Nathan Silver, 89, Who Chronicled New York City's Vanishing Landmarks

My wife says this is what happens when you get old.

Until today, I don't believe I ever read an obituary where I was familiar with the subject's father! But familiar I am.

In the obit for Mr. Silver, it is mentioned that Nathan's "father, Isaac, taught mechanical drawing at Stuyvesant High School in Manhattan and was also an architect. "

I remember Mr. Silver in the Mechanical Drawing Department. I didn't  have him as a teacher, (I had Mr. Russo), but I remember the man who was in his early 60s in the early to mid-1960s, who had thinning silver hair and seemed to wear grey, or silver suits. He was Mr. Silver after all.  

I distinctly remember there were some of my classmates who did have him as a teacher who were not necessarily impressed with him as a teacher, but were greatly impressed that he was a licensed architect who could attach his professional seal to drawings. 

His son Nathan became distinguished as an architect as well, and as a writer about preserving buildings. His seminal book, "Lost New York" carries a photo on the cover of what part of Penn Station looked like before it was demolished in 1964. For those who can remember the place, it is truly a haunting photo. It took two years to get rid of the building.

I remember the "old" Penn Station, but it was already greatly run down in the '60s when I went through the upper level. It was dark and grimy. The architectural features that are so greatly missed were overshadowed by the dinginess of the place. 

The demolition of Penn Station in the '60s still resonates as architectural original sin. In current designs, the powers to be have tried to invoke what would have been the grandeur of the place had it been maintained and preserved for what it was—a cathedral, that as Thomas Wolfe wrote, "held the sound of time."

Nathan at Cambridge in 1970

To me it is interesting to note that Nathan Silver lived in London for the rest of his career after his book "Lost New York" was published in the '60s. He taught architecture at the University of Cambridge.

You don't really know if the demolition of Penn Station made him pack his bags. Amongst his many projects he redesigned a 17th-century pub, The Seven Seas, owned by his wife Roxy Beaujolais. She survives him, as does a brother Robert, who is also an architect, as well as a daughter Liberty Silver and a son Gabriel, along with four grandchildren. 

I still can't over that I knew of the father of a man who has now passed away at 89.

My wife is right. This is what happens when you get old and you can still remember things.

http://www.onofframp.blogspot.com