Two ancient French cities. The first, founded by Cadillac in 1701; the second, founded by Bienville nearly seventeen years later. Both predate the republic by several generations. Detroit and New Orleans have followed vastly divergent paths in the three centuries since their founding, but there are some interesting parallels between the two.

The St. Charles Streetcar is back in service.

Both cities are a little ragged by time, studded with faded remnants of a more prosperous era. Both cities face struggles for new employment generators. Both have suffered cataclysmic devastation of urban fabric, and a precipitous population loss. Both have fabulous renovated buildings casually intermixed with brooding ruins. And both Detroit and New Orleans have some of the most creative and passionate residents in America; determined to maintain an urban lifestyle unique to themselves.

Magazine Street shops

I’m presenting an album of New Orleans photos today, as a way to catch up with my readers and as a mea culpa for my long absence. I was married last month, and that combined with our honeymoon in the Crescent City somehow pulled me away from my blogging duties. You understand.

We were in town for the freak snowstorm.

So what’s going on in New Orleans these days? A lot; in fact the oldest historic neighborhoods have largely recovered from the aftermath of Katrina. I learned that this is because, before the flood “protection” installed in the early twentieth century, residential construction occurred only on natural levees and ridges. In the deltaic floodplain of the lower Mississippi, the highest ground is actually closest to the river. Here’s where we find the French Quarter, Faubourg Marigny, and Esplanade Avenue; and the Warehouse District, Lower Magazine Street, and the Garden District.

Which isn’t to say that the city doesn’t have a lot of work to do. New Orleans’ biggest employer, the tourism industry, was heavily damaged by the bad publicity after the hurricane. We were received like royalty at every shop or cafe we visited (not that this is all that different than my recollection of pre-storm hospitality!).

Restoration work on Esplanade mansion.

We found this month to be a good moment for a relaxing New Orleans getaway, before the intensity of Mardi Gras takes over much of the city in February. New Orleans is currently hosting a terrific contemporary arts exhibition titled Prospect.1, which has been running since November and will wind down on Sunday, January 18th. Featured in the New York Times, this exhibition is housed in high profile settings like the Contemporary Arts Center, as well as abandoned structures and fields in the Lower Ninth Ward.

Contemporary Arts Center, Interior view.

The ‘orange house’, part of the Prospect.1 city-wide exhibition.

Site of levee break, and a stop on the Prospect.1 exhibition. Lower Ninth Ward.

The organizers have prepared an outstanding wayfinding map, and there is a reliable shuttle service connecting all the Prospect.1 venues.

The Lower Ninth Ward, or is it a west-side Detroit street view?

I also made time for a visit to the Preservation Resource Center on Tchoupitoulas Street.

Preservation Resource Center.

The PRC is a strong voice for presentation and sustainable urban living in New Orleans, and has been a critical player in the many post-hurricane debates concerning damaged historic buildings.

A tattered blue roof tarp, a symbol of post-Katrina New Orleans, survives on this shotgun.

With more than a dozen staff members, a permanent exhibition and shop space, and a thick monthly magazine, they are a first-class, professional preservation organization. Since I’m sure all of my readers are already members of Preservation Wayne, I would encourage you to support PRC as well.

A spray-painted Katrina marker left as a remembrance on this restored mansion.

There is no reason Detroit can’t take inspiration from what’s going on in New Orleans; the rebounding neighborhoods, the entrepreneurs populating historic storefronts, the resurgent music scene, and a civic obsession with art, preservation, and culture. Forget Atlanta and its vapid glassy skyline; this haunting, idiosyncratic city is Detroit’s true southern soul mate.

An antebellum mansion succumbing to nature and neglect.

I’m hopeful that the next several years will see a slow improvement in the fortunes of these two soulful American cities, which share more problems, and more potential, than most other towns in America.

Dorothy Miner, a pioneering preservation lawyer and sharp-witted professor at Columbia’s Preservation program passed away this week.

Grand Central Terminal (during 2004 blackout).

She was the lead counsel for the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission from 1975 through 1994, and was a key force in the successful Supreme Court case to save Grand Central Terminal. As noted by her New York Times obituary, she was innovative and relentless in her creative approach to preservation; under her guidance even the street grid of lower Manhattan was designated as a landmark.

