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PRESERVING CULTURE & COMMUNITY AS WELL AS WE DO HISTORY
Sam Smith
A series of incidents in my hometown got me thinking about a little
noted anomaly: if you want to save something in urban America, make sure
it's old. And an old building at that. Old people don't count. Neither
do present day culture and community.
There's nothing wrong with saving old buildings. This journal has
supported many battles for historic preservation, including turning back
an effort to wreck Pennsylvania Avenue between the Capitol and the White
House and the preservation of Washington's first park and shop. The late
John Wiebenson, who did a long-running and unique urban planning comic
strip for us, was a major voice for sensible preservation.
But a trio of recent conflicts have raised some new issues. For example,
what's more important: the preservation of an old building or an old
guy. As Marc Fisher wrote in the Washington Post:
"For more than a year, Richard Lucas has been trying to win permission
to cut through his elderly, infirm parents' front porch so they can get
from their living quarters onto the street without climbing stairs. And
for more than a year, the D.C. historic preservation authorities have
found reasons to say no to a ramp.
"After all, as the city's architectural historian put it, 'repeating
porches of similar height and depth create a notable pattern and rhythm'
along the Lucas family's Mount Pleasant street, and the District
wouldn't want to let that rhythm be broken just to accommodate a couple
of old folks who have lived in their house for 47 years.
"Again and again, Lucas tried to satisfy the city's preservation police,
paying his architect to rework plans for a ramp to minimize its impact
on the supposedly pristine look of the 1930s row houses on Walbridge
Place NW. But each time Lucas tried, the city came up with more
objections. And so, at ages 90 and 87, Cornelius and Merry Lucas remain
stuck in their basement rooms, able to come and go only through a back
door that opens onto an alleyway."
Then there are the two cases of buildings which, though only 30-40 years
old, have attracted the preservationists and an impressive legal
weaponry that developed during this same period. Here's how the DC
Preservation League describes a building it designated as one of the
endangered places of the year:
"The Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial Library was awarded Landmark
status by the Historic Preservation Review Board in June of 2007. . .
The only example in Washington, DC of the mature style of pre-eminent
Modernist architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, the Martin Luther King,
Jr. Memorial Library has stood as the only monument to Dr. King in the
nation's capital for the past 30 years. It holds special significance to
the millions of Washingtonians who have come to the library over the
past decades to participate in a wide variety of programs and
activities, and is a center of community life in the District."
Well, sort of. You can find a whole lot of people who have used or
worked in the library who considered it extremely dumpy, ill designed
for its purpose, with non-working elevators and unattractive spaces. The
auditorium space seem almost an afterthought stuck in the basement.
Admittedly, it has some of the charm of a semi-abandoned fortress. You
never quite know what's around the next corner or through the next door
or whether the elevator will make it to your floor. The outside is kind
of neat, though, and it has been argued that the interior was never
properly constructed the way the architects intended. Further, you could
say that it is a monument to that soon to be seen as curious era of
modern architecture (soon to be ended by the pragmatic requirements of
ecological considerations) in which style ran roughshod over such minor
issues as whether the roof leaked or whether the elevator worked.
But whatever one's views, undeniably the forces for preserving the
mature style of pre-eminent Modernists is substantial in law, politics
and in public action even if it is only a few decades old.
Then we have the case of the Third Church of Christ, Scientist in
downtown Washington, nicely described by the American Spectator:
"How many dollars does it take to change a light bulb? Well, if the
defunct bulb you're replacing has been illuminating the Third Church of
Christ, Scientist in downtown Washington, you could be looking at a bill
of up to $8,000. That's because unscrewing a blown bulb in that concrete
monument to impracticality is tantamount to a construction project.
According to one church official, you've got to build scaffolding just
to reach some of the bulbs. . .
" It's a largely windowless octagonal tower made of raw, weathered
concrete, and it's surrounded by a sterile 'plaza' that seems to have
been emptied to keep the line of fire clear. The site inspires few
people with a sense of spirituality.
"That includes its own congregation, which has always disliked the
building and dearly wants to be rid of its ugliness and its crushing
costs, but which has been prevented from replacing the structure by
Washington's local preservation authorities.
