"An almost puritanical reverence for the past"

The NYT is in favor of the Whitney Museum of American Art's planned expansion. The Whitney is located in what's apparently "the Upper East Side Historic District, a landmark neighborhood," or, as I think of it, back home. There's plenty of history in my old bedroom, even, what with my stubborn refusal to spend vacations going through old stacks of AP English papers ("Why did I get an A- on that one?!"), old physics tests ("Wow, I was lucky to escape with a C") and the like...

But in a more universal sense, the UES is certainly pretty--if you're not into done-up women and lap dogs, you will still find beauty in the buildings themselves--and is a whole lot less sterile and boxy than Chicago's equivalent neighborhood, the ostentatiously named Gold Coast. But it's the Whitney expanding, not the Ralph Lauren store(s)...oh wait, they're both expanding, and are likely to one day have a territory dispute, with blameless 73rd Street being up for grabs. You heard it here first. But yeah, the Whitney is just going to make the area classier, and if you were the UES and you heard about a new overhaul that would make you classier, you'd go for it.

Concluding, the NYT editors write:

Critics often charge the preservation movement with an almost puritanical reverence for the past, and preservationists often charge proponents of contemporary architecture with willfully disregarding it. The Whitney Museum's expansion seems like the best of both worlds: a much-needed expansion that is deeply respectful of history.

The UES itself is all about "an almost puritanical reverence for the past." You can see it in the men and women who, regardless of ethnic or racial heritage, have the blond hair, driving shoes, and, for men, pink button-down shirts of the old-time WASPs. You can see it in the schoolgirls, in this post-Britney age, still heading off to school in plaid. And you can see it in the hipster-free zones that comprise the slightly shabbier areas around the neighborhood itself--go east to post-fraternity/girls' night out bars, go west to Central Park, south to business-oriented Midtown, and north to Carnegie Hill, an area you are not technically allowed to enter unless you have at least heard of Groton, but where size zero J. Crew, not Prada, is the norm. The wealthier areas of Chicago, with their white sneakers-track pants-North Face fleece uniform, seem positively futuristic in comparison.