Monthly Archives: April 2024

Incurious and lazy historians

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It’s a thing.

One example I’ve been sitting on for a while is the Montgomery County, Maryland, Planning Department’s study of racially restrictive deed covenants and housing discrimination. This screenshot from the agency’s 2023 report shows a discussion of a Black physician’s efforts to buy a home in Silver Spring in the early 1960s.

Screenshot, “Working Draft of the Mapping Segregation Report,” pp. 27-28.

The report’s authors didn’t bother to learn that this home described in their report was still owned by the family and that the doctor’s daughter was married to the son of a Tulsa race massacre survivor and leading voice in Black history: John Hope Franklin.

There’s lots more missing from the report, but that’s a story for another day.

There is No Basis in the Law for Demolishing this Historic Building

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In 2023, the Pittsburgh Historic Review Commission unanimously approved an application to demolish a historic building in the city’s Uptown neighborhood. The developer took that decision to the Pittsburgh Planning Commission for approval in an April 2, 2024 hearing. The HRC approval had no basis in law and preservation practice. Despite serious questions raised by my testimony and statements submitted by other parties opposed to the project as proposed, the Pittsburgh Planning Commission voted to approve the project (five affirmative votes, one abstention), including the demolition of Joe Tito’s former garage and beer distributorship.

Visitors attending the Tito-Mecca-Zizza House pop-up museum in April 2022 read text panels next to Joe Tito’s former garage and beer distributorship. The Pittsburgh Historic Review Commission and Pittsburgh Planning Commission have approved this landmarked building’s demolition. Photo by David S. Rotenstein.
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