May is National Historic Preservation Month | Why after almost 60 years since the passage of the National Historic Preservation Act, is preservation such a hard slog?

In response to both urban renewal and highway building, the National Historic Preservation Act was passed in 1966, which provided a system of reviewing "federal undertakings," including the use of federal funding for impact on existing buildings.  

It set up the National Register of Historic Places and a system for noting buildings, sites, and districts, including "vernacular" neighborhoods, with significant value to history and character.

One of the things I learned in DC early on, is despite the "hype" of a listing on the National Register of Historic Places, that only protects buildings from federal undertakings, and most of the threats to buildings are by non-federal actors.  So a local preservation law is needed, to be able to counter such threats.

But most media coverage of preservation never covers this.  So I was surprised to see it recognized in a recent article.

Another thing I learned in DC is that it has the strongest local law in the country, in that it doesn't provide an opportunity for Executive or Legislative Branch preemption while most other communities do give final decision making authority to either or both branches, and allows non property owners to nominate buildings, makes demolition incredibly difficult, and provides little truck for economic hardship claims.  Although through appointments to the Historic Preservation Review Board the Executive still has sway, especially through the appointment of hacks.

One of the best books explaining the value of historic preservation to urban revitalization is Changing Places: Rebuilding Community in the Age of Sprawl, written at the time by the president of the National Trust for Historic Preservation.  

It's long out of print, but really hammers home how community is strengthened by architectural character, and how preservation is a valuable strategy for stabilizing neighborhoods and attracting new residents.

Note that while more focused on Downtowns and commercial districts, Cities: Back from the Edge is a similarly important read.

In fact these days, I say preservation clearly worked, because in many center cities, it is the neighborhoods characterized by historic residences (usually pre-1940) that are the most popular and successful.

But that being said, from all the articles I see, especially from weak real estate market cities like Philadelphia, Detroit, and Baltimore, I wonder how it is that the preservation method has not taken hold, that great buildings are continually lost, and that people have to work very hard and diligently to create historic districts to begin with.

In fact, in a state like Utah, the State Legislature has pretty much preempted the ability of Salt Lake City to create traditional historic districts, the workaround is to go street by street and block by block, which dimishes the value and importance of the "ensemble."  

Note that the value of "the architecture of the ensemble" is discussed by Stephen Semes in The Future of the Past: A Conservation Ethic for Architecture, Urbanism and Historic Preservation.

Some of the issues that have caught my eye over the past year are rampant demolition in Detroit, such as an apartment building next to a park, and the old headquarters of the AMC automobile manufacturing company.  Strengthening the city around buildings with meaning and architectural character is the way to go ("Urbanism obituaries, 2022 | Death clusters of people, buildings and organizations as an indicator of institutional failure").

I've seen a bunch of articles in the Philadelphia Inquirer:

-- a church, not recognizing the value of interior architecture, including two stained glass windows by Tiffany, sells the stuff for a pittance, "A church sold its old stained glass windows for $6,000. It turned out they were rare Tiffany glass."

-- the on-going effort to restore the house of a once prominent black artist (the house is tied up in family estate matters and has been left to rot in the interim), "Mellon Foundation awards $150K planning grant to Friends of the Tanner House and Penn preservation center"

-- the value of neighborhood historic districts (um, duh), "Creation of historic districts protecting Philly neighborhoods"

-- The Inquirer is one of the only papers nationally to still cover architecture and urban design in a regular fashion, columnist Inga Saffron is superb, "Are historic districts the solution to Philadelphia’s preservation crisis?"  From the article:

Give Jim Kenney this much: He was the first — and maybe the last — mayoral candidate to take up the cause of Philadelphia’s beleaguered architectural heritage. Once in office, he convened a promising task force to come up with better strategies for protecting the city’s gorgeous old buildings. 

So, it’s been frustrating to watch as Mayor Kenney has struggled to convert his good intentions into effective policy. Yes, he did manage to beef up staffing at the woefully understaffed Historical Commission. He also introduced some modest incentives to encourage renovations. But nearly five years after the historic preservation task force issued its final report, his administration still hasn’t completed the top item on the group’s to-do list: compiling an inventory of preservation-worthy buildings.  In the meantime, it’s pretty much been business as usual. 

Beloved buildings continue to disappear as they always have, casualties of flagrant neglect and a zoning code that favors new construction. The Historical Commission, always deferential to real estate interests, continues to allow developers great leeway. 

Despite all Kenney’s talk about respecting the city’s treasures, we saw the commission’s board cut a deal with developer Leo Addimando in 2020 to significantly modify International House on the very day it placed the award-winning student dormitory in West Philadelphia on the city’s historic register.

... For a long time, Philadelphia’s preservation battles centered primarily on individual landmarks, such as the Boyd Theatre, St. Laurentius Church, the Frankford Chocolate & Candy factory. There’s no doubt those glorious buildings were familiar touchstones that resonated with many Philadelphians. But in a city distinguished more by ensembles of buildings and the cultural memories embedded in them, it’s not enough to fight for stand-alone monuments; it’s more important to concentrate our efforts on protecting places. The way to do that is by creating historic districts.

In fact, this blog's first piece was the reprint of an op-ed I published in the Philadelphia Daily News on the value of preservation, and at the conference I attended, I asked a leading question of a plenary speaker, about the anti-preservation efforts by the then Mayor of Philadelphia, John Street.  They reversed course somewhat, but 20 years later, there's a story in the PI about the value of historic districts...

 -- also a story about how Lower Merion Township is starting a historic plaque program for houses, "Lower Merion started a program to honor historical homes"

Photo: Elizabeth Robertson, Philadelphia Inquirer.

And I was disturbed by this article in the Baltimore Sun, "Baltimore panel postpones final demolition hearing for historic Hendler Creamery building," about the okay to demolish a historic facade, which has tons of character, and would likely remain far superior architecturally to whatever replaces it.

What the Hendler Creamery building was (Flickr photo).

What it is today.  

How could this building go from useful to wrecked in 8 years is beyond me, but it demonstrates the failure to recognize the importance of historic preservation at some level, as one of the best urban revitalization strategies around.  And this is in Baltimore, where the value of preservation is recognized.  I guess it's about lack of resources.  Which is the issue in a city like Detroit too.

And there are tons of articles about opposition to the creation of historic districts over "property rights" where homeowners don't want anyone else to comment on how they take care of their property.

Many people criticize historic preservation as a sop to privileged interests, that higher income areas are more likely to be designated etc.  This is a point made in both Urban Fortunes and History of Urban Places (both great books).

But to my way of thinking they miss the point.  You need strategies to stabilize neighborhoods and retain higher income residents, since they're the ones who generate the tax revenues that cities rely on to function. 

At the same time, for a city, preservation is pretty cheap.  

They pass a law and property owners, not the city, have to pay for it.  The only real costs are regulatory, and those costs can be subsidized a bit with funds from the federal government so long as the city is a "certified local government" for historic preservation matters.

Yes, brick sidewalks might be an item, like in DC, and historically appropriate street lights, and maybe some tax credits, but at the end of the day, it's a lot cheaper than the $600 million DC paid for the Washington Nationals baseball stadium, and with a lot more economic return.