My late mother – the librarian – would have loved this post I found on the RADDblog. What an innovative use of a structure that has lost its original purpose. (These days you have to explain to kids what a pay phone was.) Check out the post – there’s another great photograph along with a listing of ways others are using these historic British phone booths. More to come… DJB
I have never been one to rush out to the local mall on the so-called “Black Friday” after Thanksgiving. With a day off, and the opportunity to connect with friends, food, and football, what’s the point? But for the past several years we’ve returned to the beautiful Shenandoah Valley town of Staunton, Virginia, where we lived for 15 years in the 1980s and 1990s, to spend the holiday with good friends. We make all those connections above (except for the football – our friends don’t have cable) but we add in lots of live music so it makes for a terrific respite. And we’ve taken to spending a good part of Friday in downtown Staunton. I know this part of town intimately, having worked with the local merchants, property owners, residents and city officials to preserve it for 13 years. My office was in the Wharf Historic District and our home was only 4 blocks away in the New Town Historic District. Downtown Staunton is a National Trust Great American Main Street Award winner as …
If you have had it up to here with screaming right-wing talk show hosts or pontificating left-wing bloggers or just three days of rain, I have the perfect antidote: the Vintage Roadside 2009 Road Trip Slide Show. Each year Jeff and Kelly from Vintage Roadside travel the back roads from Portland, Oregon to the host city of the National Preservation Conference and take pictures and blog about the experience. (Vintage Roadside makes great t-shirts that honor the wonderful mom-and-pop roadside attractions, motor courts, motels, tiki lounges, drive-in restaurants, bowling alleys and roller-skating rinks found along America’s back roads.) This year the trip took them to Nashville, Tennessee. You will laugh out loud, you will be amazed at the quirky attractions that still remain on America’s roadsides, and you’ll marvel at what a diverse country we live in. So take my recommendation – visit their slide show and spend a few minutes with this great country. Thanks Jeff and Kelly. It was wonderful to spend a bit of time with you in Nashville. Thanks for what …
I’m reading Paul Goldberger’s new book Why Architecture Matters. As you would expect from Paul, it is a smart, well-written work that is designed to help the reader interested in buildings “come to grips with how things feel to us when we stand before them, with how architecture affects us emotionally as well as intellectually.” I’ve already come across numerous passages and examples that resonate, but last evening I was reading his take on I.M. Pei and Henry Cobb’s John Hancock Tower on Copley Square in Boston and was reminded of my last impression of that building when Andrew, Claire and I were visiting the city in March 2008. Paul, a Pulitzer-Prize winning writer and a trustee of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, is describing the Hancock Tower in comparison to New York’s Seagram Building and G.M. Building. All three are postwar American landmarks. It was great fun to introduce Claire and Andrew to Copley Square when we visited Boston in 2008. We toured the great H.H. Richardson-designed Trinity Church, of course, and took …
I am in Minneapolis/St. Paul for two days of meetings on saving Modernist and Recent Past places. Minnesota and the Great Lakes region has a strong collection of buildings and landscapes from the Modernist period, so we’re in town to work with and learn from our local partners. Last evening’s opening session was held in a beautiful space: the Eliel Saarinen designed Christ Church Lutheran sanctuary. His son Eero designed the adjoining educational wing. This supreme example of the Modernist movement is Minnesota’s only National Historic Landmark listed for its architectural importance rather than as a site of historic significance. The church – now working with a newly formed Friends of Christ Church Lutheran group – has done a wonderful job of preservation and stewardship of this place. I spent a great deal of time last evening with Pastor Kristine Carlson, who opened with a moving testimony as to why this place matters. As I said in my opening remarks, preservation generally happens when people – not necessarily professional preservationists – see the connection between …