"Not that the church is either old or historic. It was designed in 1971
in an effort by the Christian Science church to establish a signature
architectural presence in the heart of the capital. . . The church
tapped I.M. Pei's firm for the design. . .
"The sanctuary seats 400, though the active congregation has shrunk to
some 50 worshippers. The building's concrete exterior is already
deteriorating, and the maintenance costs are overwhelming. Money that
would be better spent on the church's mission, members say, is eaten up
by the building itself.
"So why has the city's Historic Preservation Review Board unanimously
declared the Third Church of Christ, Scientist to be an official D.C.
landmark, preventing not only its demolition, but even its unauthorized
alteration? Because, it turns out, it is a sterling example of the
mid-century school of design known as Brutalism."
Again, the point here is not to argue the specific case or to disparage
preservation, but to illustrate just how powerful the historic
preservation movement has become in the few decades since such buildings
were constructed.
Now let's move to another part of town: Ward 5, about as classic a
Washington community as you're going to find. It has a disproportionate
share of DC natives, is heavily black but with many long time white
residents, is in the middle by education level among the eight wards and
below average in income. It has, however, the third highest
homeownership rate and its crime rate has been falling since 2001. Its
black community has included the likes of Sterling Brown, Edward Brooke,
Robert Weaver and Ralph Bunche, but it is also home to what is purported
to be the largest collection of Catholic institutions outside of the
Vatican.
This community is now the main target of a plan by the city's mayor and
school chancellor to close 23 schools, almost a third of them in Ward 5.
The two officials - for whom certainty appears to be regarded as an
adequate substitute for competence - have given no evidence that they
consider either culture or community a matter worth examining, let alone
respecting.
Two of their main grounds for closing a school: declining attendance in
recent years and square footage. The decline in attendance, of course,
doesn't reveal whether the drop has ended or will continue or whether it
reflects the raid on the city's school system by a charter school
program heavily pushed by congressional conservatives. Further, it
cleverly protects the schools in nearly all white Ward 3 as these,
though small in size, are no longer declining.
Neither of the criteria impress me much for a quite personal reason. I
went through fourth grade in a DC public school the city had been trying
to close that would have met neither of the current criteria. We had 160
kids with four teachers, two of them maiden sisters known by everyone as
the thin Miss Waddy and the fat Miss Waddy. It lacked special programs
and we undoubtedly took up too many square feet to be truly
educationally efficient. Nonetheless, out of this failure came a dean of
Catholic University, a foreign correspondent for a major newspaper, an
urban planning professor and an irrepressible independent journalist,
just to name a few from my period - proving once again that in
education, objective standards often don't cut it. What's happening in
that square footage of whatever size, and who's doing it, is what really
matters.
To make matters worse in Ward 5, the chancellor announced that public
hearings on the 23 school closings would all be held on the same
evening, making it impossible for anyone of real authority to hear what
was being said. The citizens rightly responded by boycotting the
hearings in favor of one at the city hall arranged by some friendly
council members.
One of the schools, John Burroughs, even put up a web site to help in
its fight against closure. On it you can learn that this school the city
wants to shut down is:
- one of five Middle States accredited elementary schools in dc
- Meets federal requirements in reading and math
- Placed first in the city's black history contest
- Has a scout program, cheerleads and a ski club
- ranks 15th citywide in reading and 12th in math
This is the sort of thing communities run into repeatedly as they
confront a Brutalist bureaucracy or the mature style of pre-eminent
Modernist politicians - but without the sort of weapons that historic
preservations have developed.
Even existing law - which would seem to require that the city give
"great weight" to the opinion of the local neighborhood commissions - is
being ignored. And there certainly is no Community Preservation Board
with staff to send out and enforce the protection of the city's
neighborhoods against budget-mad officials.
This is just one example. DC is also proposing to destroy some
neighborhood icons like libraries and firehouses by submerging them in
new commercial high rises, politely called "mixed use" but actually the
secular version of putting a church on the 8th floor of a skyscraper.
