The Rizzoli bookstore on West 57th Street. An automobile showroom designed by Frank Lloyd Wright on Park Avenue. And the Bancroft Building, a 19th-century red-and-white-striped limestone office building on West 29th Street. All three of these structures were gutted or leveled within the past two years, despite attempts to preserve them.

None of these sites were designated New York landmarks, but for many people, they were nevertheless among the treasures that define the city’s neighborhoods — the mix of terra cotta and stone amid the glass and steel that makes the city unique.

Nowhere is this loss of historic architecture felt more acutely than in Midtown Manhattan, where billions of dollars are driving development in an area with virtually no vacant land left. From Hudson Yards to the rising Billionaires’ Row along 57th Street to the hotels going up north of Madison Square Park, construction is seemingly everywhere in Midtown.

But once in a while, development halts in its tracks for an old building. Last week, the developer Sam Chang heeded requests to preserve the facade of Christ Church, a 1905 relic in the garment district, unveiling a rendering that incorporated part of the historic structure in the design of a 28-story hotel. “Everybody was pleased, there was not one negative word about what we proposed,” said Patrick Jones, special counsel to Mr. Chang’s McSam Hotel Group.