hi everyone thank you so much for being here on this beautiful evening that's like finally warm this is the annual meeting for the belmont historical society and we have a lot to do tonight we will be presenting the slate of new board members and officers for the upcoming year we will be presenting the historical plaque we are giving out one historical plaque tonight and we will be presenting some awards for preservation the david our johnson preservation awards and following that we have a program tonight we have preservationist mr roger webb will be speaking and so we have a lot to get through and i'd like to just give you a brief overview of what we've done this year we're in good shape we have had a lot of great programs and i want to thank our program coordinator mr phil hughes for the past two years so you know we have come up with some great stuff this year we visited the royal house in medford which was really interesting we did a walking tour of belmont center in victoria hasee showed us like things i never would have noticed without someone actually pointing out something we had a concert with the magical singers in december at habitat we did there was a history of the whole family with lydia ogleby and our last program was dining out in boston with mr james o'connell which was very interesting so we're looking forward to tonight but before we get to the program i would like to invite allison to come up to the microphone allison is our nominees for big and c is on the board of the society after meeting and deliberation the nominating committee to nominate the following slate of officers to serve beginning immediately and he and hall meeting at which they were elected and shall continue in office until time treasurer he's the one who wrote me into being your mailman so you can bait blame me if you don't get your mail on time but this this reward this this program really took off with dave's help and then joe cornish who is no longer part of the belmont historical society used to have a very nice slide program which i have not learned yet so  with us please the first award for the david johnson preservation award is going to alan in the coal seven or eighty three the the nominator it was nicole who nominated her husband but i imagine it was a joint effort it was a joint effort in preserving the one nine hundred forty one of forty two mid oh we're next award is going to be presented to enjoy a low are forensic and i'm just going to read it says in recognition of his leadership in cooperation with other members of the community to rehabilitate the nineteen  seven belmont center commuter rail bridge into low if you'd like to say a few things i know there are other members of your group i have a list of names  one third preservation award is to the belmont veterans memorial committee common inc in recognition of their efforts to restore the world war one memorial that he would not be able to accept the award tonight but i did want to mention the other members of his committee angelo frenzy bill skelly frank french  joe white in roger good day of the belmont v f w project or any of those we just happen to help somebody  webb and recognition of his the sting was career including belmont preservation projects notably his assistance with the wellington historic district the preservation of the chapel now at belmont hill school i was going to introduce ok yeah all right the next part of our program is i was speaker tonight and it's my pleasure to introduce roger webb again  instead of reading a list of his curriculum detail which is really quite impressive if you go to our website belmont historical society dot org to the events page when when i was looking for somebody to speak for the in ual meeting i really was stuck i was looking mainly for somebody in february we had received some nice donations roger a nice d v d and some information about this man who had done all these preservation projects which i had to be honest i had never heard of you'd have to excuse me because i'm not a bill m looking the move i said you know this must be a good program so we tried in february but roger you told me you would rather be dead animal sunny climes of florida and let the rest of us it's you know winter over here so might my introduction is this both my wife and i have been schoolteachers for a number of years in whenever we signed a project we knew that little johnny probably wrote is right awesome or you poet at the dining room table with cheerios dripping from his mouth or in if you're doing a shakespeare report that was done to well i hold in my hand rogers first copy of his draft for his program they gave both me and victoria two days later i get draft number two and i'm thinking to myself this min is really preparing for this topic  i don't think it was another day that passed roger when i got this report this report i read down here the latest from raja this one had a little insert inserts in green and i thought he really does take this to heart well i think it was only maybe sunday night when i got the latest over the latest roger all i can say have you tonight give us some nice stories and we have a slide show that will be presented and so please help me welcome roger well that was not my last tr i think it's just fun to mention that rudy was one of the people i think some of you may be old enough to remember that when we were worried about the whole side of the charles river on the cambridge side it was because the second mores were going to be taken down in a four lane highway is what was going to be pushed there pushed through and looney was one of the key people organizing against the state legislature that  passed legislation to put a four lane highway down the cambridge side of the charles river and finally was very effective in getting his way he said by getting very important ladies such as the governor's wife and few other rudy and then it was fun to come here and tonight an old college friend jeff eaton who i haven't seen in another how long we've been out of college fifty years  maybe maybe even more than that you know so it's such a thrill to come here tonight and see wonderful frank grammer my very good friend of today such a through  to say hello to you because you were one of my one of my cohorts and mentors and best friends as we did things in belmont i was very much hoping to see you tonight and so great that you're here good well let's see i i i i was hoping that my day to order would be here i think they will be there probably tied up in traffic a little bit tonight who lives eighty one shortly after we graduated from college jeff not too long after college on august fifth of that summer and i gave birth to our first daughter rebecca who you will meet later right of way to our property who our lawyer strongly urged that we not buy the property for good reason but what one boy and that began a thirty five year residency where we raised three daughters rebecca mary  charles hamon most of us are still here but some of us of going on anyway my first preservation project in belmont was for only a few dollars i purchased a house in arlington it was going to be dethroned by the winding of route two and belmont hill the house