There is simply no consciousness that when you hide such community
symbols it has a deleterious effect on the community itself and replaces
the values of citizens living and working together with those of big box
capitalism in which the citizen is reduced to either a consumer or a
subservient employee.
A similar thing happens when you close a school. Where will the John
Burroughs scouts and ski club go? Where will the community meet? What
will be the talking ties between adults and children in the community?
Where will the lessons of community service and volunteerism be taught?
What will be left that the John Burroughs community has in common,
especially its youngest members?
Not one ounce of official consideration is being given to such things.
When you are worried about achievement tests, square footage and budgets
who has time?
(One final irony: John Burroughs school was built in 1921, decades
before either the recently preserved MLK Library and Christian Science
Church.)
In the late 1960s, I argued that DC should have governing neighborhood
commissions. When we were granted "advisory neighborhood commissions" in
the 1970s, I argued that our first goal should be to kick the A out of
ANC, replacing their token status with real governmental powers. I still
believe such bodies are a greatly needed national urban reform. Among
the jobs of such bodies would be to preserve the community and culture
which they serve.
Another tool is already in the law, but widely ignored. Section 102 of
the National Envrionmental Policy Act passed nearly four decades ago
called for all federal agencies to "include in every recommendation or
report on legislative proposals and other major federal actions
significantly affecting the quality of the human environment"
Thomas Sanders of the Kennedy School has written of environmental impact
statements and their lessons for "social capital impact statements" or
what might be better called culture and community impact statements.
Writes Sanders, among the things such statements might flag would be "an
urban renewal 'slum' clearance case that focuses solely on the physical
condition of a community and ignores its social condition. . . The
massive defunding of school extra-curricular activities would be another
category of policies with clear negative social capital impact. A clear
case on the positive side would likely be a city policy to convert an
abandoned lot used for trash dumping into a community park or public
space". . .
Nonethless, as Tom Angotti wrote in the Gotham Gazette:
"Contrary to common belief, the environmental impact statement doesn't
stop anyone from doing something that damages the environment. It only
forces them to publicly declare it. From the start the environmental
review process was skillfully designed to get around potential legal
challenges by environmentalists who charged that the impact on the
environment wasn't considered, and from developers who would undermine
environmental laws saying they interfere with their property rights.". .
.
"The environmental impact statement can't answer the most important
questions because its methodology is flawed. . . It doesn't consider the
impact of pollution on public health . . . It doesn't consider the
extent to which the environmental impacts fall disproportionately on one
or another group - for example, people with low incomes. . . It doesn't
look at the effect on the level and quality of public services, which
are very much a part of the quality of the urban environment. . .
"Yet another problem is that many large-scale projects evade the
environmental impact statement entirely because they are 'as-of-right' -
that is, they require no zoning change or other official land use
action. An as-of-right 500-unit apartment building in Manhattan can
result in more traffic and noise in a neighborhood that's already
overburdened, and there will be no environmental review."
Of course, before cultural and community impact statements could
develop, there would be a need for the same sort of passionate desire to
preserve culture and community that we have seen with the environment
and historic buildings.
There are some such movements scattered throughout the country. For
example, Defense of Place takes on issues like Jean Klock Park:
"In Benton Harbor, Michigan, Defense of Place has been working with
local residents to assure that Michigan's poorest city doesn't lose its
most precious asset--the public's Jean Klock Park, to a private luxury
golf course. Jean Klock Park encompasses rare lakefront beaches and
dunes on the shores of Lake Michigan. Because of its natural beauty and
rare lakefront, it became desirable for developers who want to use it as
the centerpiece of a luxury housing development that will be completely
out of reach for Benton Harbor's residents. The park was given to the
city with the promise that it be kept for the public in perpetuity. Land
and Water Conservation Fund dollars have funded significant park
improvements with the restriction that the entire park be protected."
But on the whole, we don't give our communities and our cultures the
same respect we have learned to give history and the natural
environment.
For example, global environmental groups long shortchanged threatened
human cultures, tacitly assuming them to be in a class less worthy, say,
than tigers and giraffes.
