All posts filed under: Historic Preservation

Landmark alert: World’s best custard

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Travel has its benefits. I was in Milwaukee yesterday for the announcement of the 2011 list of America’s 11 Most Endangered Historic Places.  We had a terrific event with our local partners, pointing out the threat to a real national treasure:  the National Soldiers Home Historic District.  One of three homes built for Civil War veterans after Abraham Lincoln authorized them as one of the last acts of his presidency, the Milwaukee Soldiers Home is the only one to maintain the context of the historic buildings and landscape.  One of the veterans who spoke at our event said that this place was critical to his recovery from PTSD, noting that the two words most associated with the site by veterans were “peace” and “serenity.”  To lose such a place of healing would  be a travesty. On this trip my colleague Genell introduced me to another national treasure (though not endangered):  Leon’s World Famous Frozen Custard.  My, my!  What a wonderful frozen custard.  It was great to watch the employees pour a large bucket of milk …

Disappearing governance, disappearing heritage

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Preservationists  have grown increasingly concerned about the nationwide trend to balance national and state budgets on the backs of our heritage. This isn’t a new issue but the impact is now being felt nationwide, not only in national programs but in state after state.  A large number of legislatures this past winter went for  disproportionate cuts to historic preservation, historic parks, and incentives for reusing and revitalizing our communities. It is such a short-sighted approach to governing.  But perhaps – just perhaps – the national media and the public are finally beginning to see the issue. Just yesterday, two stories came out that spoke to this folly. The first, a column by NY Times writer Timothy Egan, speaks to the misguided approach by the State of California.  Egan is a favorite of mine, who writes from outside the New York-to-Washington echo chamber and has two great histories out in his Dust Bowl-related The Worst Hard Time and The Big Burn, which chronicles the founding of the Forest Service.  Yesterday’s Fall of the Wild column in …

Wrestling With Edward Glaeser

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I have finished two books in the past couple of weeks that are about the same general topic: the future of our cities.  These works, however, come to strikingly different conclusions.  Triumph of the City is a 2011 work by Harvard economist Edward Glaeser.  In a burst of amazing publicity, Glaeser has been all over the media touting his ideas of more density, more density, and – did I say – more density as the prescription for our cities and the planet.  In contrast, my son passed along his copy of the 2009 book by former Boston Globe reporter Anthony Flint, Wrestling With Moses:  How Jane Jacobs Took on New York’s Master Builder and Transformed the American City which I finished last week.  This small yet eloquent tale reads like a novel and carries the punch of the biblical story of David vs. Goliath. In Triumph of the City, Glaeser makes a compelling overall argument:  that cities are efficient, inherently environmental, and healthful for the future of the planet.   I agree with that general thesis.  …

NYC: Continuing a Spring Break Tradition

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This is a tradition that begins with an oft-told story. When Claire was in fourth grade, she returned home from school one day to announce that the teacher had asked everyone to tell the class what their parents did for a living.  So I asked Claire, “What did you say?”  She replied, “I said my father signs papers and goes to meetings.” In her own straight-forward, fourth grade sense of the world, she was correct, and I told her so.  But I also said that meetings and papers were not why I worked.  And from that conversation, the annual Spring Break trip to get to know Daddy’s world was born. A few weeks later I spoke to my then-boss and said I’d like to take one child with me on a trip during Spring Break to see the work of the National Trust.  Dick blessed the idea, saying he had done something similar when he worked in the White House. My rules:  it had to be a legitimate work trip where they could see some …

Theatre Rebirth

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I knew that I had become my father when I found myself telling a friend a few years ago that “I paid more for my last car than I did for my first house.”  It was one of those lines that my father used when I was young – and here I was repeating it!  (Just to set the record straight, our now 10-year-old car wasn’t that expensive; it just happened that as newlyweds, we got a great deal on a 1910 townhouse that needed a lot of work.) Another story that I heard from my father when I was young was how he spent nights and weekends taking up tickets and serving as the back-up projectionist at the Franklin Theatre in his hometown of Franklin, Tennessee.  Daddy knew all about the movies and stars from that era, because he had a free seat. So it was no surprise to me that Tom Brown would be in Franklin last Saturday evening when the lights in the marquee of the historic Franklin Theatre were turned on …

