Weitzman team helps protect and interpret Lincoln Memorial

Check out this recent write-up on the Lincoln Memorial Project: https://penntoday.upenn.edu/news/weitzman-team-helps-protect-and-interpret-lincoln-memorial

Team Takes on Preservation Work at Lincoln Memorial

Read the latest write-up on our team’s work preserving the Lincoln Memorial and its cultural landscape.

The Lincoln Memorial and its grounds, Washington, DC. (HABS DC 462-1, Library of Congress)

Check out the full article on the PennPraxis website.

Dark Histories: 1967 Detroit Rebellion

“Smitty, as he was known by friends, used to look around abandoned buildings and pick up odd items that interested him,” recalled one individual. “He didn't want any of his friends to know this, as he felt it would make him appear as a bum.” A budding preservationist perhaps, Smith “furnished his place” at the Margaret Lee Apartments on W Chicago Boulevard, “with modern and antique furniture,” not far from where he was shot and killed by police in 1967.

Alphonso Smith was victim number 16 of the 1967 Detroit Race Riots. Smith was reported “accidentally” shot when a police officer “slipped” on debris in the Standard Food Market, located at 9750 Dexter Avenue.  Smith and “several Negroes” were thought to be looting and breaking into the Standard Food Market. Various reports tell a

different story, with some indicating that Smith was shot by an officer outside of the store, through the glass window. Two witnesses, at the time, said that the police officer did not slip. The police report indicated that officers ordered the men to stop what they were doing, after which Smith is thought to have thrown a can at one officer, who fired a warning shot into the air. The other officer, “hearing the shot slipped on the floor, and his privately owned.30 caliber Marlin discharged striking Smith in the neck. The bullet exited through his lower back.” A subsequent report by the prosecutor cleared the officers of all wrongdoing. “Smith's friends and family stated that it wasn't in Alphonso's personality to be looting any store. They believe if he was inside the building, he would probably have been looking through the rubble for antiques and wouldn't have hurt anyone.”

Dexter Avenue and Rochester Streets as seen today. The commercial corridor never fully recovered from the 1967 Rebellion (Google, 2018)

Violence + Voids: Understanding the Built Legacy of Dexter Avenue post-1967 Riots

It has been 51 years since the 1967 Detroit Race Riots, yet the scars of its legacy still linger in the built fabric of the city. Once a robust, commercial corridor, Dexter Avenue has never been the same following the riots. Storefronts were smashed, store inventory looted, and buildings burned. Today, those businesses that were hardest hit by the riots, have mostly been demolished, erased from the landscape of the once vibrant commercial corridor and replaced by chain stores catering to the automobile.

The corner of Dexter Ave & Davison Ave, now a gas station (Detroit Historical Society, Google Maps)

However, to equate one directly with the other is to align causation with correlation. Here it is important to ask what the underlying issues in the community were that precipitated these actions. Rioting, as an act, is a violent form of protest, which in the plainest terms is a means to assert power in space--a form of agency. What was it that caused the community at large to feel the need to revolt in this way and by extension to claim these spaces? Why was it that businesses were not built back up to the street front? Why were some businesses demolished and their lots left vacant? Why were some businesses spared and others burned? It is hard to make sense of questions like these out of the very chaotic nature of protests. However, in some ways, it is clear that larger catalysts underlie these events.  Decades of systematic oppression, aggressive policing, and a growing distrust between officials in power and those in the minority certainly didn't help matters.

The corner of Dexter Ave & Rochester St, now a CVS (Source: Detroit Historical Society, Google Maps).

A recent article in the Journal of Architectural Education by Alison B. Hirsch revealed a similar situation in Los Angeles. Following the 1992 riots, after the death of Rodney King, commercial strips were decimated. In her studio at the University of Southern California, Hirsch tasked her students with interpreting, preserving, and designing a new future for two intersections at the heart of the 1992 riots. The core questions of the investigation were: How do we meet community needs and provide infrastructure? AND how do we do so while asking the public to engage in critical dialogue about their past and future?

The corner of Dexter Ave & Rochester St, now vacant (Source: Detroit Historical Society, Google Maps).

In many ways, I see this as our role in our work in Detroit. The voids and vacancies seen today in these before and after photos are largely a result of the race riots of 1967. While other factors continued to keep Dexter Avenue in decline, our work cannot ignore the legacy 1967. We must fully engage the communities with this history, asking them how they see and understand their own history, and to make it visible in order to start a meaningful dialogue.