History also distorts our perspective on what's important. Sorting out
discussions by time rather than by culture - along with components such
as myth, folklore and tradition - limits us greatly. We have become far
more interested in time sequences as we have gained the ability to
determine them, though in some cultures the way we approach history
might seem odd, as with the American Indian story-teller who began his
tale, "I'm not sure all the facts are right but this story is true."
One of the things I noticed as an anthropology major was how different
the approach was to what was going on elsewhere in the university,
particularly in the history department. Past and present were not so
neatly divided. And place was extremely important.
Here is how the anthropologist AL Kroeber described it long ago:
"[The] placing of phenomena in space is an indispensable need in all the
historical sciences - astronomy, geology, paleontology, evolutionary
biology, geography, as well as in history and anthropology. . . History
absolutely brings in the space or place factor unceasingly. Napoleon was
born in Corsica, became emperor of France, marched as far as Moscow, was
defeated at Waterloo, died in St. Helena, his bones rest in Paris, Can
we imagine his career without reference to place and area? It would be a
meaningless thing in a vacuum. As a matter of fact, that Waterloo lies
in Belgium and not in France or Germany is as significant as that the
battle was fought in
1815 and not in 1810 or 1820.
"It is often said that the specific quality of history is its dealing
with time sequence. Why the time factor should be singled out for this
distinction is hard to understand, except that the equally important
space factor is so much taken for granted as to be overlooked. . .
Nevertheless, place obviously counts in history as much as time."
As our local historical society was struggling recently to revive
itself, it struck me that part of the answer might be to change the name
and its purpose: from the Historical Society of Washington to something
like the Center for Washington History, Culture & Community. It might
then offer programs and exhibits on the contemporary cab industry (the
largest per capita in the country) or DC's important Ethiopian
community. The purpose would not be to diminish history but to blend
time and place. Further, in an era when traditional history is often
considered archaic after six months, this might help people move into
the past by entering through the door of the present.
On a much larger scale it is what we also need: a movement to preserve
and celebrate our communities and cultures as well as we have come to
honor our history and natural environment. We need preservational
equality between the natural and the human, history and contemporary,
time and space - among other things, to make a school that adults and
children love as important as an old building no one is quite sure what
to do with.
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PRESERVING CULTURE & COMMUNITY AS WELL AS WE DO HISTORY
Sam Smith
A series of incidents in my hometown got me thinking about a little
noted anomaly: if you want to save something in urban America, make sure
it's old. And an old building at that. Old people don't count. Neither
do present day culture and community.
There's nothing wrong with saving old buildings. This journal has
supported many battles for historic preservation, including turning back
an effort to wreck Pennsylvania Avenue between the Capitol and the White
House and the preservation of Washington's first park and shop. The late
John Wiebenson, who did a long-running and unique urban planning comic
strip for us, was a major voice for sensible preservation.
But a trio of recent conflicts have raised some new issues. For example,
what's more important: the preservation of an old building or an old
guy. As Marc Fisher wrote in the Washington Post:
"For more than a year, Richard Lucas has been trying to win permission
to cut through his elderly, infirm parents' front porch so they can get
from their living quarters onto the street without climbing stairs. And
for more than a year, the D.C. historic preservation authorities have
found reasons to say no to a ramp.
"After all, as the city's architectural historian put it, 'repeating
porches of similar height and depth create a notable pattern and rhythm'
along the Lucas family's Mount Pleasant street, and the District
wouldn't want to let that rhythm be broken just to accommodate a couple
of old folks who have lived in their house for 47 years.
"Again and again, Lucas tried to satisfy the city's preservation police,
paying his architect to rework plans for a ramp to minimize its impact
on the supposedly pristine look of the 1930s row houses on Walbridge
Place NW. But each time Lucas tried, the city came up with more
objections. And so, at ages 90 and 87, Cornelius and Merry Lucas remain
stuck in their basement rooms, able to come and go only through a back
door that opens onto an alleyway."
Then there are the two cases of buildings which, though only 30-40 years
old, have attracted the preservationists and an impressive legal
weaponry that developed during this same period. Here's how the DC
Preservation League describes a building it designated as one of the
endangered places of the year:
"The Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial Library was awarded Landmark
status by the Historic Preservation Review Board in June of 2007. . .
