Brian,

We had to fix up a cast iron facade that a Bruce Willis movie had 
damaged when a taxi blew up and flipped over. I also like when watching 
a movie to see the exterior/interior of buildings that we have worked 
on. And we have on our upcomming work list for interior repairs for Law 
& Order and Law & Order, Criminal Intent. Though they both did damage in 
the same space we had to write two proposals. We also have a PTN member 
who was making extremely good money doing movie set work, as you 
describe, but was bored by it and reverted to theater restoration.

As to theme parks I will continue to avoid the Aushwitz Gift Shop. And 
Chernobyl has become a hot spot for eco tourism.

Was not a precursor to Disneyland Colonial Williamsburg?

> Almost all the construction at theme parks seems to be retro these 
> days. Disney was originally a mix of nostalgia and optimism about the 
> triumph of technology in the future. This concept of technology as 
> savior has been almost totally discounted in park design. Discussing 
> this concept and talking about what has changed in the culture is an 
> interesting topic for me and my students. Any thoughts?
>
There are a number of interesting books available on the topic of the 
failure of technology. You may consider to assemble a reading list for 
your students.

This fellow I met in Bialystock from Belorus had a problem on his hands 
that he had to figure out what to do for the historic sacred sites w/in 
the contamination area of Chernobyl. I would like to see an article in 
the APT Bulletin on that one. His quandry was such that you can't 
exactly do a HABS/HAR on them without getting deadly sick. Nobody seems 
to know how to decontaminate them... either in situ or even to the 
extent to dismantle them and move them to a clean zone. It presents a 
social problem as folks want to go to their sacred sites, in fact, the 
grandmothers tend to move to their home land and the generations of 
family follows. We have been close enough ourselves here in the US to 
this sort of technological disaster. My friends comment was that though 
they tore down the statues of Lenin that Chernobyl would remain a 
monument to the Soviet system forever. As an aside, I bought on e-bay 
one of the medals that the worker's who ran into the reactor and dropped 
sandbags were given. I wore it at the APT conference in Galveston. One 
young lady asked me what it was. I told her it was what one got for 
running into the reactor at Chernobyl. Her comment, "Geeze, I hope you 
are ok." As I know it everyone who ran in there and got a medal for 
doing so is now dead. Except me and Pye. ;-)

][<en

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