The New, The Old, and the Hype

A special advertising section in today’s Democrat & Chronicle made me see red this morning.

It's one of those advertisements that is written and laid out to resemble an actual newspaper article, but is really a paid advertisement, in this case paid for by the Rochester Home Builders’ Association (as the fine print on the top of the page reveals). The text of the ad claims that thanks to the many new energy-saving products out there, new houses are superior to old ones.

Of course, given the source, all the people quoted are affiliated with the home-building industry, so it’s their job to sell new houses, replacement windows and vinyl siding. In a couple of spots, the author of the ad throws in a reference to retrofitting existing houses, but – surprise! – nearly all the text is devoted to convincing us that, as the 2008 president of the Rochester Home Buyers Association is quoted as saying, “In everything from HVAC systems, lighting and appliances to the entire outside, a new home is better than an older home.”

Well, I for one don’t buy the one-sided hype of faux articles like this. Of course these people who sell new houses and all the products associated with them want to convince us how great their products are. But nowhere does the ad mention the environmental costs of all those new houses. Nearly all of them are built on former farmland or other undeveloped open space – where’s the environmental benefit of that? All those materials had to be manufactured, many of them, like vinyl, in environmentally damaging ways – where’s the environmental benefit of that? All those materials had to be transported to the site – where’s the environmental benefit of that? Chances are the new house is on the fringes of our area, in a neighborhood with no sidewalks or anything to walk to, far from work and everywhere else its owners might go - where’s the environmental benefit of all that additional driving?

A new house may be more efficient to operate than an existing one –although given the many environmentally friendly features of older houses, like operable double-hung windows and shutters, sensitive site placement, mature trees, porches, and more, even that is not a given. But it is the epitome of wastefulness to build something new if it means throwing out the old, and in our region that is not experiencing population growth, doesn’t every new house equate to an abandoned house elsewhere?

What especially bothers me about this ad is how easy it is for those who want to sell new houses to get their message out, and how much harder it is for those of us who understand the benefits of conserving and reusing existing buildings to get our message out. The home builders and vinyl salespeople profit when someone buys a new house or wraps their house in plastic. Who makes money when a conscientious homeowner repairs her existing windows, ensuring that the irreplaceable old-growth wood survives into the next generation rather than being sent to the landfill?

This has been a hot topic in preservation circles, and there are more and more resources aimed at addressing this disparity of information and getting the tools out there to help us make our case. For example, an online “Embodied Energy Calculator” enables us to come up with an estimate of the embodied energy of an existing building (the energy that went into the construction of that building, and that would be thrown away if the building is demolished), the energy involved to demolish it, and the energy it would take to build a new building to replace the one that was lost. This information is not found in those articles and ads that only compare the energy it takes to operate a new building versus an old one. The National Trust for Historic Preservation’s Sustainability Initiative is providing national leadership on this very important issue, working to provide the resources and facts all of us in preservation need to get our message out and counter the misleading claims of the salespeople. We’ve been working on spreading the message locally, through our newsletter and website, an article in the Democrat & Chronicle’s Speaking Out column last May, and more.

We’re going to be thinking a lot about this issue in the months to come: how do we reach the people who haven’t yet gotten the message that (in the words of National Trust president Richard Moe) “we can’t build our way out of the global warming crisis” and "historic preservation has always been the greenest of the building arts."

I’d love to hear what you think we can do to spread the word.

Posted by Katie Eggers Comeau, Advocacy Coordinator

Preservation Assistance Online

Did you know that the Preservation and Advocacy section of the Landmark Society website has tons of great information for anyone interested in historic preservation?

Our “Preservation News” section includes information on current preservation issues, such as our position statement on the redevelopment of the Midtown site. Scroll down to find our “How to” section – this is where we collect the best resources we can find regarding building maintenance and repair (including the full text and illustrations of our highly regarded publication “Rehab Rochester,” an old-house-owner’s manual full of great advice), the nuts and bolts of landmark designation and historical research, and the all-important preservation funding section, where you’ll find information on grants and other sources of funding for rehabilitation projects.

We are always working to improve this section of the website, so if there’s something you’d like to see here, let us know!

Posted by Katie Eggers Comeau, Advocacy Coordinator

I'll take a V-8 with a size of preservation, please.

