On my recent visit to Detroit, I was dismayed to note the ongoing installation of new “historic” lampposts along Boston Boulevard. Although all of us in urban neighborhoods prize good street lighting for safety and security, this is no way to treat one of Detroit’s finest historic neighborhoods. The new lampposts are poor replacements for the originals. They are dull reproductions; much shorter, cheaply made, and meaningless in their new context. The original remaining lampposts, with handsome curvilinear arms, unique design cues and wooden shafts, date from the neighborhood’s birth, and are part and parcel of the Boston-Edison Historic District in the exact same manner as the houses themselves. The lampposts are contributing features, tying together the houses into a consistent historic fabric. Indian Village and other historic districts have similar beautiful lampposts. While they are often in rough condition, the same could be said of any number of houses which we wouldn’t dream of discarding. If the remaining historic lampposts are removed (as seems possible), the character of the neighborhood will suffer. I’ve been unable to learn more about how this was approved, and I’m hoping some of my readers (I see your page hits!) will shed some “light” on the situation. I do have a call in to the Historic District Commission, and will update this entry when I learn more!

Dueling lampposts (click to enlarge all images)

There are admittedly too many dark spots along Detroit’s streets. We need more streetlights, and we need them to be reliably functional. But the original historic lampposts should be supplemented and repaired; certainly not replaced. As seen in the photographs, the installation of a new lamppost immediately adjacent to an original post strongly suggests that the original will be removed. If the original lampposts do remain in place, things are only half as bad as they look. But the other half of my concern deals with the inappropriate added poles, which belong on “Main Street USA” in Disneyland, not Boston-Edison.

New fake replacing old original?

Let’s review the Secretary of Interior’s Standards for rehabilitation, which were written to aid federal government agencies do conforming work in historic districts on the National Register. While the city of Detroit is not a federal agency, its own Historic District Ordinance restricts activity in similar ways. Some excerpts from the Standards:

Point 2: “The historic character of a property shall be retained and preserved. The removal of historic materials or alteration of features and spaces that characterize a property shall be avoided.”

If the historic lampposts remain unmolested, this is not an issue.

Point 3: “Each property shall be recognized as a physical record of its time, place, and use. Changes that create a false sense of historical development, such as adding conjectural features or architectural elements from other buildings, shall not be untertaken.”

(Emphasis mine). This is a critical one. By introducing “historic” reproduction lampposts, the city is muddying the waters of historic integrity in the Boston-Edison district. It is by now commonly accepted among professional preservationists that replacement material or features should be distinctively new and not attempt to “ape” original designs. See also point 9, below.

Click sketch to enlarge

Point 5: “Distinctive features, finishes, and construction techniques or examples of craftsmanship that characterize a property shall be preserved.”

Its hard to argue against the distinctiveness of a one-hundred year old, wooden-poled lamppost! Again, your blogger hopes they are remaining in place.

Point 6: “Deteriorated historic features shall be repaired rather than replaced. Where the severity of deterioration requires replacement of a distinctive feature, the new feature shall match the old in design, color, texture, and other visual qualities and, where possible, materials. Replacement of missing features shall be substantiated by documentary, physical, or pictorial evidence.”

This is another key point, if the originals are really being directly replaced. The actions in Boston-Edison break almost every tenet of this standard: The design is radically different, the height difference is remarkable, and the general visual quality speaks clearly of “mass production” rather than “historic craftsmanship.” As an architect, I can show you my collection of catalogs of “historic” repro streetlamps, none of which have remotely the character of a B-E original. In fact they’re actually quite soulless.

A closer look reveals historic character and beauty

Point 9: New additions, exterior alterations, or related new construction shall not destroy historic materials that characterize the property. The new work shall be differentiated from the old and shall be compatible with the massing, size, scale, and architectural features to protect the historic integrity of the property and the environment.

The new poles are none of the above. So what’s my solution? If additional lampposts are needed for security, they should be spaced logically between the existing original lampposts, and match them in height. They should not slavishly attempt to mimic the original, but be a more modern interpretation thereof. At the very least they should match in height and general geometry!

