Historic preservation advocacy and some (rueful) advice on "knowing" your audience...

Last night I intended to go to the ANC1B Transportation Forum, but instead at 5 pm I was dragooned into making a presentation at 6:30 pm about a pending historic landmark nomination to be heard later in the month. So I whipped up the presentation in an hour or so, with some last minute image assistance from Peter Sefton. Nothing fancy, no powerpoint, just some basic text-talking points with five images (a/k/a "eye candy").

DC Transit 1570 on Route 80 at Brookland loop. Joe Testagrose Collection.

Opening film when the Newton Theater opened in July 1937

Newton Theater, Brookland, Washington, DC, late 1930s.

The thing about landmark nominations is that you have to think of your "marketing" in two very different ways. One is directed to the Historic Preservation Review Board, with the nomination, any supplemental materials submitted in advance of the hearing, and the hearing presentation. They only weigh information relevant to the nomination, that the building (or district) satisfies the criteria necessary for designation:
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Criteria for Evaluation (from the National Register of Historic Places website)*

The quality of significance in American history, architecture, archeology, engineering, and culture is present in districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects that possess integrity of location, design, setting, materials, workmanship, feeling, and association, and:

A. That are associated with events that have made a significant contribution to the broad patterns of our history; or
B. That are associated with the lives of persons significant in our past; or
C. That embody the distinctive characteristics of a type, period, or method of construction, or that represent the work of a master, or that possess high artistic values, or that represent a significant and distinguishable entity whose components may lack individual distinction; or
D. That have yielded or may be likely to yield, information important in prehistory or history.

Note: Usually Criterion C covers the creation of historic districts. *The criteria used in DC are slightly different, but derive from the NR criteria.
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In DC law, that's all the HPRB is empowered to consider. Not whether or not the property owner is in favor, not how the building is used, etc. (Owner approval is required to be listed on the National Register, but the DC Law provides standing for neighborhood or city-wide organizations committed to historic preservation issues, as well as DC Government agencies including ANCs, to be able to submit nominations in any case.)

When you're making presentations to neighborhood groups, including ANCs, you can discuss broader social and other issues. But also, which I forgot last night, you usually need to lay out some of the precepts about historic preservation and why it's good public policy. (The thing I did mention is that historic designation provides a mandatory process to gather and respond to citizen input in terms of changes to buildings and their settings. That's why this landmark nomination went forward, because the tenant wanted to make drastic changes to the neon signage, which still hews pretty close to the original.)

It's ironic that I forgot to do this, because I talk and write about it all the time, including in testimony to City Council last Friday where once again I said "the defining elements of the competitive advantage possessed by the District of Columbia are architecture, urban design, and history." Plus, given that the dominant thinking in the U.S., perhaps since the very beginning of the country, that "new is good" and "old is not" you have to build your case very carefully to yield the result you want.

So someone had a question about what is CVS's take on this? And I responded "owner permission [they actually rent] isn't required under DC Law"... And he said but this puts restrictions on what the property owner can do and how his parents in Massachusetts can't tear down their 1850s farmhouse and replace it with condominiums and how that's an economic hardship. (Fortunately, this interpretation isn't likely under DC Law.)

Well, you can imagine how I reacted... I didn't talk about history vs. the exchange value of place or even that such is a zoning issue and a development policy issue more than one of historic preservation, but I was somewhat pissed (this person's reactionary approach to everything--gets to me...) and we didn't go down that road.

But, it's clear to me that when doing these presentations, even for a single building, you need to start at the very beginning, about the competitive advantages, that historic preservation was essential to stabilizing and improving DC neighborhoods in the long almost 50 year period of disinvestment and population leakage suffered by the city, and that the neighborhoods people are clamoring to live in today are desirable because for the most part they have been preserved as a result of the preservation ethic.

The Newton Theater, Brookland, today. For the most part the exterior of this building is intact and in great shape, unlike many of the theater buildings still extant around the city.

Index Keywords: historic-preservation