Alliance Review to Commission Members and Other Staff and Elected Officials Within Your Member NAPC Is Seeking Volunteers to Help Advance Its Mission Organization
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A Quarterly Journal of the National Alliance of Preservation Commissions Winter 2018 Exploring Alternative Preservation and Evaluation Methods 4 Saving Portland’s 10 Non Market Valuation 16 San Francisco Mission 24 Toward Equity in Historic Historical Heritage of Historic Buildings Murals Inventory Project Preservation: A Study of Seattle & Greater King County, Washington Follow us on 32 “I GET IT” Moments and the 37 Volunteer Profi le 40 Spotlight 41 State News Story of Historic Preservation Advocacy in 2017 COVER IMAGE New World Tree (1984), Susan 2018 BOARD OF DIRECTORS: Cervantes & Juana Alicia. Legacy mural located at 3555 19th St. Photo by Lyndy Secrist Morris. The National Alliance of Preservation Commissions (NAPC) is governed by a board of directors composed of current and former members and staff of local preservation commissions and Main Street organizations, state historic preserva- tion office staff, and other preservation and planning professionals, with the Chair, Chair-Elect, Secretary, Treasurer, and Chairs of the board committees serving as Updated: 2.2.18 the Board’s Executive Committee. the OFFICERS PATRICIA BLICK MELINDA CRAWFORD A quarterly journal with Quapaw Quarter Association Preservation Pennsylvania news, technical assistance, Arkansas | Chair Pennsylvania | Secretary and case studies relevant to local historic preservation CORY KEGERISE commissions and their staff. TIM FRYE Pennsylvania Historical and Museum San Francisco Planning Department Commission California | Treasurer Pennsylvania | Chair-Elect NAPC STAFF: EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR Stephanie Paul [email protected] BOARD MEMBERS PROGRAM ASSISTANT KATHERINE ADAMS JACQUELINE JOHNSON Marie Snyder Washington Architectural Foundation Initiatives of Change [email protected] Washington, D.C Richmond, VA DEBORAH ANDREWS MICHAEL KOOP City of Portland Minnesota State Historic Preservation Office Maine Minnesota WALTER GALLAS CAROLINE LABINER City of Baltimore Harvard Heights Historic Preservation and Maryland Windsor Square Overlay Zone Boards CONTACT NAPC AT: CONTACT NAPC AT: California BRIANA PAXTON GROSICKI tel (757) 802-4141 PlaceEconomics J. TODD SCOTT Massachusetts King County Historic Preservation Program [email protected] Washington www.napcommissions.org MATTHEW HALITSKY Idaho State Historical Society PO Box 1011 MATT SYNATSCHK Idaho Land Use Consultant Virginia Beach, VA 23451 Texa s JAMES HEWAT City of Boulder PHIL THOMASON Colorado Thomason and Associates Tennessee All current NAPC members who ALISON HINCHMAN National Trust for Historic Preservation serve as city staff to preservation Washington, D.C commissions are encouraged to distribute articles in The Alliance Review to commission members and other staff and elected officials within your member NAPC is seeking volunteers to help advance its mission organization. of providing education and technical assistance to local preservationists, particularly those involved in the work of local NAPC can provide additional preservation commissions. Volunteers may serve on a variety digital copies of The Alliance Review to members of your of committees and in other capacities that take advantage of commission. Simply email us at their individual skills and experiences. Editorial and produc- [email protected] with tion work on The Alliance Review, membership recruitment and retention, resources your commission member’s development, education programs and technical assistance are just a few of the name and email address. possibilities. Join us today to make a difference in the future of preservation by contacting NAPC at 757-802-4141 or [email protected]. In this Issue BY J. TODD SCOTT, THE ALLIANCE REVIEW EDITORIAL COMMITTEE This issue takes a look at alternative methods for evaluating historic preservation that our members are exploring around the country. More and more, preservation commissions are beginning to look at how to identify and protect cultural and social landmarks as well as architectural ones. First though, we take a look at what is being done to salvage those important architectural features when we lose buildings, through the eyes of the Architectural Heritage Center in Portland, Oregon. Next, Lauren McCroskey has begun looking at how to value historic buildings when you can’t put an actual market value on them, through a case study that involved a Corps of Engineers project in Ohio. Then we explore the amazingly colorful murals that are being preserved in San Francisco’s Mission District, and see the work that has been done to catalog them. From there we move up the west coast to Seattle where 4Culture, a county-wide cultural development authority, has devoted time and money to finding more equity in historic preservation, with an interesting study that involved researching hundreds of local landmark nominations. Finally, we go nationwide with Preservation Action’s President, Russ Carnahan, who describes the significant grassroots impact that