True enough -- while Home Depot is singled out in the slide show, there are 
more photos to add of houses where the budget-minded went to a salvage yard, 
picked out any style door that seemed older and they liked, and put it on 
their house...  Many people didn't even think of their houses as "historic" 
before Katrina.  They simply knew their houses were older.

No answers really, we're just all observers of the current scene.  (Unless, 
of course, the house is in a HDLC district.)

AA

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Becker, Dan" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Thursday, February 01, 2007 2:20 PM
Subject: Re: [BP] Home Despot Doors - reality check

>> Best we can hope for is that the more preservationally-
>> attuned homeowners will get Certified Histo Presto Doors
>> made when things calm down.

I've always contended that if they aren't "preservationally-attuned," it
is our fault that we haven't gotten the word
out/educated/whatever-you-want-to-call-it that it's better for the
building, the community, and them personally to apply appropriate
preservation design and technology to the solution of their issues.

Problem is, the preservation community doesn't have the advertising
budget of Home Depot. As it stands now, the entire federal appropriation
for historic preservation to all of the state historic preservation
offices ($36.25 million in 2006 dollars) is the equivalent of less than
a mile and three-quarters of interstate highway (In 1996 dollars, the
Federal Highway Administration calculated the "weighted rural and urban
combined" costs per mile of interstate highway to be $20.6 million.
["Typical Interstate System Cost per Mile," Document Route Symbol HNG-13
(March 21, 1997), U.S. Department of Transportation, Federal Highway
Administration, Federal - Aid & Design Division.]) How's that for
priorities?

You're never going to get certified histo presto doors "made" for these
houses. But you can certainly make a better choice among the standard
offerings in terms of the design qualities of the door.

We as a movement need to get Home Depot to offer more diversity in
choice, and work with the property owners to make and demand better
choices. 

--
To terminate puerile preservation prattling among pals and the
uncoffee-ed, or to change your settings, go to:
<http://listserv.icors.org/archives/bullamanka-pinheads.html>