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Re: Historical Preservation(McMansion branch off)

"William" <willbecool10@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1191206210.233833.96540@w3g2000hsg.googlegroups.com...
> Heres some food for thought for all you anti-history people out there
>
> http://www.startribune.com/562/story/1452935.html
>
> Linda Mack: Making history
>
> To appreciate the impact of the preservation efforts made in the last
> 30 years, imagine what Minneapolis and St. Paul would have looked like
> without them.
> --------------------------------------------
>
> With its elegant bronze fountain shaded by giant oaks and the porched
> and turreted houses surrounding it, St. Paul's Irvine Park is such a
> pure piece of Victorianna that it's hard to believe it hasn't always
> been there. But this charming corner of the city fell on bad times.
> The fountain was removed in 1927, the 19th-century houses were carved
> up for rooms, and by 1969 the city planned to raze the area and
> replace it with public housing.
>
> Thus was St. Paul's historic preservation movement born. Outraged
> residents and the Minnesota Historical Society joined forces to save
> the houses and the park. It wasn't an easy victory. One summer, after
> four of the houses were torched, Tom Lutz of the Minnesota Historical
> Society slept in the park to prevent more arson. But by 1978 both the
> houses and the park had been renovated, and residents celebrated by
> installing a replica fountain, once again the centerpiece.
>
> Irvine Park is one of the Twin Cities' most dramatic historic
> preservation victories and one of the many places that some 2,000
> preservationists will visit this week when they attend the annual
> conference of the National Trust for Historic Preservation. They'll
> also hear Garrison Keillor expound on St. Paul's quirks, and they'll
> tour both cities' riverfronts, visit historic Native American sites,
> canoe down the Minnesota River and take a candlelight tour of Summit
> Avenue houses.
>
> Rightly enough, the conference is based in St. Paul, which embraced
> preservation earlier than its more economically ambitious sibling.
>
> (While St. Paul saved the 1902 Old Federal Courts Building as Landmark
> Center, Minneapolis razed the 1889 Metropolitan Building and the
> oldest 30 percent of its downtown.) But Minneapolis' recent
> preservation successes, including the F&M Bank's revival as a Westin
> Hotel and the massive Sears building's rebirth as the Midtown
> Exchange, will be on the agenda as well.
>
> To appreciate the impact of historic preservation over the last 30
> years, imagine what the Twin Cities would look like without it.
>
> The Quadriga, the four horses on the State Capitol, would be
> tarnished. The St. Paul Cathedral would look dingy, and its roof would
> leak. Summit Avenue would be tawdry, as it was in 1970, and some of
> the houses would have been leveled. Lowertown's muscular brick and
> stone warehouses would be gone, replaced with ugly 1970s buildings--or
> nothing at all. The Dayton's Bluff neighborhood east of downtown would
> be run down.
>
> On the University of Minnesota East Bank campus, Jones and Nicholson
> halls would be gone rather than beautifully renovated, and the
> historic Knoll, the oldest part of the campus, would be decimated.
> Coffman Union would still look like it did after an unfortunate 1970s
> renovation, and it would still turn its back on the Mississippi River.
>
> Along the Mississippi in Minneapolis, the appealing brick buildings
> that gave birth to Pracna on Main and St. Anthony Main would be gone,
> as would the West Bank mills that now house lofts, office space and
> the Mill City Museum. The Stone Arch Bridge would still be encased in
> chain link fence. No one would live on Nicollet Island.
>
> Upriver, the friendly tower of the Grain Belt Brewery would be absent.
> The Warehouse District would have been razed, and hundreds of houses,
> parks and libraries in both cities would convey no sense of the city's
> past.
>
> Preservation hasn't solved every urban ill. Historic properties such
> as the Hamm's and Schmidt breweries and the Upper Post at Fort
> Snelling still daunt developers. Development and preservation still
> clash, as they have on Nicollet Island over plans to install a
> football field on city parkland or as they have in St. Paul over plans
> to build a massive complex called The Bridges across the Mississippi
> River from downtown.
>
> But what's happened in the last 30 years is remarkable. Developers
> have come to love older buildings for the character they offer.
> Preservationists have come to welcome sensitive development. Residents
> of the Twin Cities have come to value historic environments for their
> human scale, their ties to the past and their livability.
>
> Thirty years ago preservation seemed to focus on the past. Today it is
> fueling the future.

Whatever. Do you want to live in a museum or in a real city?

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