What Got You Passionate About Historic Preservation?

For me it was this book I read as a kid:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Little_House
Amazingly fresh and relevant today. It's still in print.

Ha! I was trying to describe this book to my wife but could not for the life of me remember the title! Thanks...I remember reading that in oh, somewhere around 1968 [[egads!). I agree, just as relavent today!

A circa 1985 [[pre-restoration) visit to the Detroit Fox to hear the legendary movie palace organist Gaylord Carter.

The [[then) faded but still fabulous Fox left me spellbound. Having the organist rising up from under the stage on the console of the Fox's mighty 4/36 Wurlitzer was the icing on the cake. It was pure sensory overload between the opulence of the vast space, and the overpowering resonance of the organ [[and organist).

At the time I kept thinking that in a theatre with so much to see, how did people find time to watch the movie? :p

This is amazing!

"The Little House" is the book that I read first on this subject as a kid in the 60's, and it was my favorite, next to Dr. Seuss' "The Lorax" of course. :rolleyes:

attending Detroit Public Schools, growing up in an arts/crafts bungalow, gradually watching one beautiful historic building after another fall to wrecking balls....

I would have to say it would be a combination of things but the most impact was made by my family... I grew up with a family of anarcists and activists who wrote for the 5th estate, protested against the incinerator, headed up the fight to save Tiger Stadium in the 1980's and 90's and the protesting of Catholic church closures. I actually have a picture of me at 5 years old at an incinerator protest with a sign that says "kids need clean air to grow". I also spent countless nights as a kid handing out flyers to people trying to raise awareness on the Stadium issue although I might not have understood the complexities of the issues then I must say that those protest have played a huge roll in shaping me into the person I am today. Unfortunately I have been on the losing end on the three previously mentioned projects but take some pride in still doing what I feel is best to preserve our area for future generations.... My family has lived for at least 5 generations in this city and with any luck will continue to live many more...

As an [[amateur) genealogist, I'm fascinated by places my families lived in during the 1800s and turn of the century. I've managed to come up with addresses for many of them, thanks to city directories and the US census reports. Alas, when I turn to Google Street View, nearly all those old victorian homes have been razed and replaced with modern ugly.

I was still in favor of razing Tiger Stadium from the start, though. That place was originally built in modern ugly.

I became passionate about historic preservation when I moved away from Detroit and saw how other cities preserved many of their structures.

Detroit is my home town. Didn't 'become' passionate about it. Always loved it. I've worked downtown on and off, for about 10 years. There is a vibrancy to the city. Maybe Chicago and New York are more hip or popular, but Detroit has it's own heartbeat.;)

This was George Jackson's favorite book as a litle boy:

What Got You Passionate About Historic Preservation?


Sick to death of seeing cheap beige stucco clad cookie cutter suburban plainness.

I grew up in Ashland, Ohio, a city of 20,000 about 60 miles from Cleveland on I-71. During the early 20th century, Ashland boasted more millionaires than any other place in America as a percent of the total population. As you can imagine, the town if full of grand old buildings and houses. If you ever have a chance to visit, I recommend you go there.

When I was about ten years old, someone bought my dad a pictoral history of Ashland. He thumbed through it once, but I read it again and again for the next ten years. The images of my hometown in its golden age enchanted me.

Ashland had its own version of Hudson's on the most prominent corner of downtown. The Home Company department store was a five-story brick building that was the place to shop for several decades until Kmart built a big shopping center on the edge of town in the 1970s. The Home Company declined and was a vacant shell by the time I reached kindergarten.

I used to listen to the grown-ups talk about the need to tear the building down, but I thought it was awesome. Downtown stood in a kind of valley surrounded by hills. As you drove into Ashland, you could see the Home Company building peering above the rooftops and treetops. A neighbor of ours--a woman in her 90s--told me stories about her years as the elevator attendant at the Home Company.

I resolved that I would bring the building back to life. At that time, my purpose in life was to grow up to start a company that would make me rich enough to invest billions on my hometown. I would buy the Home Company and transform it into my world headquarters. This was my daily fantasy as I delivered the Ashland Times-Gazette after school.

I've always had a fascination with old buildings in need of TLC. In addition to the Home Company, I developed plans for every vacant building in Ashland by the time I reached high school. Even empty gas stations stirred something in me.

Since I had this kind of love in a small town of less than 20,000, you can imagine how hard I fell when I explored Detroit for the first time.

my parents are old...they love old stuff...and as much as i hate to admit it, some of them rubbed off on me LOL
side note i bought that book [[little house) for my daughter last year and never looked at the copyright so i assumed it was a new book ..didnt realize it had been around for so long

I cannot point to a single event or time in my life that made me passionate about preserving history. I loved being able to sense the past in buildings, being able to feel previous lives in them. Working and shopping in downtown Detroit's older buildings was more attractive to me than being in any mall or suburban office plaza. It has always bothered me how Detroit has demolished so much of its structural past, instead of repurposing or, horrors, preserving.

My present home is nearly 160 yrs old... about 50 yrs ago, it was moved to the outskirts of the small town in which it was originally built, to make room for a business. By the time I bought the house 20 yrs ago, the only "real" history left in it was discovered when we were removing a more recent era's decor of mirror tiles and cork paneling from the walls: we found linen-backed newspaper strips from the 1850s, pasted to the clapboard behind the plaster slats.

I guess velveteen-flocked flowered wallpaper and green-and-gold shag carpeting might have some historical significance to a future generation, but I suspect how I feel about 1970s home fashion is very like what someone in 1900 felt when they had to deal with circa 1870 decor: "Gawd, this decor is hideous! Let's buy some paint!"

HUMANITIES 1030: Art & Architecture in Detroit [[cancelled) @ Wayne State University. We watched slide shows for hours of old & historic structures in metro Detroit. We learned & memorized when & why they were built, architectural style & architect. We also had to visit existing structures and do a research paper on them for a final. So now when I see an old building; it's not just that, it's the story behind it as well.