History:
It's
Not Just For Preservation Any More
it's also for learning from
& improving on the past. |
"Planning with History" Working Group:*
Alice Ingerson, Ann O'Halloran, Brian Yates,
Claudia Wu, David Olson, Jean Husher, Jennifer Goldson, John
Rodman, John Wyman, Lara Kritzer, Lisle Baker, Peter Kastner
Mayor's Comprehensive Planning Advisory
Committee
Newton, Massachusetts
*Send us questions & comments, or
join us in drafting & reviewing this element of Newton's
comprehensive plan. Contact: Alice Ingerson
at appliedhistory@rcn.com
or 617-529-9337.
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contents
- scroll down or click on the underlined links
planning with history
for making, implementing, & revising plans over time:
- by choosing
from a
range of goals: from
restoring what we’ve lost; through preserving & reusing what we
have; to learning from & improving on the past (click here
for an example)
- and using a
range of tools: from
regulation; through incentives, including grants &
loans; to community education & engagement
- to address a
range of issues:
including economic development, housing, transportation, open space, ...
History
makes places special. Help us fill in this map of Newton!
This
presentation
consists of two separate web files linked together. To print the
entire presentation, hit "print" in your browser for each file.
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using
a range of tools
regulation
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Newton's demolition delay
ordinance
allows the citywide Historical Commission to impose a 1-year waiting
period
before buildings more than 50 years old can be demolished. In
practice,
only a small proportion of the buildings that meet the age threshold
are
judged "preferably preserved," and face the delay. But sometimes
the
delay encourages owners, architects, and contractors to rethink what
they
want, and what is possible. The house on the left, which was going to
be
completely demolished, was instead remodeled and expanded as shown on
the
right.
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Newton has 3 local historic districts, which
provide neighborhood-level review that can both preserve historic
structures (as at
left, in Newton Upper Falls) and encourage historically sensitive new
development.
The building at right is a brand-new Boston College office building in
the
Chestnut Hill local historic district.
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using
a range of tools
incentives:
grants, loans, awards, technical assistance …
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How could Newton go beyond regulation, to help or encourage people to
preserve the places they care about?
- grants or repayable
loans for rehabilitating or adapting historic buildings?
- annual
awards for adaptive reuse projects (residential, commercial, ... )?
- a
continuously updated online database & map of preservation &
adaptive reuse "success stories," to help property owners find
designers, contractors, & ideas that have already worked in Newton?
We're
already doing more of this than many people realize:
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Newton is investing
Community Preservation Act resources in projects
like rehabilitating
historic
burying grounds (above, right) and the Newton Corner Library (below, right).
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The
private Newton Historic Preservation Association started its revolving
loan fund with the proceeds from the
sale of one of the condominium units in
the Bigelow House (below, left), an early This Old House project in Newton.
NHPA assisted with the adaptive reuse of the Newton Upper Falls
railroad depot (below, right).
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The Newton Housing Rehabilitation Fund
uses federal housing funds to help
low-
and moderate-income homeowners with historically appropriate repairs
and restoration.
photos from Stephen Gartrell, Newton
Planning Department
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using
a range of tools
public-private
partnerships & shared ownership |
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The Newton
Commonwealth Golf Course was preserved for
community access using a combination of tools, including limited
development (top, right)
and betterment assessments on the surrounding private properties.
It
is now in public ownership, but it is leased to a private golf course
operator (Sterling Golf) that is supervised by a city-appointed
committee, and it generates
revenue for the city. Can similar public-private partnerships for
funding,
ownership, and management be used for other kinds of community assets?
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using
a range of tools
requires setting priorities |
Allocating scarce resources forces us to recognize that, as a
community, we share a challenge with all property owners: you can't
always do everything you want to do, or do it all at once. What
should come first? What makes a building or landscape “community-
defining” or “community-sustaining”?
In the 1970s and
1980s, Newton preserved the historic architecture of many older public
schools but sold the buildings for private use. Most became housing,
although portions of some historic schools are still used as
neighborhood community centers.
Above, right: the
Hyde
School, Newton Highlands, and the Pierce School, West Newton (both now
converted to housing).
Above left; the Nonantum Branch
Library (still open as a library, with limited hours).
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In the 21st century,
should we reverse this process, by investing community resources in
buildings that serve community functions, even if they remain in
private ownership? Houses of worship, for example, have hosted
more community groups and meetings as our public buildings have become
more specialized, or less accessible for
other reasons.
Right above,
clockwise from
top: the Adams Street Synagogue in Nonantum, St. Mary
Immaculateof
Lourdes in Newton Upper Falls (photo from
http://members.aol.com/maryimmoflourdes/maryimm.htm), the Myrtle Baptist
Church in West Newton,
and St. Bernard's in West Newton. St. Mary's and St. Bernard's
were officially scheduled for closing
as of early summer 2004.
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using
a range of tools
requires community education &
engagement
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Education
often comes last, as a way of persuading people to support decisions
that have already been made.
But perhaps it should come first, as a way of making decisions and
setting community priorities. It's hard to decide what we should
preserve,
if we don't even know what there is to preserve! And
community needs change over time, so we can't set priorities forever.
Education is a
continuous process of making history as well as preserving it.
