Gayle, Margot.

A longtime urban preservationist, civic activist, and author, Margot Gayle (née McCoy) was born in Kansas City, Mo., on 14 May 1908. She attended the University of Michigan, and subsequently moved to Atlanta, began work as a social worker, and earned a master's degree in bacteriology from Emory University. Marrying accountant William T. Gayle, Margot contributed to the World War II effort as a volunteer publicizing civil defense efforts. Next moving to New York City, Gayle held various jobs including radio script writer, freelance magazine scribe, public relations entrepreneur, and public relations positions in city government; most important, she wrote a weekly architecture column in the Daily News for sixteen years. In 1957 she joined the Samuel J. Tilden Club, a Democratic Party reform group, and ran unsuccessfully for City Council. In 1957 Gayle spearheaded efforts to save the four stalled clocks adorning the Jefferson Market Courthouse. Gayle's intrepid leadership netted a coterie of followers, including writers Jane Jacobs and Lewis Mumford and poet e.e. cummings. By 1961, the group succeeded in restarting the building's clocks; in 1967 the courthouse itself reopened as a public library. Gayle also lobbied for a landmarks preservation law, which the city enacted in 1965. In 1966, impelled by the demolition of Pennsylvania Station, Gayle helped to establish the Victorian Society in America, and in 1970, she founded the Friends of Cast Iron Architecture, a group focused on the preservation of Victorian-era iron-fronted buildings. The group succeeded in opposing a proposed Lower Manhattan expressway in 1971 and in 1973 it won the establishment of the twenty-six block SoHo-Cast Iron Historic District. Gayle went on to fight to preserve cast-iron buildings around the country, as well as street clocks and lamp-posts in New York City until her death in 2008 at the age of 100.

From the description of Margot Gayle papers, 1959-2005 (bulk 1975-1990). (New-York Historical Society Library). WorldCat record id: 480188753

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