Message text written by "BP - His DNA is this long."
>preservation of the built
environment may be interpreted as a sublimated anti-nuke, anti-war, peace
movement. Though this may be more speculation than the statistics of our
culture will support. It would be interesting, in exploring this thread, to
compare the number of x-beat, x-hip, x-artist that have pursued craft and
historic preservation counter to the mainstream progress of construction
technology. How many of us on BP have worked on the construction, or
preservation, of a nuclear reactor? <

While I don't think I qualify as one of the listed "X's", I like the
question, and I like the image of some element of our work being a protest
against something-- whether it is an increasingly high-pressured and
impersonal society, or just bad taste.

So having said that, I must reluctantly confess to having worked on the
preservation of a nuclear reactor-- the now defunct Connecticut Yankee,
whose concrete dome was undergoing mild scaling before the plant was
eventually shut down for safety violations. Like I've said, sometimes we
make a living by working on really ugly buildings. But I've had less pangs
of conscience over the nuke plant project (at least we stabilized the
concrete shell separating the environment from all the nasty stuff inside)
than I have over the historic restoration work being done on a tobacco
company office building. After all, how many people die each year from
nuclear power stations?

Mike E.