was of architectural was less than half the other the other bits so i asked him to check his figures carefully please before i accepted a seven thousand dollar bill however i neglected to put in the contract an that summer after repeated phone calls and begging him for help pleas for his help he finally completed the relocation in the fall the farmer told me that he had several unexpected matters had come up the lane has move his mother had died twice more likely he just want to do the complete his farming work and when all his crops are safely sold put in his barn and all only then was he ready to undertake it as i was moving business my dad stuart my next door neighbor derek movie it was widely distributed by derek to film festivals and several television channels because the film contained no speaking or language it was sent had started several in cambridge and wishing that historic district in belmont was not an easy sell there was there were many homeowners who did not want to give up their right to to the outside of their or could be done through it i suppose is still an issue but it was definitely an issue when we started out our original plan was to serve as a district on pleasant street in an area containing many homes however we found opposition and quickly decided to reduce the number of homeowner homeowners to two dozen we still found opposition so we reduced the size of our district again and we consider only three public buildings and two private residences and three public buildings with a town hall the old public library and then the woman's club across the street at the town meeting i made the presentation we successfully made our case a reduced size the person street was so artistic was formerly voted into existence called the wellington historic district later it was expanded to include seventy residential on pleasant street and is now called the person street historic district is there anybody here tonight who lives in one of those seventy houses nobody from the right ok anyway  my next project in burma was a fun project which is the result it resulted in the house being moved relocation of an old building to his campus mr hamilton has my advice and then requested my assistance in locating moving a church to their campus they were the church would be used as a chapel headmaster hamilton asked if i knew of an available church i said i would look for and i knew a church and soon i located one as a beautiful greek revival chapel and maybe we can show a picture of that victory other it is right there it was in a valley that was that was required by the us army engineers to be to become a flood control dam area and all the structures in the valley had to be removed that summer or they would be destroyed so we either had to get a church out that summer and we had to belmont hill or it was going to be taken down there's one more slide we have the meeting face for the entire student body and faculty ever since it also became the oldest church structure in belmont i don't know if i don't know whether whether there are any other search church ok today the school is planning to increase its seating capacity by one hundred thirty so it can continue to be the center of the school the school has grown over the past half century and it will continue to grow the following slides show the progress of taking the wood frame church apart that spring and learning in the ten thousand pieces according to the magazines that wrote it grabs because i put in a very low price and move the church like one hundred forty thousand dollars which is about two thirds the price or half the price of building something comparable  a dedication of the cornerstone there is fred hamilton and some of the students the date of the building eighteen forty speaking place in the ground and that's the west thompson connecticut which is a very little town in that state hired five local carpenters who are really great people and they're all i think under forty they are all interested and in this project getting the building saved in helping out so i arranged for them to work for me down there and then when they came up t the house together i got an apartment i fed them and retain them and they were up here for the week and then they went back home for their for their for their weekends but some of them here but anyway  that's well that was a project that was very important to him he was giving to lectures a day to the lower school and upper school and he said he really need to put everybody in the same space the whole all the see there's a warehouse in front and back and on both sides so the first thing i had to do was take down all the stuff around it and then we got back to the granite that was there and then we had to find out what kind of granite it was it was a local granite it had only been quarry in that area for a brief period of four or five years and the stone did not turn out to be very very good so they close the  we're definite make it the oldest building in cambridge why don't you go have a look at it so i said that sounds like a terrific project i jumped in my car drove over to measure heated avenue where they were putting fell in love with it and said i can find a place for it i'm sure and so i moved it to an empty vibe temporarily and then i started looking for a place to put it and i decided that the closure i could get to lucky to find a place or just as lucky as i was who really showed me his lot in the back here i was just a lucky guy so anyway i guess you're talking about  but they were told they could only build it if they would find a place for the houses that they were going to take down so they contacted me and said can you move it down to an empty lot that we own on the corner of channing and  i said yeah i'd love to so we got a contract i got a contract from them to move it from where the library has been built to channing and on the way we had to cut a few branches on what we did cut the branches because it was the only way to get this is this just a little bit further of the sort i guess that we got to the house as far as the intersection of bravo is going to have to the cops one of the people who are looking after the house going house to myself stay there all night because i drive up and say what's going on here the shelves i hear you say well we're doing our best to get the house the street but a lot of moved about thirty houses to make a village very similar to serve a village down in nassau county new york and then back to boston and boston and ok in boston in the late a large market out there to deal with the vegetables quincy they've built a big market for me and they wanted the wholesalers to move but they had to give them the money to move so they had to buy the buildings the ira ended up owning these buildings they didn't really know what they were going to do with them that was our mission we had to come up with a play in what to do with the buildings that they brought back from all the wholesalers they're all designed by the one thousand nine hundred three architect alexander paris and the hundred twenty six by when it was designed by alexander parish the funding was four million dollars to take these buildings take the other