I had one of the V-8 moments today. You know the ones…when you realize you've been oblivious to something that's right in front of your face? Yeh, one of those.

See, I'm a newbie to this preservation thing. That's a fact. There is honestly not a day that goes by where I don't learn about some other facet that falls under the all-encompassing umbrella of "preservation." I've learned there is much more to this preservation thing than just keeping old buildings standing. Since I've been with The Landmark Society, I've become fascinated by the study of recent past architecture, green architecture, adaptive re-use, horticultural preservation….the list goes on.

I could wax poetic about the importance of preserving irreplaceable resources. Perhaps in another blog. But right now I want to get back to the point of this rambling brain dump, and that is to share with you my V-8 moment. To do that, I have to explain that I hike and camp in national forests all the time. In fact, one of my favorites is not too far from here – the Finger Lakes National Forest. If you've never harvested wild blueberries from this area and had open-fire-cooked griddle cakes in the morning, you haven't lived. And, if you're looking for some really interesting history, check out Camp Fossenvue and learn about this progressive incredible piece of history right in our backyards.

So why am I telling you this? I never once thought about how all of these things I love to explore with my family all fell under the umbrella of preservation. DUH.

V-8 moment, meet Laura.

Next time you're out hiking in one of our national forests, take a moment to look around at all the unique character and history within. In fact, next time you venture outside your door, take a second to check it out too. I bet the things you appreciate will be things that maybe, just maybe, also fall under "preservation" as well.

And what I'm really trying to say is read the article below. It's good.

THE NATION'S HISTORIC PLACES
Sites in National Forests at Grave Risk, Study by Preservation Group Indicates

This structure, dating from 1924, was used as a lookout for fires and is in the Salmon-Challis National Forest in Idaho. The National Trust for Historic Preservation lists the structure as a cultural resource that needs proper preservation. (Courtesy of The National Trust For Historic Preservation)

By Lyndsey Layton
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, May 15, 2008; Page A13

Millions of historic sites, crumbling and collapsing in national forests around the country, are in danger of being lost forever, according to a study set to be released today by a prominent preservation group.

The National Trust for Historic Preservation estimates that only a small slice of about 2 million "cultural resources" that sit on 193 million acres managed by the U.S. Forest Service have been properly preserved.

READ THE REST HERE

posted by Laura Zavala, Director of Marketing

Same as it ever was? Nope.

Interesting Interpretation of Adaptive Reuse. Perhaps.

I stumbled across this article in my daily geekery reading on Wired.com. Of course it's not your typical preservation article, but in terms of adaptive reuse of space, you have to admit it's pretty clever. It made me think about uses of space for public art. How fantastic would it be to have something like this showcasing some of the fantastic structures we have in Rochester? We walk by so many buildings every day -- ones like this Battery Maritime Building -- and see them as mere structures of wood, steel, brick and stone. To see music in architecture, however, is a magnificent thing.

I wonder what could happen if more working art was created in open, abandoned spaces rather than letting abandoned structure sit and rot? How about interactive exhibits like this to draw people into some spaces they've never been?

Kudos, David Byrne. You may be a bit kooky in your big suit, but you're a genius.

David Byrne Converts Building Into Giant Instrument
By Scott Thill May 12, 2008 5:14:56 PM
From Wired.com

Photo: DavidByrne.com

As an architect of the legendary Talking Heads, David Byrne once offered up an album called More Songs About Buildings and Food. These days, he's tripping into architecture and turning a building into food for the ears. I think I just stopped making sense.

Let's start over. Starting May 31, visitors to New York's Battery Maritime Building will be able to take part in Byrne's interactive music installation called simply "Playing the Building." Like its self-explanatory title implies, the Battery will be fitted with devices that will allow visitors to make music off of the piping, pillars and more. It's an interesting way to view the structures we take for granted in everyday life. According to Byrne, it could be the future of music itself.

"I'd like to say that in a small way it turns consumers into creative producers," Byrne explains on his official site, "but that might be a bit too much to claim. However, even if one doesn't play the thing, it points toward a less mediated kind of cultural experience. It might be an experience in which one begins to reexamine one's surroundings and to realize that culture -- of which sound and music are parts -- doesn't always have to be produced by professionals and packaged in a consumable form.

