James Marston Fitch

Who was James Marston Fitch?

James Marston Fitch was an architect and a Preservationist, one of the founders of the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation at Columbia University in 1964. He was a member of the faculty there from 1954 to 1977, and received an honorary Litt.D. in 1980. The Schools has established a lecture series in his honor, and endowed a named professorship, currently held by Andrew Dolkart.

The ACSA honored Fitch with the ACSA Distinguished Professor Award in 1985-86.

After leaving the Columbia faculty, he become director of historic preservation at the private architecture and planning firm, Beyer Blinder Belle. He led the fight that prevented the construction of an expressway through Soho, to save the buildings at what is now the South Street Seaport, and, in the 1990s, he supervised the renovation of Grand Central Terminal.

The James Marston Fitch Foundation, established in his honor in 1988, awards $25,000-dollar research grants for historic preservation.

The activist Jane Jacobs considered that Fitch "was the principal character in making the preservation of historic buildings practical and feasible and popular."