The full article can be found here: https://proxy.library.upenn.edu:2295/doi/full/10.1080/10464883.2018.1496732

Landscapes of Resistance: Protest and Public Space

Students occupy the Mall at the U of MN in front of Coffman Union. Note the difference between the two photos (University of Minnesota Archives)

Protests happen everywhere. We protest things we don’t agree with. We protest things we don’t like. We protest as a way to express our discontent. Lately, it seems like protests are happing every day; they are happening multiple times each day. Protests about public lands, about net-neutrality, about the role of government, fill the news cycles. Every day it seems like we live in a new, unprecedented era of dissent and resistance. And perhaps we do.

But these acts of resistance, these protests, stem from a tradition of activism as old as our country. From the American Revolution to the civil rights era, activism has shaped the way our country operates. Fifty years ago, students and citizens across the nation were protesting segregation and the Vietnam War. Resistance took many forms—rallies, strikes, occupations, and marches became the tools in which America expressed its discontent. These actions are inherently spatial. One might even define these actions collectively as landscapes of resistance.

City squares and university campuses became the backdrop for these protests. Nonetheless, each of these protests took place in a carefully chosen space or landscape. Even the most spontaneous act of resistance occurs somewhere. The steps of city hall, the university presidents office, the campus quad, or even the neighborhood lunch counter—each of these places had literal advantages (e.g. open space to gather, steps to speak from, easily defendable, easily occupiable) or symbolic advantages (e.g. association with a person, institution, or place opposite in value to those protesting). In many ways, our everyday landscapes were transformed into landscapes of resistance. The meaning of each cultural landscape was either adapted our adopted by those protesting. The same happens today.

Different forms of activism take on different landscapes: marches take on large linear swathes of an area, while occupations, as another example, define and delimit space. So, how do interpret or understand a cultural landscape that is only transient? Are these momentary, smaller, often forgotten daily acts of resistance as important to our collective memory as those of larger events like Kent State or Berkeley? More importantly, how can someone today understand what it was like to experience the scale and extent of what it was like to be in a protest. Questions like these are essential if we are to understand and interpret these crucial times in the history of our nation. Very few college campuses, for example, discuss the activism and change that happened on their campuses in the 1960s and 1970s. These unto, largely nonexistent narratives need to be interpreted and need to become accessible. In a time like today, when protests are happening with a renewed urgency, some historical perspective could offer a way to move forward. These landscapes, landscapes of resistance, still have much to tell us and we certainly can and should do better in understanding them.

The Taconic State Parkway: an 104 Mile Long Cultural Landscape

On a recent trip back from Troy, New York, I found myself driving along the scenic one hundred and four mile long Taconic State Parkway that runs between Kensico and Chatham. The parkway was created in 1925 by Franklin Delano Roosevelt, among others, as a way to connect planned and existing state parks in the Hudson Valley, North of New York City. Taconic State Parkway, in its entirety,  is now listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Gilmore Clarke, a landscape architect, designed the parkway to have specific vistas by manipulating the curves and topography around the roadway. Scenic drives on the Parkway offer views of the Catskills, Hudson Valley, and the Taconic Mountains. Engineers and landscape architects worked together to create both the picturesque winding route with its vistas and to ensure safety along the parkway. Careful plantings, designed embankments, rest stops and guard walls all make the route, I would say, one of the most beautiful drives in the country.

On a recent trip back from Troy, New York, I found myself driving along the scenic one-hundred-and-four mile long Taconic State Parkway that runs between Kensico and Chatham. The parkway was created in 1925 by Franklin Delano Roosevelt, among others, as a way to connect planned and existing state parks in the Hudson Valley, North of New York City. Taconic State Parkway, in its entirety,  is now listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Gilmore Clarke, a landscape architect, designed the parkway to have specific vistas by manipulating the curves and topography around the roadway. Scenic drives on the Parkway offer views of the Catskills, Hudson Valley, and the Taconic Mountains. Engineers and landscape architects worked together to create both the picturesque winding route with its vistas and to ensure safety along the parkway. Careful plantings, designed embankments, rest stops and guard walls all make the route, I would say, one of the most beautiful drives in the country.

AERIAL VIEW, COLUMBIA COUNTY, NORTHERN END OF TACONIC STATE PARKWAY WITH I-90. VIEW NW. - Taconic State Parkway, Poughkeepsie, Dutchess County, NY (HAER NY,14-POKEP.V,1--143).

