To carry this a little further; recently I paid a visit to the former Turtle Creek Pump Station (1909), now the Sammons Center for the Arts in Dallas, Texas:
This building is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and has been designated a Texas Historical Landmark, an American Water Landmark, and a Dallas Landmark. It is also a great example of adaptive reuse; here is a picture of the lobby showing the "museum" that describes Turtle Creek Pumping Station:
This is all great; a wonderful example of adaptive reuse, and a good example of taking something that would have been torn down otherwise, and finding another purpose for it. As Dallas' oldest extent pump station, and being designed by the same individual who designed Dallas City Hall; it is worth of the acolades that have been given it.
But, at the same time, something bothers me. It is not a pump station; and hasn't been for some time. But what's more, the SW corner of the building was knocked off to make room for the widening of Harry Hines Blvd.; and the stack was taken down as well. There are four former steam pumping stations in Dallas; and this is the only one I did not recognize for what it was because it doesn't even look like a pump station anymore.
OK, now here is Cadiz Pump Station; also in Dallas:
Cadiz looks like a pump station. It was built just six years later than Turtle Creek Pump Station; and while the steam machinery has been scrapped; the pumping machinery that replaced it is still there:
The building is also in amazingly good shape for being out of service for 50 years; Turtle Creek Pump Station was derelict and extensively redone to make it what it is now.
Yet, Cadiz Pump Station has no landmark status whatsoever. Most people don't even know that it is there. Why is that?
Part is location -- it is not the best part of town. Part is political -- Dallas doesn't want it to be designated a landmark because plans are to tear it down to make room for expansion of the I-35E/I-30 Interchange.
But, I think there is something else too. It ties in with past RYPN editor's comments that steam locomotives are best displayed in roundhouses, not museum buildings.
News just came out that the big (90 ft long) steam pumping engine in Brindley Bank Pumping Station, Rugeley, Staffs, UK needs a new home. In discussing this on my "Steam Lizards" group; someone made some thoughtfull observations:
Quote:
The UK record for preserving large engines, once they have been removed from their engine houses, is not good. The costs are very great and enthusiasm is hard to keep up when faced with a pile of rapidly rusting ironwork. The longer the storage the more difficult the task. There is reputed to be at least one large dismantled beam mill engine in Scotland, in the care of a local authority,that has managed to lose its flywheel. What chance with the smaller non-ferrous parts?
Sadly the legal protection for engines can be minimal. It is common for engine houses to be "listed" as architectural objects worth preserving and this can make demolition and indeed restoration very difficult legally, but the contents are rarely considered important by the arty types who drive the listing process and are thus usually ignored. Add to this the strong government pressure , via our charming Deputy Prime Minister, for lots more housing and the problems are clearly serious.
A similar situation at Coombe Mill in Oxfordshire ended happily when the local authority , under pressure from local and national enthusiasts, refused permission for a change of use of the buildings but the scale of the operation was much smaller and, probably crucially, there was not a very similar station in full preservation only a few miles away. I shall miss Brindley Bank but at least we shall have Millmeece for the forseeable future.
Sadly the legal protection for engines can be minimal. It is common for engine houses to be "listed" as architectural objects worth preserving and this can make demolition and indeed restoration very difficult legally, but the contents are rarely considered important by the arty types who drive the listing process and are thus usually ignored. Add to this the strong government pressure , via our charming Deputy Prime Minister, for lots more housing and the problems are clearly serious.
A similar situation at Coombe Mill in Oxfordshire ended happily when the local authority , under pressure from local and national enthusiasts, refused permission for a change of use of the buildings but the scale of the operation was much smaller and, probably crucially, there was not a very similar station in full preservation only a few miles away. I shall miss Brindley Bank but at least we shall have Millmeece for the forseeable future.
From which I am finally realizing the following:
1. We think a roundhouse, engine house, pump station, etc. is worthy of preservation if it is intact, with everything in place. But to the general public; the machinery inside is nothing but "junk"; only the building itself is worthy of perservation.
2. Steam engines (including locomotives, of course) are more difficult to keep and not as appealing when taken out of their native context. Surprise surprise?
It sounds like we have some room for trying to educate the general public here. As has been stated, the arts community does so; so of course do the rail-to-trails folks. We need to continue trying to explain why something like this:
Should be preserved as is; and not scrapped out and the building adaptively reused; or the engines removed and set out in a field on a pedastal somewhere and the building just torn down. Add to that the need to continue to pass on our interest in preservation to a future generation in the face of development pressures.
I hope this makes sense and generates some positive results; I have been wrestling with the thought for awhile.
-James Hefner
Hebrews 10:20a
Surviving World Steam Project