Q. What do you think of the practice of restoring run-down urban neighborhoods as condominiums and shops?
A. Considering the agony of the neighborhoods, I find the brick sidewalks, the cafes, the boutiques and the whole gentrification process a bit ridiculous. Yet I can understand it as a desire to pull people downtown. I just think most of those areas come out looking so candified. They used to be for loading and manufacturing and drinking and fighting and a real tough life. ...
-- from interview of noted architectural historian Vincent Scully by New York Times reporter Eleanor Charles (February 7, 1988)




