Author Archives: David Rotenstein

Subdividing history

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Last week I testified at a Georgia House of Representatives judiciary subcommittee hearing on a bill that would amend the state’s historic preservation law. HB 802, described as an act “to allow for subdivision of historic property,” was introduced by Rep. Doug McKillip (R-115th Dist.) of Athens. If enacted, the amendment would allow property owners in locally-designated historic districts to bypass historic preservation commissions with proposals to subdivide their properties.

The bill has received little media attention in Georgia. One exception is an Athens Banner-Herald article published in January.

I was asked by DeKalb County preservationists to testify in opposition to the bill. I joined Georgia Trust for Historic Preservation CEO Mark McDonald and current and former Druid Hills Civic Association presidents Robert Benfield and Bruce McGregor. Continue reading →

Why historic preservation? (Updated)

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Nearly thirty years of archaeology and historic preservation fieldwork have given me a memorable collection of quotations that I’ve scribbled in various notebooks. One that has stuck with me was posted above the bar in the Port Matilda Hotel in rural Centre County, Pennsylvania: “Language: use it right or you’ll be asked to leave.”

Another one is, “It’s old but it will never go historical.” That was how the fourth-generation owner of a 19th-century St. Mary’s County, Maryland, tobacco farm described her property as I surveyed it in the summer of 2004. I frequently draw on this quotation when I try to explain to people why seemingly ordinary — vernacular — buildings and landscapes are historically significant. Sometimes I’m successful, many times I’m not.

My new neighborhood: an anti-historic district sign from 2007. Photo by author, August 2011.

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Tearing Down History, Preservation (updated)

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The City of Decatur Historic Preservation Commission presents its annual Decatur Design Awards to recognize contributions made to retain the historic character of the City. – City of Decatur Website

 

2011 City of Decatur Design Awards. Presentation excerpt posted at the City of Decatur Website.

What was the Decatur Historic Preservation Commission thinking? Earlier this year, the HPC gave a design award to a property owner and his architect for a type of project that is diametrically opposed to accepted historic preservation practice and theory. Continue reading →

This House Must Die: Documenting a Decatur Teardown

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The greenest building is … one that is already built – Carl Elefante, architect.

The house at 916 East Lake Drive in Decatur, Georgia, had to come down. It wasn’t structurally deficient. Nor was it an abandoned eyesore. The one-story home suffered from a malady sweeping through Decatur: it was too small. Once celebrated by architects and consumers, the American small house is an endangered species threatened by the impulse to tear them down and replace them with larger, “better” homes.

New construction looms over Oakhurst’s small houses. October 2011.

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David “Honeyboy” Edwards, 1915-2011

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I heard the news this morning that blueser David “Honeyboy” Edwards has died at age 96. I first interviewed Edwards in 1991 in Atlanta. Like all music writers who interviewed (over-interviewed) Edwards, I asked him about the night Robert Johnson died. Continue reading →

Clandestine Cold War Presidential Emergency Site: Fort Reno Redux

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Last year I wrote an article for the Recent Past Preservation Network’s newsletter documenting presidential emergency facilities. These were subterranean bunkers with above-ground radio towers. Follow-up articles appeared in this blog.

Recent Internet posts have revealed the existence of photographs taken by the John F. Kennedy administration during the construction of the site in Washington, D.C., code-named “Cartwheel.” The site, with its masonry communications tower, is “hidden” among water towers in the capital’s Tenleytown neighborhood. The photos have been digitized and are available at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library Website.

According to the information included with the digitized images, the Fort Reno facility was constructed in the summer of 1961 and it was sponsored by the White House Army Signal Agency (WHASA). The images below are a few of the nearly 100 images from the JFK library’s collection.

Capoeira Maculelê Decatur

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Originally published on Dateline:Decatur, a post on a local capoeira group. Kick back and watch this video compiled from the three clips embedded in the 2011 post.

© 2011 David S. Rotenstein

Historic Parkwood: An Early DeKalb County Ranch House

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Parkwood was one of the last subdivisions developed in Historic Druid Hills. The first post in this series explored how Parkwood’s landscape developed between c. 1920 and 1960. The research presented in that introduction shows that there were three periods of historic development inside Parkwood: 1927-1939; 1940-1947; and 1948-1952.

Houses built in the earliest phase were executed in the period revival and bungalow styles popular at the time; homes built in the middle phase bridged the revival styles and included early ranch houses; and, the homes built in 1948 and afterwards were almost exclusively ranch houses. This post explores the history of one of the earliest ranch houses constructed in Parkwood during the middle phase, in 1946. Continue reading →

The Civil War, George Washington, and the Mount Vernon Factory

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Shortly after the first Union defeat at Bull Run in July of 1861, federal authorities confiscated James Crutchett’s Capitol Hill property in Washington, D.C. Just a few blocks north of the Capitol, the property occupied much of Square 683, which is bounded by North Capitol Street, C Street, D Street, and Delaware Avenue. It included Crutchett’s home and a factory where he had begun turning out George Washington kitsch made from wood he was harvesting from Mount Vernon. Continue reading →