Mary Dierckx wrote:
"To speak to the actual topic under discussion, I also think it's a shame
that our historic towns and tourist destinations are becoming all the same.
Maybe we should start designating cultural treasures, like the Japanese
do, but instead of artisans like potters and fabric dyers, we can preserve
mom & pop hardware stores, drug stores, grocers - historic capitalists."
I saw a fascinating example of something like this in Scotland a couple of
years ago. The Landmark Trust bought a two-story corner building designed
by Charles Rennie Mackintosh in a TINY little town and restored it (the
building). They rent out the second floor as one of their rental
properties (all wonderful, rather funky, places, if sometimes a little
pricey--recommend highly) and rent the commercial space on the first floor
to local businesses, at the time I was there a hardware store.
The town was for me an incredible time capsule experience. Every morning
the housewives came out with their baskets over their arms and went from
the grocers, to the meat market, to the bakery, to the hardware store,
filled up their baskets, chatted with their friends, and went home.
The hardware store, however, was VERY unhappy with the Landmark Trust.
They are obviously hovering on the brink (the cheese store that preceeded
them had gone out of business), and saw the restrictions the Trust put on
what they could do with their space (they could not change the
Mackintosh-designed display cases) as one more unnecessary burden.
Is preservation actually going to help kill the already fragile atmosphere
of this walking downtown? CAN preservation preserve a way of life without
turning it into some sort of museum (i.e. dead) exhibit? Does the Main
Street program, for instance, produce working downtowns that are actually
functioning parts of their communities?
Again, I have no answers, but am delighted that other people have noticed
the same kind of things that have been bothering me.
Marilyn Harper
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