Great P-G editorial today on preservation in Pittsburgh (Braddock, Portland: houses, neighborhoods)

[AaronPGH]

CORRECTION: It's a letter to the editor, not an editorial. Still, nice to see this:

Will Pittsburghers stand by while more of our heritage is leveled? - Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

[aw_now_what]

Well written, thanks for posting, AaronPGH.

"Every Pittsburgher should be ashamed -- for what's about to happen to St. Nick's, for the third-rate sewage control coming to the Strip, for the parking lot once known as the Hill, for the day when the first fracking pad gets dropped within city limits."

Add to that the Produce Terminal, the Iron City Brewery, and hundreds of houses that the city demolishes each year, many of which collectively and individually contribute to our city's unique historic form, streetscapes, and our understanding of our heritage.

[Copanut]

Well, for those of you against tearing useless buildings down, pony up the bucks to keep them.

[Lobick]

I think it should be pointed out that it's a letter to the editor and not an editorial. That is the position of David Conrad in Braddock and not the position of the PG.

As an aside, while his Portland example is evocative, I would caution him as to the conclusion that he draws with regard to Pittsburghers and invite him to the annual house tour in the War Streets. To wit:

The decline was so pervasive by the late 1960’s that urban planners had slated the neighborhood for demolition. As a reaction to the demolition plan, the individual residents, organizations such as Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation and the Mexican War Streets Society united and refused to let the neighborhood become rubble. Through their successful efforts the Mexican War Streets continues to thrive today.

History | Mexican War Streets Society

Personally, I'm largely agnostic on the demo of St. Nick's but his other examples are either 50 years old or mere conjecture at this point.

[Joe Magarac]

First, the link is not to a "P-G editorial." It is a link to a letter to the editor. Big difference.

Second, the battle over St. Nick's was fought and lost decades ago, when East Ohio Street was widened and renamed Route 28, and the residential Croatian neighborhood that supported the parish was leveled. I am against destroying neighborhoods to make room for highways. But that's what happened, and because it happened, it does not make sense to keep the church until it topples over: it was de-consecrated by the Catholic diocese years ago, after the last parishioner moved out of "Mala Jaska" to the suburbs. Keeping the old building as a monument to a neighborhood that was paved over is just silly.

Finally, there's no question that Pittsburgh has committed lots and lots of mistakes by failing to preserve historic landmarks. Creating Allegheny Center; creating Penn Circle; putting the Civic Arena over what had been the lower Hill; the list is long and sad. But there's also no question that Pittsburgh today has done and is doing a great job of correcting course and preserving historic landmarks going forward: the owner of the Iron City Brewery was cited for demolishing parts of it without permission, and the Pittsburgh History and Landmarks Foundation, working with the City, has restored any number of older buildings to glory.

Long story short: AaronPGH didn't link to a P-G editorial, and the demolition of the St. Nicolas building tells us nothing about the attitude of Pittsburgh toward preservation in general.

[AaronPGH]

You're right. I got the thread title mixed up. Sorry about that. I have edited my original post up top. Doesn't look like I can change the thread title though.

And you're also right that Pittsburgh has made great strides towards better preservation, but for every good thing that gets trumpeted around here, there's usually something else that has been let go without much fight. We can still do better than we're doing now.

[cheezit34141988]

Originally Posted by Copanut

Well, for those of you against tearing useless buildings down, pony up the bucks to keep them.

^^^Agreed times 1000

[Mtl-Cns]

I'm not so sure that I agree that Pittsburgh has made great strides towards better preservation. I will concede that it has made strides in certain types of historic preservation, but take a look at what just happened with Mellon arena. I was no fan of it by any means, but prior to its demolition there was just a large effort to preserve the arena or some semblance of the structure but the appeals were denied by the city. Hopefully that's in the best interest of the developers and the city, but who's to say that 50 years from now people won't be lamenting the loss of a giant retractable dome the way that we lament the 19th century architecture that was destroyed for Allegheny "ugly-ass" Center, for example.

[Mtl-Cns]

Originally Posted by Copanut

Well, for those of you against tearing useless buildings down, pony up the bucks to keep them.

Taxpayers already ponied up the cash to create highways and render buildings like St. Nicks useless in the first place. Without consent I'm sure...

[aw_now_what]

To be fair, the P-G has changed the way that letters to the editor look online, and it's easy to mistake them for editorials.

Preservationists don't want to keep "useless buildings" standing, but rather want to see adaptive reuse. Restoring old buildings that have deteriorated helps to rejuvenate old neighborhoods, helps a municipality's tax base, and is green: most of the building materials are already onsite, won't cost the environment for extraction, production and transportation, and won't go to waste. The average three-story brick rowhouse that's demolished puts 50 tons of rubble in a landfill.

I have mixed feelings about the St. Nicholas situation. That said, it's one of too many recent examples of city government declining to enforce its own laws that are designed to protect and conserve neighborhoods, i.e. zoning, historic preservation and building code enforcement.