"I'm not suggesting people abandon musical instruments and start playing their cars and apartments," he adds, "but I do think the reign of music as a commodity made only by professionals might be winding down. The imminent demise of the large record companies as gatekeepers of the world's popular music is a good thing, for the most part."

posted by Laura Zavala, Director of Marketing

Extra! Extra! Read All About It! Annual Summer Special Hits the Streets

2008 Summer Issue of Landmarks Offers Something for Everyone

May 12, 2008 - Our annual tabloid issue is chock-full of great stories for your enjoyment. Find out about the relationship between the mortgage crisis and preservation, read about how strip malls may be the next frontier for preservation efforts, learn maintenance planning tips, join the celebration of 100 years of Pike Stained Glass, experience preservation in pop culture through the eyes of your favorite Landmark Society staff members, and much more! And, as always, there are plenty of Landmark events to add to your calendar - Coffee Walks, Architecture for Lunch and Full Moon Flashlight Tours, just to name a few.

If you're a Landmark Society member, your copy will arrive in your mailbox this week. If not, you can pick up a copy at several locations around town or by stopping into our offices at 133 S. Fitzhugh Street in Rochester.

(Of course, you could save yourself the gas money and join The Landmark Society today - we'll conveniently deliver Landmarks to your door four times a year along with many other great benefits. Memberships start at just $35 - what a bargain! Click here for more details.)

The Summer Special looks like this:

Read it. It's good stuff.

Preservation Districts and Green Preservation in City

Landmark Society staffers are featured in two fine articles in City Newspaper’s recent Home Design section. Rebecca Rowe is the featured interviewee in an article about preservation districts, and I worked closely with the author of an article about energy efficiency and historic houses. I was glad to see that the author of the latter article absorbed what I told him about the environmental advantages of historic buildings, and interviewed experts who could tell him about some simple fixes for common complaints about the energy performance of older buildings. If you’d like a printed copy of this special section, please stop by the Landmark Society – the fine people at City let us take the extra copies, and we’re happy to distribute them.

Posted by Katie Eggers Comeau, Advocacy Coordinator

Visiting the Alcoa Aluminum House

This past Monday, I spent a couple of hours in the Alcoa Aluminum House in Brighton, taping an interview about 20th-century architecture with Brenda Tremblay of WXXI for the program "Need to Know." Brenda wanted to discuss some of the buildings that have been entered by the public into our "Archipedia" survey of recent past resources, so this was a perfect opportunity to visit a house I'd wanted to see for a while.

I spend a lot of time these days trying to encourage people to appreciate mid-century architecture, but this was the first post-World War II house I've been in that I thought I could actually own. I loved this house! Every detail is so well thought out; the interior and exterior spaces are integrated so seamlessly; the rich colors that permeate the interior are gloriously aglow, even on a dreary day like we had on Monday.

The owners bought the house last summer, when they were out to breakfast, stopped in at the open house (like me, they go to open houses for entertainment) and decided on the spot to buy the house - although they were almost finished rehabilitating their 19th-century Corn Hill house and had not intended to move for some time. They report that they love living in the house and especially appreciate the easy flow from inside to outside.

The house was designed by architect Charles Goodman for the Alcoa Aluminum Company, which faced a post-war surplus of aluminum and sought new commercial uses for the material. The post-war housing boom presented many opportunities, and in addition to aluminum siding, trim and windows, the company experimented with new house designs that would integrate aluminum. The design combines aluminum with brick, wood and glass, demonstrating how the material can blend with more traditional materials; in addition to aluminum panels on the exterior and aluminum window and door frames, the house uses aluminum in innovative and colorful ways.

Despite the company's glossy advertising brochure and sales offices throughout the country, just 23 of these houses were built, apparently because they were too expensive for most families. The one in Brighton is a designated Town of Brighton landmark, and has survived with very few alterations.

Brenda Tremblay also interviewed the owners of the house, and got footage of two other buildings that have been entered into our online survey: the fabulous late-1960s gas station on Stonewood near Lake Avenue, and Donuts Delite. The program airs tonight on channel 21 at 9:00 and Sunday the 4th at 12:30 p.m., and will be available via podcast; the architecture segment will be a short piece about halfway through the program.

