Landmarks Association of St. Louis — one of the premier historic preservation and advocacy groups in the nation — will celebrate its 50th anniversary later this month.

Festivities began with gala dinner Saturday night and it wasn't just a party. It showcased Palladium St. Louis, a part of the fabulous restoration of City Hospital — another in the long list of historic St. Louis properties put back to productive use in part because of the organization's support.

Landmarks has been at the center of every high-profile preservation battle in St. Louis for half a century. Some were won, others were lost. Collectively, the legacy of those battles now makes the community mindful and fiercely protective of its architectural heritage.

The result has been historic preservation as economic development, with hundreds of millions of dollars put toward revitalizing housing and commercial districts that would be the envy of any great American city.

Contentious preservation battles, however crucial they may have been, obscure what may be Landmarks' most enduring contribution: the tedious work that transforms preservation beyond good intentions and lofty ideals.

Take the Benton Park neighborhood on St. Louis' near south side. In the early 1980s, Landmarks developed the 363-page application by which the entire neighborhood — 4,630 acres and 1,668 structures — won designation as a National Historic District. The process involved meticulous study and description of the Greek Revival, Italianate, mansard and craftsman buildings that make up the district.

Benton Park's designation as a historic district — and the vision to do so — led to the revival of a magnificent, intact and vibrant historic city neighborhood, today home to a diverse community of thousands of people and scores of businesses.

We asked Kevin Kelleher, a longtime Benton Park resident, to identify the neighborhood's historic and architectural "jewels." He begged off, said there are "plenty of favorites." The jewel, he said, is "the collection that makes up the whole."

Benton Park, like the other buildings and neighborhoods that have been saved, are landmarks, not museum pieces. Preservation has become second nature, thanks to the high ambitions and quiet good work of Landmarks Association of

St. Louis.