Published on: Mon, 10/01/2007 - 08:27
This weekend, local reporters penned articles ahead of the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s National Preservation Conference. In an opinion piece in the Star Tribune, Linda Mack ponders what the Twin Cities would have looked like without the efforts of historic preservationists:
The Quadriga, the four horses on the State Capitol, would be tarnished. The St. Paul Cathedral would look dingy, and its roof would leak. Summit Avenue would be tawdry, as it was in 1970, and some of the houses would have been leveled. Lowertown’s muscular brick and stone warehouses would be gone, replaced with ugly 1970s buildings—or nothing at all. The Dayton’s Bluff neighborhood east of downtown would be run down.
Preservation hasn’t solved every urban ill… But what’s happened in the last 30 years is remarkable. Developers have come to love older buildings for the character they offer. Preservationists have come to welcome sensitive development. Residents of the Twin Cities have come to value historic environments for their human scale, their ties to the past and their livability.
Thirty years ago preservation seemed to focus on the past. Today it is fueling the future.
Very well put, Linda. Across town at the rival Pioneer Press, Laura Yuen looks to pick a fight in an article titled Cities history (and rivalry) on display this week.
While St. Paul enjoys a more preservation-friendly reputation, Minneapolis has outshone St. Paul’s efforts in the past couple of decades, historical consultant Charlene Roise said.
Roise will make that case Tuesday evening as part of a free public – and playful – lecture about the Twin Cities’ preservation story.
She noted the recent housing renaissance and the rescued mills on her city’s riverfront.
“St. Paul has been trying to do that, but it certainly doesn’t have that renaissance that Minneapolis does,” she said.
Roise also pointed to the redevelopment of the old Sears building on Lake Street, now home to the Midtown Exchange. St. Paul, on the other hand, in 1995 demolished its equivalent, the giant Montgomery Ward catalog warehouse and retail store in the Midway.
“Minneapolis rehabbed Grain Belt, and you’ve got Schmidt and Hamm’s,” she added, referring to St. Paul’s iconic breweries that have yet to be transformed.
Ouch.
David Lanegran, who along with Roise will deliver the special lecture on the Twin Cities Preservation Story, strikes back on behalf of Saint Paulites: “Grassroots, neighborhood-based efforts to save Saint Paul landmarks pioneered the way for Minneapolis to follow.”
Take that, Minneapolis; Saint Paul was into preservation before it was cool. Watch out for hordes of preservationists as they invade both cities this week.