Posted by Katie Eggers Comeau, Advocacy Coordinator

A Preservationista Goes House Hunting

One of my favorite obsessions is real estate. Sounds stupid, right? Really dorky. But from the time I was a kid I loved going to open houses or to view model homes for no real reason. Maybe partly to see how the “other half” lives, to pick “your room” and decide how you would decorate it, to be escapist and imagine a new life for yourself in a new place, new surroundings.

The internet has really fed this obsession. Virtual tours, endless interior and exterior photographs, a peek inside that mansion for sale over on East Avenue. Heavenly.

When we were getting ready to move to Rochester I was on RochesterCityLiving.com every day, multiple times a day. Even though we knew we weren’t going to buy a house right away I had to check out what was available, what might be possible. Now that we have been here for a little while and are actually thinking about buying a house it’s gotten even worse. First thing when I get to work I check the listings, again after lunch, again before I go home, again when I get home. It might be a little unhealthy.

We have gone to see a few houses at this point and I am definitely seeing how my job as a preservation planner, specifically one who works to promote a healthy housing stock and strong neighborhoods, is going to work against me in this process. First, we look mostly at fixer-uppers. Not totally for flipping purposes, we would be living there for a period of time as we work, slowly, on the fixer-upping. It’s more of an inclination to find a house that needs to be loved and to love it. To love its crumbling plaster into repair, to love its wood windows into renewed energy efficiency, to love the porch and yard into a welcoming array of plants and cozy furniture. Unfortunately this desire to love up a house is happening with each and every one that we look at.

Second, most of the fixer-upper houses we have looked at have been converted to multi family. They clearly have not been loved in years, instead being used up by the tenants and turned over from lazy landlord to lazier landlord until the house is almost beyond saving. Will these landlords who are looking at the property right now give it the love that it needs? Will they return it to a beautiful asset to the neighborhood or will they allow it to deteriorate a little further? Are they thinking about their obligation to house, to the tenants and to the neighborhood? Or are they only interested in the size of the checks they will be cashing one the first of the month? Nobody can love that house like I can and if I don’t do it who will?

So begins my little delusion of buying up all of them, fixing them, loving them and turning them back into an asset for a challenged neighborhood. Opening up that enclosed porch and painting the house an inviting color. Repairing the fireplaces that still has most of the original tiles. Shining up the old hardwood floors with the stunning inlays that you just won’t find in any suburb or subdivision.

Sigh, what is a Preservationista to do?

Posted by Rebecca Rowe, Preservation Programs Coordinator

Landmarks of the Future talk, April 10

On Thursday, April 10 at 7:30 p.m., I'll be giving a presentation for Historic Pittsford titled "Landmarks of the Future: Preserving Resources of the Recent Past." The talk, which is free and open to to the public, will be at Christ Episcopal Church, at 36 S. Main Street.

I'm looking forward to talking about mid-century modern architecture in my hometown, which is not exactly a hotbed of modernist design. There are a few interesting modern buildings here and there, but Pittsford was decidedly hostile to the streamlined look of modern buildings in the mid-20th century. I found an interesting newspaper article from 1961 describing the so-called "Pittsford Revival Movement," in which old buildings on Main Street in the village were torn down to make way for "handsome brick structures of Early American design;" this project was described as "the most ambitious progress to date in the effort to restore and extend the oldtime feeling of the central village."

I'm going to be giving the audience a very, very brief and superficial overview of mid-20th century architecture, with the hope of helping them appreciate some of the features they see in buildings of that vintage, followed by an examination of some interesting preservation controversies from around the country and closer to home.

If you're a fan of 20th-century architecture, I'd love to see you there!

Posted by Katie Eggers Comeau, Advocacy Coordinator

The early bird goes to Pioneer Days Camp!

It was a beautiful, sunny Sunday afternoon. So what were thousands of people doing inside Eastview Mall on such a glorious day? We like to think they came to see Anna Worden, lead teacher of our Pioneer Days Summer Camp. Well – maybe not all of the thousands came inside with that purpose in mind. But the Summer Camp Fair, sponsored by Genesee Valley Parent Magazine, was a great attraction that day. Ms. Worden met many past and future campers, eager to plan their stay at our history and craft day camp. It’s a week filled with early 19th century activities for kids currently in 3rd through 6th grade – and five weeks to choose from. There’s an “early bird” discount for those who register by May 1st, so check out the details on our website.

Posted by Cindy Boyer, Director of Museums