But today, the Taconic Parkway is known for something entirely different: its deadliness. What was once a weekend getaway, pleasure highway is now a regular commuter artery for those north of New York City. The picturesque views and tight curves are in many ways no longer an asset but a liability. The speed limit along the Taconic State Parkway is 55, but most people drive closer to 70 or 80 mph. I was reminded of this fact while passing cars in the left lane along the central portion of the Parkway, just outside of Poughkeepsie. A grove of trees opened up and there sat a state trooper with a radar gun. I slammed on my breaks and for a brief moment, we maintained eye contact with one another. I was going 80 mph in a 55 mph zone. In any case, he must have had better things to do than pull over an out-of-stater like me because he stared at me and sternly shook his finger at me as I slowed down to 50 miles per hour for the duration of my drive.

This close encounter made me wonder: how do you enforce the intent of a cultural landscape? If we allow or embrace change within the landscape, where do we draw the line? Obviously, the many state troopers I later saw along the highway were trying to enforce the speed limit to make it safer for motorists. The original design of the parkway was not intended to be used as a high speed, interstage-like artery, but that is the meaning and use it has taken on. Is there a cultural landscape issue here intent vs. actuality? How can we, and should we, maintain the pleasure drive, picturesque, weekend getaway highway aspects of the Taconic State Parkway? Or do we even need to? Its incredible length, relative rural nature, and curves present a particular challenge for landscape preservation but are nonetheless one of the most compelling designed landscapes of the region.

Screen capture of a USA Today article about saftey issues along the Taconic State Parkway. (USA Today via. lohud.com)

Sound: A Transformer of Cultural Landscapes

On a wet and dreary morning, a few weeks back, I sat on the back side of the Lincoln Memorial facing Arlington National Cemetery, eating a croissant and sipping on coffee. As I was enjoying this particularly messy pastry, I was also watching the army half marathon pass by. I must have just caught the end of the train of runners because in the 15 minutes I was sitting there the landscape in front of me dramatically changed. In that time, the crowd of runners thinned out to just a few stragglers who were then followed by emergency vehicles that pushed them onwards. Bystanders cheered as the runners passed by, but their intensity increased as the last few came into sight. But perhaps what was most striking was the richness and variety of sounds that filled the landscape.

In that relatively quick fifteen minute span the changing soundscapes altered how I saw and understood the landscapes around me. Clip one below is the dominant sound pattern for those fifteen minutes. Teams of bystanders eagerly cheering on runners with shouts and increasingly more cowbell clanging. Distant sirens sound, while the pitter patter of rain hits the roads and monuments around me.

But instantly that landscape is transformed as a jumbo jet flew overhead in clip 2, eclipsing the activities below and drawing ones eye upwards to the world beyond. The sound of the jet instantly transformed my interpretation and focus of the cultural landscape I was within. Both the jet and the race itself are arguably not the predominant

sounds that occupy this bridge. Likely traffic, car horns, even tour buses are the normal sounds. However, in each case sound was the transformer of this cultural landscape. It turned my attention to different layers and different contexts to interpret my surroundings.

But, as is the nature of both marathons and sound itself, it was fleeting. No sooner had I sat down and it was over. Clean up crews and street-sweepers erased any physical trace that a race had taken place there. The sounds of cheering and footsteps that initially drew me there were no longer present to remind me of the activity that had taken place. Sound is inevitably an essential part of the ways in which we understand our surroundings and even our heritage. So should sounds be preserved or even considered when thinking about cultural landscapes? Or would these landscapes be better off without many of the sounds that grace them? Should the sounds of sirens, jets, and helicopters be edited out through designation, to protect the largely somber, reflective, and memorialistic landscape? How can something as fleeting and ever-changing as sound be quantified for consideration? Is soundscape preservation or regulation something that should be considered by preservationists and cultural landscape theorists? I would argue: yes. Our experiences are not static and should not be read and interpreted as stagnant narratives. The places we designate should be considered rich and immerse environments to be lived in and with, not to be looked at for short periods of time.