things that have been added to it an idea that's been carried across the nation into other wider use in other countries they came up with the concept of the festival marketplace where most of the  really caught on his some of you remember before that people didn't want to live in boston they want to live out in the suburbs and that was the beginning of trying to get people to move back into the city have a something to do over the weekend not go home was supposed to be the big impetus in boston for people to stick around and live live in boston and i think it worked out and surely has been copied by a lot of other cities in towns across the nation elsewhere five on school sherry and i think i want to say that this is the most fun project that i had in my whole career i was working in the old city hall it was an accident i was pushed said to me you have to get the money from four million dollars we can't get it we're on our way out so the first thing we did tad and i went to mayor white office and made a presentation to them this is going to be just great having a f outside your new office out side a new city hall you're going to love it and all you need to do is go down to washington get four million dollars and see his reaction was  i'm very happy where i have right here i don't want to move this is an irish city hall where not only i'm the mayor my father was on the city council my grandfather was on the city council my wife's father was on the first and then i'll go look for them for the for the home market well we said all right so what we'll do the also the whole project first and that's when i became a real estate developer rather hundred seventy five seventy six they opened with the bicentennial and anybody go to the bicentennial some of you remember that they're in the film so that's how i got into the oh city hall it was an accident i didn't see it coming but the best thing that happened to me in my life no really you're one of the best things that ever happened to me a lot a lot of people here have been very kind to me so we're so we're we're on to the  hundred seventy one when i got the when i got control of the all city hall and developed it that's just about when the taste american taste for preservation a change when children people had not been interested in historic preservation anyway they are now in other words that when a building became old particularly a publicly city their name attached to rehab you know building they well take it down and put their name on a new building and major swing was in the a i a the architects where is it a sense for the architectural profession of architecture american institute of architecture they up until nine hundred seventy one had been i go all the rest of the people in the country we were not particularly interested in rehab they were giving awards to all the new architectural styles after the second world war people were tearing down  names came when i want to became president of the and then they began promoting the use of all buildings in one hundred seventy one they say you're looking at the most promising trend in modern architectural work and this was one of the things that changed the public's opinion about getting interested in reusing your buildings and ideas happen a couple more at the right time heritage foundation so their lease i guess the transfer of the new person who is taking on the lease is willing to spend i think it's five million dollars will be put back in the building to restore some together currently in the news again was this trend of reusing the building that you had started to do and now it's being a again we have been invested in by this the latest lou thank you victoria that was that was that was completely unplanned it wasn't prepared for this talk but my son in law who runs our foundation that i started architecture here is foundation that was a foundation i started to do the  land no way could i come up with that kind of money could my found could my foundation so we work out a plan that we were lease the building in the lane from the city for ninety nine years and as the way it has been the least said if the building was only seventy percent occupied we wouldn't know the city a penny of taxes because that would mean that we were probably losing money on the best breaking city amount of money because if the project hadn't succeeded the city would have gotten a penny in other words they became our partners by showing you ninety nine year lease with us they took the gamble with us the gamble paid off the city rather than basically manage and do things that i've done and so he's decided to sell the balance of the lease he sold for thirty one million dollars and five million business but it was big back then which was run by n c hanks and she contacted me and said that there's an old building down here in washington that i would love the been sitting on use for decades i love the use it and i'd love to have my office is in the top floors if you can figure out what to do come down to do a project you can solve for me how to get this all post office back into circulation and put me into the top four or six office but my office into the top four or six floors so that that's that's the old post office building that so many you've been reading about today has been turned into a hotel so i went down there and gave me a contract the arts took another four floors thought of all the floors above and then the ground floor was turned into a festival marketplace and that's what it was for about ten fifteen years and then recently somehow it or use or or buildings and both these buildings also you hall and the post office building were government buildings and as i say up to nineteen seventies when a government building got to wall you took it down you build a new one i mean cheap government policy that all government buildings had to be considered for makes us private and public and that from that point on you just couldn't take a government body down you had to go out and look for  private users and ways that the public could use usability to and i think there are lots of examples all across the country now anyway that's an interesting change as i say that all happened in the  what they wrote is going to fund this my you know this this this office building was once boston's magnificent city hall became dangerously close to being a magnificent rubb the architect is part of the new wash mushrooming school of architects who have who have converted old buildings just five years ago it was here again just five years ago it was com die conversion preserves ability without he being a mommy and the past means more when it is unselfconsciously put into our lives conversion is no snap building codes and zoning codes were never designed to deal with it the show sometime rejects the rejects the transplant but this idea of conversion is catching on  spite of its problems it's a brand new challenge and architecture relish how to make a s door to door to door and obviously you did that the same thing with it that was admired in cambridge that's apparently what you have to do you talk to people why don't more go door to lot of fun i really enjoyed it and i hope you are you are y