What We Don't Know Can Hurt Us.© Michael Morrissey
Apr 1, 2000
There is undoubtedly a need for historic preservation, a need to preserve the important buildings and places in our collective pasts. But why is it that we need to fight and lobby and actively keep a vigil over these places? Doesn't everyone know the value of history? Doesn't everyone enjoy the personalities, stories and architecture of the past? We seem to be able to save other important pieces of our past without much trouble; there are libraries and museums everywhere filled with art work, photographs, sculpture, books, magazines and films. In school we devote an entire field of learning to events and people of the past. Why is it then that buildings and public spaces seem to be left out of what is obviously a natural part of human development, the desire to collect and save? Is it because heartless developers want to demolish everything precious to a community, or is it that communities do little to identify or protect what is important to them until the eleventh hour?
The scenario plays itself out everyday throughout the world. A developer comes to a community and selects a site they want to build on. If the site's current building is old and dilapidated, their course of action will likely be to tear it down and build a new one. Once the property is purchased and the plans made public, a group of local citizens will likely sound the alarm and attempt to save the site. They will have to scramble to raise money, petition the local government, appeal to the citizens, learn the process of intervention. If luck is on their on their side and their efforts are superhuman, they can save the building, persuading the developer to rehabilitate it instead of demolish it. If they're mere mortals, they are likely to raise the ire of the citizens and some awareness for the importance of historic preservation, but at the cost of an historic building, and unless another building faces the same fate almost immediately thereafter, the lessons learned from the loss of the first building will need to be re-learned with the next. The traditional process of historic preservation, that of spontaneous reaction to an immediate crisis, is growing increasingly inadequate. As the country's population continues to grow, with smart growth initiatives coming into place and the slow demise of urban sprawl, historic structures, especially those in disrepair, will increasingly come under attack from developers. Without some proactive measures put into place, we will assuredly lose more and more historically significant buildings.
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