London 2010

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After a day of work on Wednesday, I took an overnight flight to London and plunged into two full days of meetings with the Executive Committee of the International National Trusts Organisation (or INTO).  The days were full, including a lecture on Thursday night at the small and wonderful Garden Museum by my INTO colleague and friend Jeanine Perryck of The Gelderland Trust in The Netherlands.  I was running on adrenaline (because it sure wasn’t sleep), but the trip was very useful (from a business standpoint) and it had the added benefit of being in one of the world’s great cities. Thursday was an off and on day weather-wise (typical London), but Friday was a glorious fall day.  I went out on our lunch break, crossed the street from the English National Trust and INTO London headquarters on Queen Anne’s Gate, and strolled through St. James Park.  I’ll share a few pictures of that beautiful day. Before leaving for home on Saturday, I took a two hour walk in the more typical overcast morning.  I …

Three Days in the Tetons

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I’m trying to remember the beauty of Grand Teton National Park as I face a two-hour layover in the Denver airport. With Sunday NFL Countdown and FIBA basketball competing on the airport television screens, it isn’t easy…but pictures always help. We just spent three terrific days in the park, studying the work to save both natural and cultural resources.  As a first time visitor, I couldn’t have asked for a better introduction.  The National Trust for Historic Preservation’s work with the National Park Service to save the White Grass Dude Ranch demonstrates how the country can achieve a  proper balance in saving and reusing its historic legacy in a place of stunning beauty and critical environmental preservation issues.  The dude ranches were instrumental in proving that this land could be attractive to tourists visiting from the east.  The places that remain in telling that story deserve to be preserved. So take a look at a few of the hundreds of photos I took at Grand Teton National Park – beginning with the Snake River shot …

Rockland, ME

Eating our way through New England

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From Blue State Coffee in Providence, where Claire and I are enjoying a couple hours relaxation after an early morning wake-up and drive, here are some reflections on the good food found in New England on our trip. Sorry Blue State, but the best coffee we found — hands down — was at Bard Coffee in Portland, Maine.  (That’s not really fair to Blue State, since neither Claire nor I are actually having coffee here…she’s into a great blueberry smoothie and I’m having a delicious iced tea, so we’ll rate them best smoothies and tea…but I digress.) We had breakfast at Bard two days in a row and our various cups of coffee and pastries were terrific.  Everything is fresh and the staff is incredibly friendly.  Plus, when I came in on Thursday, they had Nickel Creek’s The Fox coming out of the speakers, and on Friday, it was Old Crow Medicine Show followed by Alison Krauss and Union Station playing the great Jerry Douglas tune We Hide and Seek.  How can you not love …

The most ignored building on campus (tours)

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Quick Quiz:  Name the most beautiful building on any college campus that student tour guides do their best to ignore. Answer:  The College Chapel.  (I know, the picture at the top gave it away.) Based on my experience now with 17 campus tours in the past year,  colleges are doing everything possible to ignore their chapels when selling their schools to prospective students and their parents. We’ve seen it time and time again on our most recent northeast tour as we visit some of the most beautiful and well-maintained campuses this country has to offer.  These schools just ooze heritage.  We’ve toured an amazing adaptation of an old swimming pool into a state-of-the-art concert hall.  We’ve seen an old field house turned into a lively student union.  Two historic structures on one campus are under complete renovation as they become 21st century academic buildings.  In every instance – no matter the school – we’re given the full fire hose of information about the reuse of these older buildings. But when we pass arguably the loveliest …

Snapshots

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Snapshots (visual and otherwise) from the road, including… #1 – We all laughed when we saw the bumper sticker pictured at the top of the post in Brattleboro, VT – that hot bed of liberalism – which reads, “Caution!  I don’t Brake for Right Wing Nut Jobs!” #2 – The best food in America is being served in small, independent cafes and restaurants.  Our two-week streak of not eating in a chain restaurant is intact! #3 – Just about the best turkey sandwich I’ve ever eaten was made at Amy’s Bakery Arts Cafe in Brattleboro.  The turkey was perfect, and the cranberry chutney and sourdough bread only made it better. #4 – After hearing about the wonderful Ragged Mountain Club in New Hampshire from our friends John and Bizzy Lane for decades, we finally made a visit and found out they were right on the money.  What a great place to spend a summer!  Andrew swam across the pond, making that the second body of water he’s crossed on this vacation (the first being Lake …