The only example in Washington, DC of the mature style of pre-eminent
Modernist architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, the Martin Luther King,
Jr. Memorial Library has stood as the only monument to Dr. King in the
nation's capital for the past 30 years. It holds special significance to
the millions of Washingtonians who have come to the library over the
past decades to participate in a wide variety of programs and
activities, and is a center of community life in the District."
Well, sort of. You can find a whole lot of people who have used or
worked in the library who considered it extremely dumpy, ill designed
for its purpose, with non-working elevators and unattractive spaces. The
auditorium space seem almost an afterthought stuck in the basement.
Admittedly, it has some of the charm of a semi-abandoned fortress. You
never quite know what's around the next corner or through the next door
or whether the elevator will make it to your floor. The outside is kind
of neat, though, and it has been argued that the interior was never
properly constructed the way the architects intended. Further, you could
say that it is a monument to that soon to be seen as curious era of
modern architecture (soon to be ended by the pragmatic requirements of
ecological considerations) in which style ran roughshod over such minor
issues as whether the roof leaked or whether the elevator worked.
But whatever one's views, undeniably the forces for preserving the
mature style of pre-eminent Modernists is substantial in law, politics
and in public action even if it is only a few decades old.
Then we have the case of the Third Church of Christ, Scientist in
downtown Washington, nicely described by the American Spectator:
"How many dollars does it take to change a light bulb? Well, if the
defunct bulb you're replacing has been illuminating the Third Church of
Christ, Scientist in downtown Washington, you could be looking at a bill
of up to $8,000. That's because unscrewing a blown bulb in that concrete
monument to impracticality is tantamount to a construction project.
According to one church official, you've got to build scaffolding just
to reach some of the bulbs. . .
" It's a largely windowless octagonal tower made of raw, weathered
concrete, and it's surrounded by a sterile 'plaza' that seems to have
been emptied to keep the line of fire clear. The site inspires few
people with a sense of spirituality.
"That includes its own congregation, which has always disliked the
building and dearly wants to be rid of its ugliness and its crushing
costs, but which has been prevented from replacing the structure by
Washington's local preservation authorities.
"Not that the church is either old or historic. It was designed in 1971
in an effort by the Christian Science church to establish a signature
architectural presence in the heart of the capital. . . The church
tapped I.M. Pei's firm for the design. . .
"The sanctuary seats 400, though the active congregation has shrunk to
some 50 worshippers. The building's concrete exterior is already
deteriorating, and the maintenance costs are overwhelming. Money that
would be better spent on the church's mission, members say, is eaten up
by the building itself.
"So why has the city's Historic Preservation Review Board unanimously
declared the Third Church of Christ, Scientist to be an official D.C.
landmark, preventing not only its demolition, but even its unauthorized
alteration? Because, it turns out, it is a sterling example of the
mid-century school of design known as Brutalism."
Again, the point here is not to argue the specific case or to disparage
preservation, but to illustrate just how powerful the historic
preservation movement has become in the few decades since such buildings
were constructed.
Now let's move to another part of town: Ward 5, about as classic a
Washington community as you're going to find. It has a disproportionate
share of DC natives, is heavily black but with many long time white
residents, is in the middle by education level among the eight wards and
below average in income. It has, however, the third highest
homeownership rate and its crime rate has been falling since 2001. Its
black community has included the likes of Sterling Brown, Edward Brooke,
Robert Weaver and Ralph Bunche, but it is also home to what is purported
to be the largest collection of Catholic institutions outside of the
Vatican.
This community is now the main target of a plan by the city's mayor and
school chancellor to close 23 schools, almost a third of them in Ward 5.
The two officials - for whom certainty appears to be regarded as an
adequate substitute for competence - have given no evidence that they
consider either culture or community a matter worth examining, let alone
respecting.
Two of their main grounds for closing a school: declining attendance in
recent years and square footage. The decline in attendance, of course,
doesn't reveal whether the drop has ended or will continue or whether it
reflects the raid on the city's school system by a charter school
program heavily pushed by congressional conservatives. Further, it
cleverly protects the schools in nearly all white Ward 3 as these,
though small in size, are no longer declining.
