sustained by the nearby naval presence. Fleets were based in Newport, and the Naval War College is nearby, along with other naval facilities along the western shore of Aquidneck Island. Newer buildings in 19th-century styles, particularly Italianate, were erected along Thames, and many of these were home to businesses that catered to sailors on leave. 20th century In the years after the Civil War, the new rich of the Gilded Age began to rediscover Newport as a summer getaway, building larger and larger homes along and near Bellevue Avenue to the east. After the legislature moved to Providence full-time in 1900, depriving the city of some of its economy, the newer residents began to show an interest in preserving Newport's rich architectural past. They established the Newport Historical Society, and endowed some of their family fortunes towards architect Norman Isham's projects to restore the Wanton-Lyman-Hazard House, the Brick Market and Colony House during the 1920s and '30s. The fight to save the Hunter House from demolition led to the formation of another important local organization, the Preservation Society of Newport County. Other local efforts concentrated on other houses later on, and they were eventually recognized with the NHL designations of the individual buildings in the early 1960s. The city created the district by ordinance in 1965, and it was recognized as an NHL itself in 1968. The loss of the naval fleet in 1971 was a serious blow to the economy, and eventually the city controversially authorized the removal of many old factories, warehouses, and historic structures along the water, just west of the district boundary for the construction of retail facilities such as Brick Market Place and Long Wharf Mall, hotels, condominiums and America's Cup Avenue, a multilane through street whose name reflected the sloop races that then drew crowds to the city every few years. In the mid-1980s, the America's Cup was finally lost to an Australian team, and left the city. The downtown area adapted by focusing on shopping opportunities for the tourists who were drawn to Newport to visit the many mansions every summer, and promoting its own historic buildings. The historic district retained enough of its character that Steven Spielberg came there in 1997 to film Amistad, deeming it a sufficient stand-in for 1840s New Haven, Connecticut, where the real case took place. The interiors of several historic buildings, especially Colony House, were used as