We asked James Lindberg, Vice President of the National Trust's Research and Policy Lab, to provide a brief statement to give additional context to this story: Preservationists won one of their most important victories in 1978, when the Supreme Court—with Justice William Brennan writing the majority opinion—ruled in favor of the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission in the Penn Central Transp. Co. v. New York City case.

In the four decades since that decision confirmed the validity of local landmark laws, the preservation movement has helped spur an urban renaissance across the country. In the article below, author Anthony Flint takes stock of this history and offers his perspective on how preservationists must adapt and change to meet the challenges that cities face today, from climate change to affordability. The National Trust is tackling these issues as well: Working with local partners across the country, we are developing new strategies to conserve and reuse older buildings and create more inclusive, healthy, and resilient cities.

This story originally appeared on CityLab. Find it here.

Few public buildings grab you by the lapels quite like Grand Central Terminal—the blonde stone and marble, the light pouring in through vast windows, the starry night of constellations on the ceiling. Crowds surge and flow around the bulbous four-faced clock at the center of the cavernous main hall. It’s astonishing to think that the 1913 Beaux Arts building, lovingly restored and creatively re-invented in recent years, was almost destroyed.

But while the rescue of Grand Central seems like a clear-cut case of good over evil, the role of historic preservation in the 21st-century city can be more complex. In the years that followed the Supreme Court ruling, hundreds of buildings and neighborhoods have been given landmark status, protecting them not only from rapacious developers but from other, less ill-intentioned forces of change. Some argue that the preservation impulse can sometimes go too far, with unremarkable buildings, gas stations, and even vacant lots barred from any alteration: the city under glass. In the darkest view, historic preservation has become a front for NIMBYism—not in my backyard—curtailing affordable housing, green building, jobs, and economic development.

In his 2010 essay “Preservation Follies” in City Journal, Harvard’s Edward Glaeser pointed out that the growing amount of protected land in historic districts was rendering large tracts “unable to accommodate the thousands of people who would like to live in Manhattan but can’t afford to.” Preservation, he concluded, “turns the city into a preserve of the prosperous.”A 2013 report by the Real Estate Board of New York agreed, calling for a better balance between growth and preservation.

Is there really such a troubled flip side to this otherwise remarkable preservation success story? The full story of Grand Central holds many clues.

New York City parried those plans, citing the fact that Grand Central had been designated a landmark in 1967, and the property owners sued. That’s when the Municipal Art Society launched its campaign, recruiting Onassis, celebrities like Tony Randall, Benny Goodman, Dick Cavett, and Bess Myerson, architect Philip Johnson, and other critics and politicians to the cause. They were all inspired by the demolition of Grand Central’s crosstown twin, Pennsylvania Station (McKim, Mead & White, 1910), which had been reduced to rubble in 1963 and ultimately replaced by a dreary subterranean station under the new Madison Square Garden.

In Penn Central Transportation Co. v. New York City (1978), the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of New York’s landmarks law, effectively not only for that city but for all 50 states and 500 municipalities. The ruling has great significance in property rights jurisprudence and is relevant to this day. Preserving the building did not, the majority said, constitute a “taking” of the property, depriving the owners of the opportunity to build to such an extent that they should be compensated. A greater good—preserving history—was seen for the entire city. That has been an important theme in the continuing challenges to alleged regulatory takings, from preserving wetlands to creating more affordable housing.

What happened next sheds some light on how historic preservation and redevelopment can go hand in hand. The protected building didn’t just sit there; the much-celebrated restoration of Grand Central began in 1982, scrubbing the tobacco stains from the ceiling, adding a planned but unbuilt staircase, and introducing copious retail, dining, and arts programming. The transformation, completed in time for the building’s 100 birthday in 2013, has turned Grand Central into a much-visited destination by tourists and New Yorkers alike—and a center of gravity for new development all around. The city allowed the sale of air rights, under an arrangement known as the transfer of development rights, such that growth could be shifted from protected areas to more buildable land. The more recent Midtown East rezoning initiative further paves the way for tall towers in the area of 42nd Street, Grand Central’s address.

All the while, tensions continue between old and new. Traditionalists remain vigilant against proposed contemporary additions to established structures. One such drama is playing out right now at the Frick Museum on the Upper East Side, where a contemporary expansion threatens the exterior and two interior rooms, including a stately chamber music salon.

Historic preservation, by definition, must be disciplined, if not ruthless; exceptions add up rapidly. But because so much of 21st-century city-building is about redevelopment, a marbling of old and new seems appropriate. And that requires some flexibility. I tend to agree with both Ed Glaeser and Jane Jacobs (it’s possible; he’s a fan): Cities must be allowed to evolve, even as the most cherished assets are protected.

There is no shortage of greater goods to be considered. If the East Side Access connection to the Long Island Railroad, which will vastly improve public transit for hundreds of thousands of commuters, requires some demolition in the bowels of Grand Central, that seems a suitable compromise. As many housing advocates have noted, historic preservation can indeed be just another tool to keep new—often lower-income—residents out of a neighborhood. Similarly, historic districts might reconsider bans on solar panels or triple-glazed glass. The larger goal of environmental sustainability must be considered; no Victorian cornice or copper drainpipe is going to be worth much in a city rendered uninhabitable by climate change.

At Grand Central, the victory lap is well earned. This building should not have been destroyed in the name of real-estate profits. Looking forward, though, more nuanced and creative approaches to land and building are surely warranted. Awareness of all the needs of the city may be the best way to honor the past.