Earlier this week, fellow preservationist and bluegrass lover David Price came up at the National Preservation Conference and invited me to sit in with his band, Off the Wagon, when they played the Southern Regional Reception on Thursday evening. I jumped on the wagon! Off the Wagon is a good young bluegrass band in Nashville (the next night they were playing at the world-famous Station Inn). So as you can see from the photos, I enjoyed the chance to sing and play Sitting On Top of the World. Twas in the spring, one sunny day, My good gal left me, Lord, she went away, And now she’s gone, but I don’t worry, “Cause I’m sitting on top of the world. The band helped cover my mistakes (and my lapses in memory) and I had a great time. Lots of friends and colleagues from our Southern Regional Office and beyond had a chance to enjoy it as well. I’ve inserted a video of Off the Wagon – without the interloper – playing New Camptown Races. Enjoy. …
Even for a guy who gets to work with some amazing people and visit some of the country’s most wonderful historic places, yesterday was an extraordinary day. (And not just because I passed 10,000 visitors to More to Come…the DJB Blog – thank you readers.) Nope, the picture says it all. I was privileged to open the National Preservation Conference from the stage of the historic Ryman Auditorium. For a bluegrass loving preservationist to have a chance to speak from the place where Earl Scruggs came onstage some 60 years ago with Bill Monroe to play White House Blues and give birth to bluegrass music was an honor. To be able to tell 2,000 conference attendees why this place matters was a thrill. To be able to hear the bluegrass I’d chosen over the Ryman’s speakers for the 30 minutes before we kicked off the conference was just a rush. I knew it was going to be a great evening when the Laurie Lewis tune Who Will Watch the Home Place? – with its haunting …
Having just arrived in Nashville for the 2009 National Preservation Conference, I find myself in the lobby of the Union Station Hotel waiting for a room and for my meetings to begin. That left me time to think…which can be dangerous. Union Station is a Nashville landmark. It is a beautiful old pile of a building and the lobby (see photo) is stunning. But I think it is a landmark and was – in the end – saved from the wrecking ball because it has so many personal connections to people in Middle Tennessee. Take me, for instance. My parents were part of the post-war (WWII) marriage boom that begat the well-documented baby boom. Both were from the small town of Franklin, located about 20 miles from Nashville. My father had just graduated from Vanderbilt and he and my mom were married in the First Baptist Church in Franklin. Before beginning his life-long career with the Tennessee Valley Authority, my father and his new bride had a honeymoon to take. Luckily, they had relatives (my …
I’m headed to Nashville this week for the National Preservation Conference where we’re sure to hear great preservation stories and good music. Putting the two together, I have collected some Americana and roots music for the conference staff to use prior to the Opening Plenary. I kick off the set with the Martha White Theme (just seemed appropriate given the setting). However, finding preservation-based roots music can be tough. Most country songs that mention “home” generally deal with the loss of mother and dad or a true love – but not too much about the loss of the actual building. So most are instrumentals. The set does include that preservation bluegrass classic The Old Home Place by J.D. Crowe and the New South. However, my favorite is the Jim Lauderdale/Ralph Stanley Highway Through My Home. In honor of the Overton Park (Memphis) and 710 Freeway (California) battles…and so many more…click on the video below and enjoy. More to come… DJB
Over the past two days the National Trust Council has toured a remarkable collection of Frank Lloyd Wright architecture located in Wisconsin. Along the way we saw icons and surprises. The surprises came first. We went to see a grouping of six houses on Burnham Street in Milwaukee that were designed by Wright in 1916 for what today would be called “affordable housing.” I knew about his later Usonian houses, such as the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s Pope-Leighey House, which were focused on the same audience. But decades earlier Wright designed over 950 plans for “American System Built Homes.” Approximately 25 were built and six survive along Burnham Street. The Wright in Wisconsin organization owns several and has restored one which is open to the public. It provided us with a fascinating look at how Wright approached architect-designed houses on a budget, as you’ll see in the photos below. Yesterday we visited three more Wright buildings. The first was Herbert Fisk Johnson’s home in Racine, Wingspread. This was Wright’s “last” Prairie style home and …
MORE TO COME... 