In a message dated 98-01-28 10:23:39 EST, [log in to unmask] writes:

> I think the gentry/ancestor worship is, generally, the most interesting
> thing
>  about historic houses.  Not the ancestors (who are rarely more than
>  representative) but >>>the worship.
I'm not opposed to the gentry implications of preservation, only meaning to
point out the democratic evolution of historic preservation over the century.
I suspect there has been a widening of the idea of historic preservation to
include more of the urban masses and become something of a legit concern
within the larger construction industry. The history of the historic
preservation movement often reads one-sided as a social history. I often
wonder to what extent non-gentry forces were at work.

I found this book last October in Chicago and, considering your e-mail
response, wonder if you are familiar with it. _Historic Preservation,
Collective Memory and Historical Identity_, Diane Barthel. The book says Ms
Barthel is a sociologist at SUNY-Stony Brook. I find it unique in exploring
the WHY of preservation, differing much from anything else I have found in the
bookstores. I had a chance to read it on the train returning from Chicago and
it is a conceptual core of Gab & Eti, despite many remonstrances that G&E was
some sort of mindless drooling without connection to issues of historic
preservation.

>  should have reproduced a photograph of her at her wheel in the house
>  she breathes fire.
Probably serving to scare the urban waifs straight into the factories?
I thought the photo of the giant gas tanks in 1919 was fairly impressive. They
look very similar in structure to the ones in Elmhurst, Queens, along the LIE
that were recently taken down. I remember people at the time lamenting the
demise of the *landmark* being removed. Cell phone road reports on the
outbound often were, "I'm just past the tanks." I used to live near the
Brooklyn Gas tanks along Newtown Creek, over at the Little League field. I was
impressed when told of the bullet bumps in the tanks. Seems Brooklynites have
no barns to shoot at so they use the gas tanks instead. The Abigail Adams
Smith estate is lucky they did not get blown up.

>  In the same way our current restorers, although they think their work
>  invisible, also profoundly change buildings.  The impulse to restore is
>  strong, just as strong as the will to demolish - and not that different.
Agreed on both points.
The *think invisible* myth again.
There was a neat profile in Brooklyn Bridge last year about a retired guy in
Brooklyn who demolished buildings. Nice photo with him standing next to his
wrecking ball. Also, Apple Restoration is often confused with the Big Apple
that does demolition. I'm as happy to get called upon to carefully take a
building apart as to keep it together.

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