In a message dated 7/23/98 5:33:33 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
[log in to unmask] writes:

<< I thought Ken Follett was joking about "accidental preservation" and  <
 running their car into an historic building >.  In fact, I still think he's
 joking. >>

Citizen Grin,

It was a serious inquiry. Someone in snail-talk brought up the comment that
historic preservation is not a road shocker. I wanted to find out if there was
validity to their comment. But I am willing to smile. I know of a few historic
structures that are too close to the road, and I know of non-historic houses,
poorly located, that tend to get run into by drunk drivers. In NYC sidewalk
bridges erected to protect the pedestrians while resotration work goes on
overhead are quite often struck by vehicles. So why not the buildings
themselves?

Has anyone a recollection of a building that caused them to panic?

I think cars and ISTEA and roads and trains, horses, and the transport
infrastructure have a very central role in our ideas about movement, go west,
go east, go to outer space, and that this constant relocation is an historic
aspect of our consciousness. I think our restlessness somehow conditions how
we perceive what we consider to be historic value.

I may have been taking the idea a bit far, but I find it more enlightening to
go to the extreme viewpoint in order to refresh the view of our more mundane
assumptions.

][<en