Context, my dear. Provide some context.

You need to replace the whole entire sentence which caused you to feel like you needed ding an sich because the whole concept is too high falutin' for this sort of letter.

I'm trying to point out that although the city has changed pretty dramatically since my grandparents were children here, one of the ways it retains its isness, its self-ness, its ding an sich is that the neighborhoods are still neighborhoods, and they remain that way in part because they look the same. The church where my father was an altar boy, where my sister was baptized, where my aunt was married was sold by the church years and years ago. It's now condos, but it's condos inside the church. They tore down the parish house for parking, but the church is still there. Even parts of the choir loft are parts of the condos.

Anyway. The point is: it's not just about charm, or beauty, or even preserving something someone who was once very important in his field designed and built. It's about keeping Chicago itself, which sometimes means we keep it looking the same.

Or something.

You don't need to name it when you describe it so beautifully. Look, I think you do fine just so:

The city has changed dramatically since my grandparents were children here, but the neighborhoods are still neighborhoods, and they remain that way in part because they look the same. The church where my father was an altar boy, where my sister was baptized, where my aunt was married was sold by the church years and years ago. It's now condos, but it's condos inside the church. They tore down the parish house for parking, but the church is still there. Even parts of the choir loft are parts of the condos. It's not just about charm, or beauty, or even preserving something someone who was once very important in his field designed and built. It's about keeping Chicago itself, which sometimes means we keep it looking the same.

However, I also think (perhaps too cynically) that your alderman('s staffer) is not going to be reading these letters carefully in search of their philosophical underpinnings, hoping for a justifiable sound argument in favor of keeping the church. They're going to get stacked up into "Keep it" and "Raze it" piles and the relative heights of those piles will be one small factor that goes into the decision.

Yeh, Wolfdog, you're right, of course. But there is a Coptic group who is negotiating to buy it, but the diocese went and applied for the demo permit anyway. Because it's an "orange-rated building" under the demolition delay ordinance, I like to think someone is paying attention to the protests against its demolition.

Well, in the same place my cynicism wouldn't stop me from trying to write the most persuasive letter I could, and so should you; it just wouldn't feel right to do otherwise. But either your reader will be familiar with the concept of ding an sich and recognize it in what you've written, or they won't, and finding a synonym for it won't make a difference. Technical phrases like that are really only useful as a shorthand among people who need to refer to the concept all the time and get tired of writing out a long description.

I suspect you are right on all points, Wolfdog.

I suspect he is too. Especially about the fact that you've already written a beautiful letter -- don't go adding German terms to it, or they'll think you just forgot to spellcheck!

Two things:

1. It's not a close translation of ding an sich, but for the purposes of your letter, would "identity" or even "self-identity" suffice?

2. When I first moved to Chicago around '94, I did some freelance reviews for some local music paper (I can't even remember the name). One of my reviews -- I think it was for the Stone Roses' record Second Coming -- included the term sturm und drang. Imagine my delight when it was published after having been "corrected" to "storm and drag"!

(Of course, the real punchline is that "storm and drag" actually is, in some ways, a decent description of the weaknesses of that particular album.)

Your question led me to the wikipedia page for noumenon. Thanks!