How incredibly counterproductive that there be a rift of any kind between the leadership of this royalty of historic buildings , the top of the food chain, these historic sites, and the rest of the preservation community. For consider the qualities of these places, and their derivative potential to influence the American public to embrace the cause of the family of historic preservation. They share with all preserved buildings the quality of tangibility, no small asset in a field where convincing people of the value of preservation by abstract thought is almost always ineffective. Historic sites are real places, where you can hear about preservation and witness it at the same time. Historic sites have the power to demonstrate preservation, to educate the public in both its philosophy and practice.
Historic sites have the quality of authenticity.
Better stated, they have the inherent quality of authenticity, if it isn t destroyed. In an increasingly virtual world, Historic sites may be the best remaining places for the public to come to understand the value of the authentic versus the reproduction, the value of the original versus the recreation, the value of balancing preservation with new construction, of keeping a progression of our built heritage in our towns and cities rather than wiping the slate clean every generation. And historic sites have the quality of being able to inspire. Through their authenticity, their tangibility , and the stories of the people who lived and worked in them, historic sites can rivet the attention, fire the imagination , inspire people to think thoughts that would not occur in ordinary settings, open eyes and open minds. We shouldn't even have to ask the question.