Your post, and this obituary from today's Times, makes one wonder what Ms.
Huxtable might have written about the subject: http://tinyurl.com/afabwx5
A few gems:
At a time when architects were still in thrall to blank-slate urban renewal,
Ms. Huxtable championed preservation not because old buildings were
quaint, or even necessarily historical landmarks, but because they
contributed vitally to the cityscape. She was appalled at how profit
dictated planning and led developers to squeeze the most floor area onto the
least amount of land with the fewest public amenities.
She invited readers to consider a building not as an assembly of pilasters
and entablatures but as a public statement whose form and placement had real
consequences for its neighbors as well as its occupants.
What infuriated her were authentic reproductions of historical
architecture and surrogate environments like Colonial Williamsburg and
master-planned communities like the Disney Company's Celebration, Fla.
Private preserves of theme park and supermall increasingly substitute for
nature and the public realm, while nostalgia for what never was replaces the
genuine urban survival, she wrote in The Unreal America: Architecture and
Illusion (1997).
--- In AsburyPark@yahoogroups.com, wernerapnj wrote:
Reading a post on the Asbury Park Sun today reminded me of a threat the City
has been facing for decades... The defacement of its vintage and historic
structures.
The damage is incremental and hardly noticed until it reaches a critical mass
and adversely effects the character of the community.
Some notable examples.
- A classic brick residential/commercial building at 6th and Main; painted.
- The former North Asbury Park RR Station at Memorial Dr. of brick and
exposed wood beams; painted.
- A brick building at Summerfield and Emory; painted
- The Windor Building at Main and Bangs, a historic site; painted, antenna
dishes, inappropriate commercial facades.
- The Arthur Pryor Pavilion; stuccoed over, painted, remodeled.
- Many classic brick Main St. buildings; stuccoed over, painted,
inappropriate storefronts, etc...
Stucco, paint, inappropriate storefronts, remodeling
The clasic, historic look and feel of Asbury Park is being erased in a slow
steady assault.
The Sun posting has a photo of a beautiful brick commercial building with
inappropriate signage covering what should be transom windows, a character
defining feature of the building.
http://asburyparksun.com/rebearth-art-supply-and-lifestyle-to-close/
This board has been inactive for so long, but at least my concerns are now
part of public record...
Werner
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