George McAneny convinced Secretary of the Interior Harold Ickes to dedicate Federal Hall, built in the 1830s, as a national historic landmark under the 1935 Historic Sites Act in response to the Department of Treasury’s plan to destroy it.

A plaque inside Federal Hall, placed there shortly after McAneny’s death, commemorates him as a “Pioneer in City Planning / Protector of Historic Places / Leader of a City / Friend Beyond Compare”. McAneny, as Chairman of the Board of the 1939 World’s Fair, opened the Fair on the front steps of the building (the Fair celebrated the sesquicentennial of Washington’s inauguration on the same spot).

McAneny fought Robert Moses on the proposed destruction of Castle Clinton, originally constructed from 1808-1811, in one of the most famous historic preservation battles in city history. Moses’ original plan for the Brooklyn-Battery Bridge included erasing Castle Clinton to make way for a massive bridge that would have connected the Battery and Brooklyn.

McAneny and other preservationists worked tirelessly for nearly a decade to have Castle Clinton designated a national monument in 1946, keeping it safe from demolition. McAneny’s famous 1950 speech “The Fight for Castle Clinton” is a preservation classic.

One of McAneny’s lasting preservationist efforts was his saving of both New York City Hall (and, incidentally, Tweed Courthouse). In the early days of McAneny’s role as borough president, City Hall was threatened by the possible construction of a massive courthouse that could have potentially overshadowed the building. The state legislature had originally proposed to construct this larger structure on a site that included the Tweed Courthouse.

Thanks to the McAneny’s efforts and those of many other preservationists, the new building was developed several blocks north. McAneny also helped secure funding from the philanthropist Olivia Slocum Sage for the restoration of City Hall around the time of its centennial during his term as borough president.

In one of McAneny’s most controversial decisions as borough president, many major throughways were developed through “widening”. One street in particular, Varick Street, stirred controversy in the West Village. In order to widen these streets, space from the sidewalks were re-allocated towards the road. In order to compensate for less sidewalk space, structures and projections were removed from sidewalks, allowing the city to maximize space for both cars and civilians.

In addition to these changes, 40 small homes and St. John’s Chapel were destroyed in 1917 during the widening. McAneny initiated or participated in several actions that led to demolitions and displacement in New York City, most of them earlier in his public career.

As a consequence of the modernization of roadways in New York, one of the city’s beloved chapels that once faced Varick Street was destroyed. McAneny attempted to implement both the widening of Varick Street and the preservation of St. John’s Chapel, originally constructed in 1803. He convinced the Board of Estimate to allocate funding to preserve the chapel during street widening and the development of the subway.

One of the proposed designs would push the sidewalk underneath the chapel, allowing the structure to retain its portico. Unfortunately, contractors determined that St. John’s was not structurally prepared for the widening, making preservation of the building impossible. While McAneny’s attempt to balance the roles of city planner and preservationist resulted in the demise of St. John’s Chapel in 1918, his efforts to preserve a culturally significant building were thwarted.

During the development of government buildings in lower Manhattan in the 1910s the Court House Board searched for a location suitable for a new courthouse. Originally the courthouse was planned to be developed adjacent to City Hall Park but due to fierce public opposition organized by McAneny, the courthouse was established further north.

In choosing to relocate the development site of the building under the guise of slum clearance and urban renewal, the new civic center was established. The move did result in the destruction of a large number of tenement homes, complicating McAneny’s legacy as a preservationist. However, as with other moves, this step shows McAneny’s influence on the shape of the city was undeniable.

Carl Schurz, a famous German politician and reformer, was McAneny’s close friend and mentor during his early years in government. Shortly after Schurz’s passing, the Board of Alderman and the German community in New York worked directly with McAneny to erect a statue of Schurz in Morningside Park. McAneny, being the Manhattan Borough President at the time, convinced the Board of Estimate to allocate $25,000 for the statue dedicated to his mentor.

Once home to the Rhinelander Houses, a series of townhouses inhabited by the Rhinelander family, Washington Square North emerged as a key preservation battle in Greenwich Village history. Developers created plans to demolish the Rhinelander Houses in an attempt to develop a twelve-story building equipped to house three hundred families.

This proposal was met with immediate opposition by preservationists such as George McAneny, David Finley, Hamilton Fish Armstrong, Eleanor Roosevelt, Carl Van Doren, C. C. Burningham, and the Municipal Arts Society. Unfortunately, the Rhinelander Homes were later demolished in 1951 but the townhouses east of Fifth Avenue on the north edge of Washington Square Park still stand today thanks to earlier preservationist efforts.

During McAneny’s career as a city planner, one of his most well-received works was the 1916 Zoning Resolution, New York’s first zoning code. The most impactful ordinance in McAneny’s plan focused on height restrictions and setbacks. Responding to negative public perceptions of the development of buildings such as the Equitable Building, the ordinance forced new skyscrapers to impose a setback, allowing for the passage of light and air.

While these restrictions are not in place in today’s zoning code, New York City’s iconic skyline was a direct result of the 1916 Zoning Resolution.

This expansive park located in Corona, Queens, was the site of the 1939 World’s Fair. Shortly after the success of the World’s Fair in Chicago, McAneny and other civic leaders mobilized to create a committee to plan for a fair to be held in New York in 1939. McAneny served as chairman of both the World’s Fair Corporation and the World’s Fair Committee of the Chamber of Commerce.

As one of the most consequential figures in the development of the subway system, McAneny successfully created the Dual Contract system by combining the IRT and BRT. These two private subway companies originally operated on separate tracks with different cars and tunnel specifications, creating an inefficient and expensive system. By consolidating both companies under city ownership, the government was able to provide one-seat ride options and expand the subway stations into boroughs such as the Bronx, Brooklyn, and Queens. At Queensboro Plaza, both companies had to combine efforts to create a joint service in order to serve both Astoria and Flushing. The combination of these systems was the start of a uniform and subway system, allowing passengers to access parts of the city through one site rides or with minimal transfers.