Which to Preserve, the Chicken or the Egg?

(NYTimes) In the last 30 years, hundreds, perhaps thousands, of deteriorated high-stoop brownstones in New York have been restored as new generations of owners reinstalled stoops and recreated facades stripped off decades ago.
But in his new book, “The Row House Reborn: Architecture and Neighborhoods in New York City, 1908-1929” (Johns Hopkins University Press), Andrew S. Dolkart questions the justification for this work. For him, many of the prerestoration brownstones are a whole new building type, not yet recognized, let alone appreciated. Continued

Photo: Brownstones in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn. Photo taken by webmaster of BedStuyGateway.com and released to the public domain. (Wikipedia)