NEW YORK, NY.- World Monuments Fund (WMF) today announced Irreplaceable America, a new list recognizing 10 historic places across the United States whose preservation is essential to the richness and complexity of American history as the nation approaches the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. From landmarks of public health and colonial architecture to sites central to Black history, Indigenous heritage, and artistic experimentation, the initiative spotlights places facing urgent preservation needs.

“The United States was built by people from every corner of the globe, shaped by Indigenous nations, early settlers, immigrant communities, and generations of cultural exchange,” said Bénédicte de Montlaur, President and CEO of World Monuments Fund. “That complexity gave rise to some of America’s most enduring contributions, from colonial heritage to jazz and hip-hop and the Wright brothers’ invention of powered flight. After decades of work at more than 700 sites in 113 countries, WMF has seen what communities gain when they can protect the places that matter and what is lost when they cannot. As the nation approaches its 250th anniversary, Irreplaceable America is a call to protect the places that reflect the richness of that history, and the role heritage plays in education, community memory, and civic life.”

The list includes sites such as the Colonial Homes of Newport in Rhode Island; America’s First Smallpox Hospital on Roosevelt Island in New York; two of the most significant Mission Churches in New Mexico; the City of New Orleans in Louisiana; the African Meeting House in Massachusetts; and the Wright Brothers’ historic sites in Dayton, Ohio—reflecting both the breadth of American history and the range of preservation challenges these places face.

New York's Smallpox Hospital Ruin, Roosevelt Island, New York
The first U.S. facility built to treat epidemic disease, this nineteenth-century smallpox hospital, designed by architect James Renwick Jr., remains a rare landmark in the history of medicine. After decades of neglect, the structure faces structural instability following decades of abandonment and the collapse of its interior floors and framing.





Bartram’s Garden, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
The oldest surviving botanical garden in the United States, Bartram's Garden helped shape American natural history and global plant exchange. Today, climate pressures, encroaching development, and a projected doubling in visitation threaten this irreplaceable cultural landscape.

Black Mountain College Studies Building, North Carolina
At the heart of Black Mountain College, this building represents one of the most influential experiments in American art and education. Severe deterioration, water infiltration, and climate-related damage now threaten its survival.

African Meeting House, Boston, Massachusetts
The oldest surviving Black church in the United States, the African Meeting House helped anchor the early abolitionist movement. Now shifting interpretation policy threatens the depth and visibility of the Black history that makes this landmark irreplaceable.

City of New Orleans, Louisiana
Shaped by Indigenous, African, European, and Caribbean influences, the historic neighborhoods of New Orleans form one of America’s most distinctive cultural landscapes. Rising seas, land loss, and mass population relocation now threaten that heritage.

Colonial Homes of Newport, Rhode Island
Newport's extraordinary concentration of colonial-era architecture survives as a living neighborhood, not a museum. Now rising seas and accelerating climate threats put nearly half of this historic fabric at risk, demanding urgent action to protect it.

Dallas City Hall, Texas
Designed by I. M. Pei, Dallas City Hall is one of the most significant works of civic architecture and modernism in America. Now pressure from private developers and inflated rehabilitation estimates create an immediate risk of abandonment or demolition.

Mission Churches of Acoma and Laguna Pueblos, New Mexico
Built by Pueblo communities in the aftermath of Spanish conquest and still active today, these Pueblo-Franciscan mission churches remain vital centers of spiritual and cultural life. Funding shortfalls and the waning of collective restoration traditions now put them at risk.

Watts Towers, Los Angeles, California
Italian immigrant Simon Rodia spent more than three decades building these soaring sculptures by hand, producing one of the most singular works of folk art in American history. Now environmental stress, seismic risk, and dwindling resources threaten their stability.

Wright Brothers Sites in Dayton, Ohio
In the workshops and fields of Dayton, Wilbur and Orville Wright developed the technology that made powered flight possible. Now reduced National Park Service staffing and stalled capital projects threaten their long-term preservation and public interpretation.