Before his death, Aristotle bought Jackie a $200,000 estate in Bernardsville, New Jersey. It was a two-frame house on ten acres of hunt country that was her special refuge — a place to ride, to write, to recharge. In Martha's Vineyard, Jackie built a 19-room summerhouse on 375 acres of ocean-front land.

When she was in New York City, she continued to live at her Fifth Avenue apartment, using Central Park as her personal backyard. Even before Onassis's death, Jackie had become increasingly involved in preserving the city's history. Jackie wrote a review of the International Center for Photography for the New Yorker as an anonymous essay titled “Being Present.”

Fight for Grand Central Station

A week after the New Yorker article was published, Jackie became publicly involved in the fight to save Grand Central Terminal.

The Landmarks Preservation Commission had named it a historical landmark, but Penn Central, which owned Grand Central, claimed it was in dire financial straits and wanted to sell the property to a developer who was threatening to build a 55 story office building on the site.

In order for the deal to go through, the landmark status would have to be overruled, and a judge did so on January 21, 1975. When Jackie heard about the ruling, she joined the fight to save Grand Central.

Her first call was to Kent Barwick, who was the director of the Municipal Art Society. She told him she wanted to help and offered to volunteer. That was the beginning of her long association with the MAS. When the society held a lighting ceremony to draw attention to its efforts to save the station, it was Jackie who pulled the switch — and catapulted the story to the front page of the next day's New York Times.

The fight to save Grand Central moved to the courts. The New York Supreme Court ruled that the building's landmark designation prevented Penn Central from selling it for development. But a federal appellate court overruled the state court. It would come down to a matter of public opinion.

Jackie became a tireless advocate, appearing at rallies to drum up support. When the MAS was in Washington, D.C., to appeal the appellate ruling before the Supreme Court, Jackie led a delegation by train to the nation's capital. At each stop, local officials met the train in order to meet Jackie.

The publicity generated by the train trip and a subsequent press conference brought the fight for Grand Central onto the front pages of newspapers across the country. Jackie made the issue relevant to people from around the country, not only New Yorkers. People wrote letters to their congressional representatives, and donations poured into the MAS.

Ultimately, the Supreme Court upheld the landmark status, noting that the public's interest factored into its decision. Today, there is a plaque inside Grand Central that acknowledges Jackie's role in saving it.

New York City Programs

Jackie was involved in other preservation groups, including the Citizens Committee for New York City, which was created in 1975 to help New Yorkers confront problems the nearly bankrupt city could not deal with itself.

Jackie also joined the board of the Forty-Second Street Development Corporation, which was established to revitalize the Times Square area. Jackie was able to get the mayor's office to cooperate, and her participation generated media interest. Jackie knew her participation with any group would generate public interest, so she picked her causes carefully. When she joined a cause, it was more than just in name. Jackie attended meetings, made phone calls, and helped raise money and awareness.