Dorothy was my thesis adviser for my M.S. in Historic Preservation, and I have her to thank for developing my random passions into a thoughtful and analytical approach to urban preservation. She challenged my conclusions incessantly and without mercy, and guided me to an understanding of how to defend and promote preservation ideas within a regulatory and bureaucratic system all too often hostile to our finest buildings. She was also kind enough to write me a letter of recommendation for architecture school, and even more importantly, lectured me that “landmark” should never be used as a verb!

Her legacy is the beautiful and historic American cities that survive today, a rich history of case law and legal precedent, and her many thousands of grateful students and contemporaries who will continue to do good work.

Cheers to Detroit, where life is worth living!

The 2nd Annual “Living in the V” Real Estate Open House is this weekend; Saturday, Sept. 27 from 1-5pm. The “V” is for Villages, referring to several of Detroit’s most historic and interesting east side neighborhoods, including Indian and West Villages.

Toast at my new house

The Welcome Center for the event is at the Parkstone Apartments at 1415 Parker in the West Village, from which you can grab a list of houses for sale and pick up coffee and crepes for energy. Several dozen homes from $10,000 to over $1 million will be featured; click here for the official press release [PDF].

This year the event includes a “Lonely Homes” tour of ten bank-owned properties led by a licensed Realtor. These tours start from the Welcome Center at the Parkstone at 1:30 and 3:30pm. No reservations are required for any events. The new website of the Villages Community Development Corporation is a must-see as it is a terrific overview of the area.

This bank-owned house needs your love. (Indian Village, 2008)

For those of us concerned about preservation and the future of Detroit, perhaps the single most powerful action one might take is to live in the city and be a tax-paying resident. I know that many of my readers are already Detroiters and have been for decades, if not generations, and have accomplished much in preserving residential fabric in the city. Living in Detroit, we bind the fate of the city to our own, we are forced to pay close attention to issues of preservation, planning, and policy.

Beautiful porch on house for sale. (Boston-Edison, 2008)

As such, I’m thrilled to announce to my readers that I’ve recently closed on a home in one of these great Detroit neighborhoods; my first home purchase after almost a dozen years wandering through NYC and LA apartments. Watch for more updates in coming months as I share some of my renovation and restoration work with you on this blog (yeah, of course mine’s a fixer-upper!). While I’m not yet in the city full-time, I’m closing down my affairs on the west coast and will soon be voting in a swing state again!

Original detailing, Indian Village house. Sold in the last month.

The deals right now really are amazing, and if you’ve ever considered buying a classic house in a walkable, diverse, and historic neighborhood now is the moment. There are houses in every architectural style, size and condition; from homes that are going begging for repairs to homes where you could receive the Queen of England for tea tomorrow afternoon (should you have the proper connections and decent bone china).

This weekend, take the time to explore the east side, but don’t forget about Boston-Edison, Arden Park, Virginia Park, and any one of many other great and varied Detroit neighborhoods. I can’t believe some of the prices for solid, historic houses. Let’s get them in safe and caring hands before they are stripped or vandalized. The housing crisis has created a lot of pain in Michigan, but if it helps a few more preservation-minded folks buy into Detroit’s future then we can emerge with strengthened neighborhoods and a revitalized urbanism.

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 (including some plastic parts), and meaningless in their new context. The original remaining lampposts, with handsome curvilinear arms, unique design cues, steel armature 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.

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?

* * *

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!

In 1996, in Akron, Ohio, David Giffels and his wife Gina bought a rambling Tudor-style home in a pronounced state of disrepair. They have since written a book about their experience and they are the subject of an interesting article in today’s New York Times. I thought I would share it with the Preservation Wayne community, many of whom are no doubt involved in similar love affairs with historic homes.

Tudor-style home, Boston-Edison, 2008

I was especially touched by Mr. Giffels’ comments about love and pride for a hometown, and I certainly recognized the bittersweet experience of exploring decrepit buildings, rotting and wrecked, yet filled with amazing period details, a palpable sense of history and the laminations of time; a veritable palimpsest of material and memory.

The book is called All the Way Home: Building a Family in a Falling Down House, and will be published by William Morrow at the end of May. Look for it at your neighborhood bricks-and-mortar bookseller.

On another topic, please consider attending MOCAD’s annual benefit, held this year on Saturday, May 3rd. Its a great chance to acquire contemporary art and enjoy an evening out on the town, all while supporting a terrific new Detroit cultural institution.