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The Honolulu Advertiser
Updated at 1:52 p.m., Tuesday, April 28, 2009

LANAI CITY LISTED AMONG 11 ENDANGERED HISTORIC SITES
Lanai City listed among 11 endangered historic sites

Associated Press

Hawaii news photo - The Honolulu Advertiser

A typical house in Lana'i City offers a look at a lifestyle and architecture that has endured over the decades. Many homes that were once Dole Pineapple housing are now owned by the residents who live there.

Advertiser library photo

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Hawaii news photo - The Honolulu Advertiser

Undated photo showing filling station in Lana'i City.

Photo credit: HawaiiWeb.com.

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Hawaii news photo - The Honolulu Advertiser

The historic Enola Gay hangar at the Historic Wendover Airfield in Wendover, Utah. The Enola Gay hanger is one of America's 11 most endangered historic places for 2009 as compiled by the National Trust for Historic Preservation. The hangar that housed the B-29 Superfortress that dropped the world's first atomic bomb is threatened by disrepair.

AP Photo/The Salt Lake Tribune, Jim Urquhart

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Hawaii news photo - The Honolulu Advertiser

The Century Plaza Hotel is seen in the Century City area of Los Angeles. The hotel is one of America's 11 most endangered historic places for 2009 as compiled by the National Trust for Historic Preservation. The hotel known as the "West Coast White House" is threatened by a plan to build two skyscrapers. The Century Plaza Hotel has hosted Bob Hope's celebrity-studded Century Ball, the Apollo 11 astronauts' welcome-home ball and then president-elect Ronald Reagan's victory ball.

AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes

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Lanai City, the plantation town built by pineapple baron James Dole, is among the National Trust of Historic Preservation's 11 most endangered historic sites.

The group today released its list of historic sites it says are jeopardized by neglect or development.

Among the most prominent sites on the list is Los Angeles' Century Plaza Hotel, which hosted President-elect Ronald Reagan's victory celebration, a welcome home gala for the Apollo 11 astronauts and Bob Hope's celebrity-studded Century Ball.

The National Trust for Historic Preservation sees that history and the hotel's mid-century architecture as reasons to stop the wrecking ball.

Also listed are the Utah hangar that housed the Enola Gay B-29 bomber that dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, and Miami Marine Stadium, which along with the Century Plaza is an example of 1960s modernist architecture that preservationists say is increasingly under threat of redevelopment.

The Century Plaza Hotel was built at the core of Century City, a high-rise district in Los Angeles on the former site of a 20th Century Fox movie lot. The hotel, which opened in 1966, was designed by architect Minoru Yamasaki, whose later work included the World Trade Center towers.

The 19-story hotel has been a popular place to stay for Washington politicos, earning it the nickname "West Coast White House."

Actress Diane Keaton, a trustee of the preservation group, said the hotel is worth saving.

"It's curvy, it's this beautiful kind of crescent shape," she said. "It's a sexy building."

A $36 million facelift was completed in 2008, months before it was bought by a partnership led by investor Michael Rosenfeld.

In December, the group announced a $2 billion plan to replace the metal and glass structure with two sleek skyscrapers containing condos and shops.

Rosenfeld has said the project will attract full-time residents to a pedestrian-friendly environment in what has been a notoriously sterile corner of the city. Developers also say the new structure will cut energy use.

Preservationists reject those arguments.

"Find a vacant lot instead of tearing down this mass of steel and concrete," Keaton said. "You won't be using up all that energy tearing down a building."

Other sites on the list are in less urban areas.

The Enola Gay hangar sits on a remote airfield near the Utah-Nevada border. The trust said the hangar is in a critical state of disrepair, along with other sites connected to the World War II-era Manhattan Project effort to develop nuclear weapons.

The intact, early-20th century plantation town Lanai City is being threatened by a commercial development the trust says would destroy or deface as many as 20 of its historically significant homes, municipal buildings and shops.

Miami Marine Stadium was closed after sustaining damage during Hurricane Andrew in 1992 and has since suffered from vandalism and neglect, the trust said.

Only six of the 211 sites added to the list since 1988 have been lost, he said.

"They're all part of our national heritage," Moe said. "If we lose any of them, they're gone forever."

On the Net:

National Trust for Historic Preservation: http://www.preservationnation.org/