Harry Potter and the Historic District

By early evening on 20th June 2003, a gaggle of pointed hats and starry capes had formed around Broadway and Prince Street. They had come to hold a midnight vigil for the release of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. This was the first Harry Potter book to be launched from the newly completed Scholastic Building on Broadway, designed by Aldo Rossi. It seems fitting that the largest publisher of children’s books in the world had the addition to their office designed by a man who Ada Louise Huxtable called “a poet who happens to be an architect.”