David Dunlap: Documenting Buildings and Lives

DAVID W. DUNLAP (b.1952) was raised in San Francisco and Chicago.  He attended Columbia University and Yale University. He is a journalist who worked as a reporter for the New York Times. He wrote a regular column, “Building Blocks,” that looked at the New York metropolitan area through its architecture, infrastructure, spaces, and places.

Dunlap extensively documented the rebuilding of the World Trade Center after the September 11 attacks in 2001. He began writing about landmarks in 1981, when he was evicted from the New York Biltmore Hotel so that he would not be able to see its interior being demolished.

He began his career as a clerk to James “Scotty” Reston in 1975, became a graphics editor in 1976, and then reporter in 1981. Between 1994 and 1999, Dunlap covered gay, lesbian, and AIDS issues for the New York Times. He retired from the Times in December 2017, but he is currently the curator of the Museum at The Times.

Dunlap has also been documenting the history of Provincetown, Massachusetts, through its architecture, on the website “Building Provincetown,” and his book on this topic, “Building Provincetown,” which was published and twice revised by Provincetown Arts Press (2015, 2021, 2024).