Clarifying Collective Memory through Landscapes

For the longest time, the idea of collective memory remained confusing and limited to me. How could memory, something that is so incredibly personal, possibly be collective? How could I remember something the same way someone else did? I wondered if a better term might have been dominant memory or accepted memory, but these were too extreme. If a site or a landscape had so many different meanings within it, it seemed bizarre to assume everyone would share a collective memory of the same place. It seemed more likely that there would be collective memories (plural), or various overlapping spheres of memory until each was finally distilled, and a tiny commonality was found.

However, more recently I found it much easier to think of collective memory in terms of landscapes. Every landscape we experience is “linked to identity, shared experience, and, ultimately, to an emotional sense of belonging.”[1] Cultural Landscape theorist Robert Melnick, in his essay in Richard Longstreth’s book Cultural Landscapes, elaborates more on this process. In describing his childhood summer retreat he writes:

"In this rural landscape I learned to play baseball and hike and pick flowers and watch for shooting stars on late August nights. My grandmother, who lived all her adult life in the city, would sometimes visit and would inevitably complain that she could never sleep because of the ceaseless noise of the crickets and birds. … How could she not treasure my landscape as much as I did?"

It is easy for many of us to relate to the situation that Melnick is describing. I think it is even safe to say that preservationists can act this way when advocating for the protection of buildings. “How could you not appreciate this building as I have?” While we have vastly different opinions than others on what is and isn’t worthy of saving, both sides recognize the power of the place in question. Melnick offers up an answer to his own question:

"Every one of us has our own magical landscapes… Our world is marked by our personal and communal association with place, by our remembrance of events both joyous and sad and the places where they occurred. It is this very personal connection to landscape that intrigues and frustrates at the same time."

If we think about collective memory in terms of landscapes instead of specific buildings we can find some clarity. Each of us has different memories tied to a location. Whether good or bad, or whether or not we actually experienced a place firsthand is important, but not to our collective memory of a specific place. Rather for each of us, something happened at that place that we can all relate to, we all share in the memory of this place—this is collective memory.

[1] Melnick, Robert. “Are We There Yet?” in Richard Longstreth Cultural Landscapes: Balancing Nature and Heritage in Preservation Practice. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2008. Pages 198-199

Interstate Preservation: Looking to the Future

On a recent series of adventures, I found myself meandering my way on a road trip to State College, PA. Along the way, I encountered vastly different landscapes and structures, from eighteenth-century farm buildings to twentieth-century suburban shopping strips, and covered bridges to winding suburban developments. However, the common thread throughout my misadventures was the state highway system. While the public—and we as preservationists—unquestionably value historic structures, our faith in the importance of our more recent built heritage wanes. But this begs the question: what are the sites/icons of tomorrow’s preservationists?

If we consider the fifty-year maker for designation to the national register, many of our first large scale suburban and rural highway systems—and everything that goes with them—either are or soon will be within that fifty-year mark. The Interstate Highway Act of 1956 was created sixty-one years ago, firmly establishing our crumbling and underfunded interstate system within the bounds of designation.

So how do we and should we preserve the legacy of our highway systems? I don’t think anyone would argue the important role these systems played in connecting disparate regions and forever changing the way we experience landscapes near and far. But could places like freeway off-ramps, gas stations, strips malls, or even overpasses be the next icons for a generation of preservationists? Undoubtedly the development of these systems has a complex social history. Lingering in the public memory is the seizure of lands and the demolition

Pennsylvania Interstate Highway System (25or5to4, WikiMedia Commons, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:I-99_(PA)_map.svg#filelinks)

of largely poor and minority neighborhoods. Under the guise of this act, many cities and states dislocated entire communities, altogether erasing several local cultures. Dark narratives like these stand in stark contrast to dominant romantic ways of thinking about our road systems. Could the preservation of something like an overpass or interchange bring to light narratives like these? Could something as mundane as the interstate become the next icon of an era?

The preservation of the interstate highway system presents many unique challenges, not the least of which is its inter-state nature. Coordinating preservation efforts across state lines and between agencies could present a unique challenge to already complicated sites. The constant maintenance and upkeep of our road systems does not lend itself well to preservation efforts. Likewise, the impact of the interstate road system stretches well beyond the immediate site of any hypothetical preservation efforts. Highways, interstates, cloverleaf’s, overpasses, gas stations, strip malls—among other things—could present a complex range of issues to future preservationists and perhaps one day a highway somewhere could be a future ‘icon’ of the field preservation.

Further Reading:

http://quaderns.coac.net/en/2011/09/262-convidat-gissen/

David Gissen, Infrastructure Preservation