Margot Gayle

She led the effort to designate the SoHo Cast Iron Historic District, which preserved Victorian era cast-iron architecture in New York City.

In 1956 she became the only woman member on the historic buildings committee of the Municipal Art Society, under the leadership of Alan Burnham.

[8][9] In 1958, after hearing that the Victorian-Gothic Jefferson Market Courthouse was being considered for sale by the city, Gayle began a community effort calling for the preservation of the building.

[10] The group included other local activists and luminaries like Ruth Wittenberg, Jane Jacobs, Lewis Mumford, Edward Hopper, Maurice Evans, and e.e.

[4] After the preservationist groups gained the support of Manhattan Borough President Edward Dudley and Mayor Robert Wagner, the clock was back in working order by 1961 and Gayle shifted her focus to preserving the building itself.

[6] The courthouse was renovated in 1967 under the oversight of architect Giorgio Cavaglieri and now houses a branch of the New York Public Library.

[10] This renovation was one of the first significant historical preservation projects in New York City, and set a precedent for a preservationist movement that would gain strength in the following decade.

"[5] In 1970 she founded the group the Friends of Cast Iron Architecture (FCIA) as part of the opposition to Robert Moses's plan to build an expressway through TriBeCa and SoHo.