Rebuilding Place in the Urban Space

"A community’s physical form, rather than its land uses, is its most intrinsic and enduring characteristic." [Katz, EPA] This blog focuses on place and placemaking and all that makes it work--historic preservation, urban design, transportation, asset-based community development, arts & cultural development, commercial district revitalization, tourism & destination development, and quality of life advocacy--along with doses of civic engagement and good governance watchdogging.

Wednesday, May 06, 2020

Uncovering architectural details lost to layering | May is National Historic Preservation Month

The kitchen floor when we moved into our house, was covered in flaking linoleum, which I took off.  Underneath was original pine wood flooring, which in a way had been preserved from being covered.

There are reports that people are taking on DIY projects, since they are shut in by the coronavirus ("How Coronavirus Has Made Us All Very Handy," New York Times).

Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop reports that City Hall floors covered in linoleum hid beautiful original tile (it needed to be buffed up to show its beauty).




Similarly, in England, Kate Cowher's bathroom project uncovered Edwardian era tiling. 

Labels: ,

2 Comments:

At 4:20 PM, Anonymous charlie said...

Not sure if you've seen this series:

https://www.popville.com/tag/archeological-finds/


I have no idea who did the fire alarm station "preservation" but it is pretty cool.


Bloomingdales/LeDroit park so nice! I've only gone there on foot through Rhode Island which is depressing. So nice when cutting through Howard.


 
At 6:43 PM, Blogger Richard Layman said...

nope. thanks. I don't normally look at Popville...

Yes, those neighborhoods are amazing.

Checking out random blocks shows so much vernacular beauty.

Bloomingdale is lucky in that they have a lot of 3 story buildings. And LeDroit Park has a bunch of buildings that seem to have been drawn on the designs of Andrew Jackson Downing.

Fire alarm boxes project = CulturalTourismDC.

My only problem with it was that it was time limited and extranormal assistance wasn't provided to those neighborhoods possessing less social and community capital.

Neighborhoods with able capable people managed to apply for the funds, create and execute a program.

The neighborhoods without that (e.g., H Street, etc.) ended up without a program.

(Similarly, DDOT should have funded capacity building for information and art projects in bus shelters. Instead, pretty much only BIDs managed to produce directories and such to place in them.)

 

Post a Comment

<< Home