city's Landmarks Preservation Commission put the Strand in peril.

A landmark designation is not a gift or an award -- it is a bureaucratic straitjacket. The Landmarks Commission now takes over all decision-making for the aesthetics of our building. The Strand will have to pay tens of thousands of dollars for precise three-dimensional renderings of any future renovations. We will never have any assurance that those costly plans will be approved. The commission will decide the type of metal used in our doors and glass used in our windows. It will decide the color and size of every awning and sign.
What this amounts to is eminent domain: a seizure of control over our building and any future plans for our business, as long as it resides here.

...There is a maddening irony here. The only reason our building is historically noteworthy is because it is home to the Strand, but the Strand might not survive the burden that comes with landmark designation.