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History is everywhere, & it keeps happening:
The Newton History
Museum's house plaques are available
for houses of any age in Newton, even brand-new ones.
They are a tool for learning to see all
the history
in Newton's neighborhoods.
image from
http://www.ci.newton.ma.us/jackson/
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| back to contents |
History
isn't just for preservation anymore,
&
preservation isn't just for history.
Historic
buildings and spaces are already being recycled for all
kinds of uses in Newton:
economic
development, housing, open space, transportation, ...
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history
for a range
of issues
economic
development |
Top
left: offices in the former Silver Lake Cordage Factory,
Nonantum
Bottom left: stores and offices in recycled mill buildings,
Newton Upper Falls
(photos from http://www.channel1.com/users/hemlock/MakersIndustry.htm
and the Newton History Museum)
Top and bottom, right: 21st-century businesses in early 19th-century
buildings,
Newton Lower Falls
Center: the
new Boston Ballet School in a former
warehouse/crafts store,
Washington Street, Newtonville (photo from
www.wilsonbutlerlodge.com/sect1/BalletN/)
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history
for a range of issues
housing
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Clockwise,
from top left: senior housing in The Falls at Cordingly Dam,
Newton
Lower Falls - a new building that consciously echoes its historic
setting ( (photo
from http://www.ndne.com/projects/the_falls.html); a two-family
house redeveloped as affordable housing by Newton
Can-Do (photo from www.newtoncando.org); what were once
apartments over stores, Newton Upper Falls; an older
two-townhouse building in Newton Highlands; a Victorian house
used by the Newton-Wellesley-Weston Committee for Community Living
(nwwcommittee.org); small (aluminum-sided) houses on a
street between the Charles River and the Massachusetts Turnpike, Newton
Corner
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history
for a range of issues
open space
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Newton contains many beautiful open spaces that
were shaped or created by people. Are these places
natural resources, or are they cultural resources? The answer is:
yes!
The Charles River floats many fewer canoes than it did at the
turn of the twentieth century, but the city is gradually rediscovering
the river after turning its back (and its highway bridges) to it for
decades. Bullough's Pond was created by a grist mill dam, which
requires regular maintenance. Newton was just a space to cross
when the Sudbury and Cochituate aqueducts were built to bring water to
Boston, but the aqueducts are now important recreational resources for
Newton. |
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the park in Waban Square, at the
intersection of
Woodward, Beacon, and Pine Ridge streets,
undated photo (late 19th century?)
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photos
from: www.ci.newton.ma.us/jackson/Canoeing/lower-falls/192.html;
www.ski-paddle.com/cano/canoe.htm; Sudbury Aqueduct and Bullough’s Pond
photos by Dan Brody, www.newtonconservators.org; Waban Square photo
from http://home.att.net/~plainfeather/photo/Album08/index.htm.
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history
for a range of issues
transportation
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Transportation
was once a focal point of community pride and helped to create a sense
of place in Newton. People bought &
sent postcards of Newton's train stations and streetcars.
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Tourists and
residents could take the streetcar from Echo Bridge in
Newton Upper Falls, to the Newton Cemetery at Walnut and Beacon
Streets, to
Newtonville.
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What would change
about our train, T, and bus stops, or about the Massachusetts Turnpike
(or at
least the space over it), if we used them to build a sense of community
or a sense of place?
 [
photos from:
www.lightlink.com/sglap3/massachusetts/colpostmiddlesex.html;
www.channel1.com/users/hemlock/MakersTransportation.htm;
http://medg.lcs.mit.edu/people/psz/nhnac/HistoryArchive.html;
www.mbta.com/traveling_t; www.massturnpike.com/about/about-past.html
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back to contents
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| filling
in the map |
There are many
excellent reasons to preserve what is irreplaceable. [Historic sites and
districts] … are like punctuation marks in a sentence; they are
crucial to our understanding of the words. But meaning cannot be
preserved by collecting punctuation marks.
– cultural geographer
Peirce Lewis
"Taking
Down the Velvet Rope: Cultural Geography and the Human Landscape” (1987)
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Tell us about your
"special places" (the ones you care about) and "puzzle places" (the
ones you wonder about), especially if they don't yet appear on the
map of Newton's designated historic resources below.
Contact us
at appliedhistory@rcn.com.
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Newton should not be
a city of nothing but preserved "punctuation marks." But learning to see more of our
historical punctuation marks can help us make sense of the future.
above right: the Newtonville local
historic district, from www.ci.newton.ma.us/Planning
gis%20map.jpg;
below right, the Newton History Museum, from
www.ci.newton.ma.us/jackson
above
left: map by Douglas Greenfield, Newton City GIS
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| we're not alone |
Residents
in the community of Naperville, Illinois, created Community First,
Inc., to use education and incentives for historic preservation and
historically sensitive redevelopment (see www.communityfirstinc.org).
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Designers, planners, environmentalists
and
preservationists all around the United States are writing about history
as
a tool for creating a sense of community and a sense of place.
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why
plan with history?
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History doesn't repeat itself,
but
it does rhyme.
–
Mark Twain
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photo
fromwww.culturevulture.net/Television/MarkTwainTonight.htm
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back to contents
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back
to part 1
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