preservationists had in saving the federal historic tax credit program in the waning hours of 2017. And speaking of nationwide, don’t forget to plan on attending NAPC’s FORUM 2018 in Des Moines, Iowa, July 18-22. Our next issue will be devoted to what you can see and do while you’re there. In the meantime, enjoy this issue of The Alliance Review and don’t hesitate to let us know if you have suggestions for future articles or topics to consider. Windows in the Architectural Heritage Center’s collection. Credit: Carrie Sturrock The Alliance Review | Winter 2018 | National Alliance of Preservation Commissions Page 3 Carrie Sturrock, is a writer and company storyteller for Indow in Portland, Oregon. She loves hiking in old-growth forests. Saving Portland’s Architectural Heritage By Carrie Sturrock The sandstone rosette covered a large chunk of a small table inside the Architectural Heritage Center as the curators decided what to do with it. About two feet wide and gritty, it’s an architectural detail from the recently demolished Ancient Order of United Workmen Temple across the river in downtown Portland, Oregon. The rosette could end up on a wall at the museum even though it weighs a couple hundred pounds. Or it might be filed away for future use in the museum’s cavernous rented warehouse containing an odd collection of America’s past. Val Ballestrem, the museum’s education manager, and his colleagues haven’t decided yet. He does know he’d rather are so few left. Constructed have the building it came in 1892, just 47 years after from intact than the nifty piece Portland, Oregon’s founding, sitting there for his museum’s the six-story brick building was collection, which represents a designed by Justus Krumbein. battle lost to save architectur- Located at 914 SW Second ally significant buildings and Ave, it was one of the city’s houses. most prominent remaining from the 19th century. It had served These days, large historic as the offices for the Portland buildings like the Ancient chapter of the Ancient Order of Order don’t get demolished often because there United Workmen fraternal organization for just a Page 4 The Alliance Review | Winter 2018 | National Alliance of Preservation Commissions Credit: Carrie Sturrock Val Ballestrem pulling out a stained glass window. decade before leading a life of varied use tion says something about the vision of two men included housing the Oregon Historical Society passionate about beautiful craftsmanship. It also and later a furniture store and warehouse. After underscores Portland’s ethic of reuse and sustain- preservationists lost a fight to save it, demolition ability. Many Portlanders have long seen the value crews began tearing it down this past August. in what’s old whether it’s a whole building or just The demolishers knew where to take the pretty a piece of it. “That door needs to be fixed? Let’s pieces. fix it. Those old windows - they don’t need to be ripped out,” explained Ballestrem. “It’s that mindset It’s a little-known fact Portland boasts the largest that helps a lot.” collection of century-old architectural artifacts like windows, doors and moldings west of the APPRECIATING CRAFTSMANSHIP Mississippi. But the Architectural Heritage Center’s In the museum’s basement are racks of stained curators consider it a collection tinged with sad- glass windows, boxes of electrical plates, door ness because the examples of craftsmanship all knobs and other building details like newel posts came from demolished buildings like the Ancient and pressed tin exterior decorations shaped like Order of United Workmen Temple. It’s the story of musical instruments. But incredibly there’s another what once was. And it highlights a massive waste 8,000 square feet of warehouse space filled with of embodied energy. Beyond all that, the collec- more pieces of demolished buildings including The Alliance Review | Winter 2018 | National Alliance of Preservation Commissions Page 5 Photos: Wikimedia Commons: MTLskyline a few hundred windows of all shapes and sizes from around the country. “It’s so vast you can’t really wrap your mind around how much they have,” said Lauren Radwanski, a graduate student of historic preservation at the University of Oregon who volunteered at the museum for two years. How did this collection come to be? And why in Portland? Jerry Bosco was a teenager and a bud- ding artist interested in architecture when he was biking through the Lloyd District in northeast Portland in the mid-1950s. Demolition crews were tearing down houses to make way for what would become one of the nation’s largest malls when it opened in 1960 and the first to ever have an ice rink. A Credit: Carrie Sturrock beautiful stained-glass window caught Bosco’s eye. Cast iron human ornamental head from the Smith and He balanced it on his bicycle and pedaled home, Watson Building in Portland, demolished in 1974. said Ballestrem. That was the beginning. “I like to characterize Portland as a conservative By the mid-1960s, he and Ben Milligan, his city,” said Abbott. “Conservative in that it likes to life partner, were salvaging pieces of destroyed hold onto things that seem to be worth keeping buildings and selling them.