Neither of the criteria impress me much for a quite personal reason. I
went through fourth grade in a DC public school the city had been trying
to close that would have met neither of the current criteria. We had 160
kids with four teachers, two of them maiden sisters known by everyone as
the thin Miss Waddy and the fat Miss Waddy. It lacked special programs
and we undoubtedly took up too many square feet to be truly
educationally efficient. Nonetheless, out of this failure came a dean of
Catholic University, a foreign correspondent for a major newspaper, an
urban planning professor and an irrepressible independent journalist,
just to name a few from my period - proving once again that in
education, objective standards often don't cut it. What's happening in
that square footage of whatever size, and who's doing it, is what really
matters.
To make matters worse in Ward 5, the chancellor announced that public
hearings on the 23 school closings would all be held on the same
evening, making it impossible for anyone of real authority to hear what
was being said. The citizens rightly responded by boycotting the
hearings in favor of one at the city hall arranged by some friendly
council members.
One of the schools, John Burroughs, even put up a web site to help in
its fight against closure. On it you can learn that this school the city
wants to shut down is:
- one of five Middle States accredited elementary schools in dc
- Meets federal requirements in reading and math
- Placed first in the city's black history contest
- Has a scout program, cheerleads and a ski club
- ranks 15th citywide in reading and 12th in math
This is the sort of thing communities run into repeatedly as they
confront a Brutalist bureaucracy or the mature style of pre-eminent
Modernist politicians - but without the sort of weapons that historic
preservations have developed.
Even existing law - which would seem to require that the city give
"great weight" to the opinion of the local neighborhood commissions - is
being ignored. And there certainly is no Community Preservation Board
with staff to send out and enforce the protection of the city's
neighborhoods against budget-mad officials.
This is just one example. DC is also proposing to destroy some
neighborhood icons like libraries and firehouses by submerging them in
new commercial high rises, politely called "mixed use" but actually the
secular version of putting a church on the 8th floor of a skyscraper.
There is simply no consciousness that when you hide such community
symbols it has a deleterious effect on the community itself and replaces
the values of citizens living and working together with those of big box
capitalism in which the citizen is reduced to either a consumer or a
subservient employee.
A similar thing happens when you close a school. Where will the John
Burroughs scouts and ski club go? Where will the community meet? What
will be the talking ties between adults and children in the community?
Where will the lessons of community service and volunteerism be taught?
What will be left that the John Burroughs community has in common,
especially its youngest members?
Not one ounce of official consideration is being given to such things.
When you are worried about achievement tests, square footage and budgets
who has time?
(One final irony: John Burroughs school was built in 1921, decades
before either the recently preserved MLK Library and Christian Science
Church.)
In the late 1960s, I argued that DC should have governing neighborhood
commissions. When we were granted "advisory neighborhood commissions" in
the 1970s, I argued that our first goal should be to kick the A out of
ANC, replacing their token status with real governmental powers. I still
believe such bodies are a greatly needed national urban reform. Among
the jobs of such bodies would be to preserve the community and culture
which they serve.
Another tool is already in the law, but widely ignored. Section 102 of
the National Envrionmental Policy Act passed nearly four decades ago
called for all federal agencies to "include in every recommendation or
report on legislative proposals and other major federal actions
significantly affecting the quality of the human environment"
Thomas Sanders of the Kennedy School has written of environmental impact
statements and their lessons for "social capital impact statements" or
what might be better called culture and community impact statements.
Writes Sanders, among the things such statements might flag would be "an
urban renewal 'slum' clearance case that focuses solely on the physical
condition of a community and ignores its social condition. . . The
massive defunding of school extra-curricular activities would be another
category of policies with clear negative social capital impact. A clear
case on the positive side would likely be a city policy to convert an
abandoned lot used for trash dumping into a community park or public
space". . .
Nonethless, as Tom Angotti wrote in the Gotham Gazette:
"Contrary to common belief, the environmental impact statement doesn't
stop anyone from doing something that damages the environment. It only
forces them to publicly declare it. From the start the environmental
review process was skillfully designed to get around potential legal
challenges by environmentalists who charged that the impact on the
environment wasn't considered, and from developers who would undermine
environmental laws saying they interfere with their property rights.". .