Do preservationists really care about historic lampposts? You bet! In New York City, there is even a special historic designation covering “62 historic street lampposts” throughout the city. Detroit has had a tough time lately with streetlights, particularly in regard to the copper theft nightmare. We watched, also in horror, when thousands of historic streetlamps where shrouded in a plastic prophylactic designed to dissuade thieves (if not snowplows). But that was, and remains, a temporary measure. This is not.

An original lamppost, wearing gray paint and foot-pegs. It is missing its finial and original arm.

You may think that all this worry about lampposts is a bit much in a city wracked by deeper problems. Yet, even in times of crisis, we cannot blithely ignore the fundamentals of what historic preservation is, and what a designated historic district is for. The whole point of a historic district is to preserve continuous fabric, not just individual landmark buildings. We have already lost so much to neglect; shall we lose more due to poor design decisions?

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Don’t miss Boston-Edison’s annual Attic Sale, this weekend! Saturday and Sunday from 10am to 4pm. Come by and undertake your own analysis of the original streetlamps!

Over the last few weeks, Tiger Stadium has been falling inexorably to the wreckers. The bleachers are gone, as well as the famous right field “porch". The renowned facade along Trumbull at Michigan Avenue, with its bold sans serif letters, is disappearing this week.

Tiger Stadium, August 2008

The gaping hole in the stadium has opened up view corridors to the nearby reigning monarch of abandoned Detroit landmarks; the incredible and majestic Michigan Central Depot.

Michigan Central Depot and Tiger Stadium, August 2008

Because of the stadium’s fame, it is generating a stream of “demolition tourism", groups of people arriving off of nearby I-75 and piling out to take photos and reminisce about 1984, 1968, 1945…

Watching the demolition, 2008

I’m hopeful that Brooks Lumber and Ace Hardware, a classic Detroit hardware store across Trumbull from the old ballpark, will reap some additional business as a result. Visit this site today, and please support this effort to salvage a section of the stadium, and the entire field.

Interestingly, a ballpark that was once one of the league’s newest when I was at Tiger Stadium getting Al Kaline’s autograph is now itself a candidate for historic preservation. Dodger Stadium, seen here during a late summer sunset, was the brash upstart when it opened in 1962 to greet the recently transplanted Brooklyn Dodgers. Its modern, concrete construction has held up well during five decades of mild Los Angeles weather. We spent a recent evening there.

Dodger Stadium, Los Angeles, August 2008

Some of the buildings you see every day may be more important than you realize. Turns out that the Big Boy restaurant directly across the street from my Los Angeles architectural firm was designed by an important mid-century architect. Done in the Googie modern style (previously discussed on this blog), Bob’s Big Boy was a good neighbor with palatable comfort food for late nights at work. The restaurant, and a mid-century Cadillac dealership nearby, are being demolished for a massive BMW sales complex. Local residents were not pleased with the conduct of the demolition; don’t miss this post on the subject (the protest banner was gone by mid-day Monday). Here’s the view from my window:

Bob’s Big Boy, August 2008

Los Angeles’ local preservation non-profit, the 7000-member Los Angeles Conservancy, tried to generate interest in the buildings’ fate. Unfortunately, because planning and permitting had already advanced to completion, there was little to be done. A short segment on the demolition was featured on Warren Olney’s “Which Way L.A.” radio show on local public radio station KCRW; a rare acknowledgment of preservation efforts in LA.

Along Jefferson Avenue, a few miles east of downtown, you’ll find Indian Village Market. Plainly designed, and fronting on a nondescript parking lot, the market nevertheless plays a vital complementary role to the residential splendor of its historic neighbor. As an urban player, it is as important as nearby Belle Isle; for a vigorous city, residents need a walkable destination from which to buy their milk. Or Detroit-made chips.

Indian Village Market (proudly displaying photos of nearby homes), Detroit, 2008

When I lived up in Pontiac in the mid-1990s, the nearby Three Sisters Market served in this role. Wherever you find a vibrant urban neighborhood, it is likely you’ll find a small grocery within a ten-minute walking radius.

