Most Endangered Historic Sites

The National Trust for Historic Preservation released its annual list of the 11 most endangered historic sites yesterday.

As always, this was a great list reminding us both of the fragility of our physical history and of the importance of remembering less revered moments of our past. Previous lists have included the motels on Route 66, including many in Albuquerque that today are basically hourly establishments; Blair Mountain, the labor battle in West Virginia that was the site of the largest insurrection in U.S. history since the Civil War and which is indeed under major threat from coal developers; the old Filipino community in Stockton, California; the Lower East Side of New York City, where rapid redevelopment has stripped the area of its incredibly important history; and Daniel Webster's farm in New Hampshire.

This year's list is really great. It includes the hanger in Utah where the Enola Gay started its journey to drop the atomic bomb upon Japan, the Century Plaza hotel in Los Angeles, one of the nation's most important modernist structures; the old South Dakota insane asylum in Yankton, which is supposed to be architecturally amazing; the cast-iron architecture of Galveston, Texas; and New Mexico's Mount Taylor, a holy site for many native peoples and under threat from uranium mining. None of these places capture the public imagination, but all are important pieces of our past. Since the National Trust for Historic Preservation started these lists in 1988, only five sites have been destroyed. No doubt we would have lost more without them. Without public attention, what would save buildings like the South Dakota insane asylum. Who's even been to Yankton? Yet these are amazing places.

Historic Preservation

My thesis to this little post is that historic preservation is a great idea but I have problems with how it often actually occurs. My problems are two fold. First, everyone is extremely concerned with the details of the outer structures, but could not care less about the insides of a building. Second, there is much more attention paid to preserving a building than keeping it functional. I have two little snippets to illustrate each point.


I am way behind on my New Yorker reading. I've been perusing the June 11 & 18 issue. In the Talk of the Town, Margaret Borden talks about an ancient house lived in by an eccentric who had not changed anything in their his whole life. This meant that all the interior furnishings came from the late 19th and early 20th century. The house, built in 1878, was almost a museum to a lost way of life. Of course, this being a desirable Manhattan location, once the owner decided to sell, there was a feeding frenzy to buy it. It went on the market for over 3 1/2 million dollars. Everyone wanted to complete tear the insides out and start over. it makes sense--once refurbished, the asking price will surpass $10 million.


But shouldn't we value the internal decorations of a house as much as the external structure? In 100 years, will historians, urban planners, and architectural scholars look back and shake their heads at our lack of foresight on proper historic preservation techniques? Who knows. But I'm sure we should value interior history as much as exterior structure.



On the other hand, in Latin America, you don't usually have much of a budget for historic preservation. Yet buildings are saved all the time. There, they do not worry about the insides at all. But they do a hell of a job dealing with another criticism I have of historic preservation--the lack of keeping the building a living, functional thing. In Mexico, Brazil, and Honduras at least, I have seen hundreds of buildings, probably from no later than the 1920s, still standing with much of their beautiful architecture intact. But the front of the first floor has been completely ripped out and turned into business space. Could be an internet cafe, could be a bar, could be a car repair shop. They all have the ubiquitous metal gate protecting the insides at night.



From the perspective of the U.S. historic preservationist, many of these buildings have lost their original intent and "integrity" as they would put it. Who cares? If the alternative is tearing it down and putting up another ugly concrete monstrosity, isn't this better? I think it's a really cool way to keep a lot of character in neighborhood buildings while also maintaining healthy, living communities.



I know these two points contradict each other on some levels. But they are connected by my desire to see people rethink historic preservation standards to both value interior structures and outside communities in order to make old buildings part of interesting, commercially successful, and functional neighborhoods.