.
"The environmental impact statement can't answer the most important
questions because its methodology is flawed. . . It doesn't consider the
impact of pollution on public health . . . It doesn't consider the
extent to which the environmental impacts fall disproportionately on one
or another group - for example, people with low incomes. . . It doesn't
look at the effect on the level and quality of public services, which
are very much a part of the quality of the urban environment. . .
"Yet another problem is that many large-scale projects evade the
environmental impact statement entirely because they are 'as-of-right' -
that is, they require no zoning change or other official land use
action. An as-of-right 500-unit apartment building in Manhattan can
result in more traffic and noise in a neighborhood that's already
overburdened, and there will be no environmental review."
Of course, before cultural and community impact statements could
develop, there would be a need for the same sort of passionate desire to
preserve culture and community that we have seen with the environment
and historic buildings.
There are some such movements scattered throughout the country. For
example, Defense of Place takes on issues like Jean Klock Park:
"In Benton Harbor, Michigan, Defense of Place has been working with
local residents to assure that Michigan's poorest city doesn't lose its
most precious asset--the public's Jean Klock Park, to a private luxury
golf course. Jean Klock Park encompasses rare lakefront beaches and
dunes on the shores of Lake Michigan. Because of its natural beauty and
rare lakefront, it became desirable for developers who want to use it as
the centerpiece of a luxury housing development that will be completely
out of reach for Benton Harbor's residents. The park was given to the
city with the promise that it be kept for the public in perpetuity. Land
and Water Conservation Fund dollars have funded significant park
improvements with the restriction that the entire park be protected."
But on the whole, we don't give our communities and our cultures the
same respect we have learned to give history and the natural
environment.
For example, global environmental groups long shortchanged threatened
human cultures, tacitly assuming them to be in a class less worthy, say,
than tigers and giraffes.
History also distorts our perspective on what's important. Sorting out
discussions by time rather than by culture - along with components such
as myth, folklore and tradition - limits us greatly. We have become far
more interested in time sequences as we have gained the ability to
determine them, though in some cultures the way we approach history
might seem odd, as with the American Indian story-teller who began his
tale, "I'm not sure all the facts are right but this story is true."
One of the things I noticed as an anthropology major was how different
the approach was to what was going on elsewhere in the university,
particularly in the history department. Past and present were not so
neatly divided. And place was extremely important.
Here is how the anthropologist AL Kroeber described it long ago:
"[The] placing of phenomena in space is an indispensable need in all the
historical sciences - astronomy, geology, paleontology, evolutionary
biology, geography, as well as in history and anthropology. . . History
absolutely brings in the space or place factor unceasingly. Napoleon was
born in Corsica, became emperor of France, marched as far as Moscow, was
defeated at Waterloo, died in St. Helena, his bones rest in Paris, Can
we imagine his career without reference to place and area? It would be a
meaningless thing in a vacuum. As a matter of fact, that Waterloo lies
in Belgium and not in France or Germany is as significant as that the
battle was fought in
1815 and not in 1810 or 1820.
"It is often said that the specific quality of history is its dealing
with time sequence. Why the time factor should be singled out for this
distinction is hard to understand, except that the equally important
space factor is so much taken for granted as to be overlooked. . .
Nevertheless, place obviously counts in history as much as time."
As our local historical society was struggling recently to revive
itself, it struck me that part of the answer might be to change the name
and its purpose: from the Historical Society of Washington to something
like the Center for Washington History, Culture & Community. It might
then offer programs and exhibits on the contemporary cab industry (the
largest per capita in the country) or DC's important Ethiopian
community. The purpose would not be to diminish history but to blend
time and place. Further, in an era when traditional history is often
considered archaic after six months, this might help people move into
the past by entering through the door of the present.
On a much larger scale it is what we also need: a movement to preserve
and celebrate our communities and cultures as well as we have come to
honor our history and natural environment. We need preservational
equality between the natural and the human, history and contemporary,
time and space - among other things, to make a school that adults and
children love as important as an old building no one is quite sure what
to do with.
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