In a larger culture where we are so used to vast superstores and stupendous variety, its easy to overlook the neighborhood market. While prices are often a bit higher, and selection less impressive than the big boxes, every dollar you spend in their modest aisles is a dollar spent directly supporting the city and not a distant retail conglomerate. In a future Detroit, we need viable neighborhood groceries. The recent battle to save the Lafayette Park market, even closer to downtown, illustrates the decisions at hand.

A terrific website called walkscore calculates the “walkability” of any particular address in America, based on distances to nearby amenities. Although imperfect in its analyses, its a useful tool to measure the relative pedestrian friendliness of neighborhoods. My Pontiac address is OK; my first address in New York City gets a perfect score; my present SoCal location is fairly decent, and all easily beat the walkability in suburban areas where I have lived.

Summer is upon us. Here’s my recent photo of the new Pacific Wheel ferris wheel at the Santa Monica Pier. Last month it replaced the previous version, which had been in operation since the mid-1980s. The wheel is a landmark of the west Los Angeles beach strip, visible from Redondo in the south to Malibu in the northwest.

Pacific Wheel, Santa Monica Pier, 2008

Removing a landmark and replacing it in situ with a near-duplicate is a touchy corner of preservation theory. It is famously practiced at the Ise Shrine, which is rebuilt every 20 years in a ceremony called shikinen sengu. The eminent preservationist James Marston Fitch discusses this form of preservation in his academic companion to the field.

My own encounter with this strange phenomenom was in New York City, and actually had a profound effect on my thinking. The original Hayden Planetarium, built during the Great Depression, was a city-designated landmark. When the American Museum of Natural History (to which the building is appended) proposed its replacement a dozen years ago, opposition was fierce. The preservationists lost, and the building fell.

But the replacement, designed by James Polshek and presided over by Neil deGrasse Tyson, is a luminous wonder that has reinvigorated the Museum and nearby park. Critical to this success was the fact that the building is a marvel of architectural design, and engages beautifully with the surrounding historic landscape of New York’s upper west side. Although the original building is gone, its replacement has brought thousands of new visitors to the museum. Nearby businesses have reaped the benefit of crowded sidewalks. A preservation fundamentalist might still mourn the original building; an urban preservationist sees the success of the new and celebrates the urban vitality created therefrom. There are always trade-offs.

I will freely acknowledge that it is quite rare to pull off this sort of thing. In Detroit, most of our fallen landmarks have been replaced by weedy lots or half-completed parking garages (ahem, Hudsons). When design-minded replacements are built, pressure to be “contextual” too often results in a stunted historical pastiche that only degrades and mocks the surrounding context. For the Detroit of the future, remember that the goal is preservation of a living city; not individual grand buildings in a dessicated and empty landscape. And if a new building is to be built–even in a historic district!–let it be stridently new and confidently modern; designed by architects who design in a present day language, use contemporary materials, and don’t clumsily mimic the past. Generations from now, our heirs will want to preserve buildings that represent 2008, not the 2008 version of 1908!

Stepping down from my soapbox, I can’t resist bringing this post full-circle, back to the ferris wheel. For although Bob-Lo Island Amusement Park is only a memory, we still have a very prominent landmark of the amusement park variety. The Uniroyal tire on I-94 has a much richer history than you might think. Originally proportioned as a bias-ply tire, with sharp lines and attractive lettering, it stood for years as an unmolested monument to the optimism of the 1964 World’s Fair, only to be “renovated” by the fine folks at Michelin (Uniroyal’s corporate parent) in 1994. It was transformed into a fat radial tire with a hubcap suitable, perhaps, for a 1995 Dodge Intrepid. The nadir of its recent history was surely the several years it spent with an unsightly “nail” protruding from its top.

Here’s another good article with several excellent photographs. I can dream that someone at Michelin was smart enough to hide the original tire sections away for safekeeping. In this case, we find that replacing a landmark with an “updated version” has cheapened our landscape. Instead of a vintage piece of Americana from the 1964 Worlds Fair, we are left with nothing but a big ol’ tire sitting at the side of the road. There’s a trade-off I’d like to get back.