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| Flimsies:Tales of Vegas Past: The silent houses .. https://www.rypn.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=6838 |
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| Author: | ge13031 [ Sun Sep 07, 2003 8:27 am ] |
| Post subject: | Flimsies:Tales of Vegas Past: The silent houses .. |
If you get a chance, read this one, it's very sensitive and I think the last two paragraphs sum up "our" preservation efforts to date. lamontdc@adelphia.net |
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| Author: | dave [ Sun Sep 07, 2003 10:17 am ] |
| Post subject: | Aaah, context..... |
One of my hot buttons. I asked Cathy from Sacramento about the potentially glaring discontinuity likely to be experienced by visitors to the planned new facility in the old Erecting Shop area of the former CP / SP / UP yard when developing a new business and residential community on adjacent land. Her take was, and very practically so, that one can only eat an elephant one bite at a time. There remain very few places with anything resembling complete context, a few more with enough context to satisfy - EBT comes to mind. Jamestown might come close but for the modern intrusions made to accomodate parking, a new shop space, etc. NPS lost a great chance to rebuild a real context at Golden Spike NHS when they insisted on placing a visitors center and parking facility unlike those provided by Leland Stanford in 1869 on the site. Economic pressures to deal with tourists and adjacent economic development generally prevent extensive preservation of context, but the flipside is these alterations are what provides the infrastructure to appeal to visitors and bring them in at all. Disney created idealized context in his theme parks, and nobody can argue with their success. It is also hard to argue with the parks as places where steam runs in multiple trains 365 days a year. If D&SNGRR carried what CATS carried in its best year it would have been considered a very bad year from their POV, but a success for CATS. CATS is much more an untouched D&RG experience than that produced by D&SNGRR. This is a reminder that context is less important than marketability from a business perspective, and that D&RG had good reason to abandon the lines in the first place. How can we decide where to draw the line and how much to compromise to build institutions which will be self supporting and still interpret reasonably accurately? Dave irondave@bellsouth.net |
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| Author: | Ted Miles [ Mon Sep 08, 2003 11:59 am ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Aaah, context..... |
The Western Railway Museum at Rio Vista, CA was the site of a station on the Sacramento Northern Interurban. By 1940 the Station was taken down and all that was left was the track wondering through a field. In 1960 along came the Bay electric Railroad association and started building a Streetcar Museum. Later they were able to buy the branchline from the Union Pacific Railroad. The 22 mile segment is the largest piece remaining piece of the Interurban. The site is significant enough to be found eligable for the National Register and a nomination is going forward. But history does need facilities: bathrooms, parking lots, ADA facilities, and something to tell the story. The WRM Visitor Center building is acting as a magnet, People who have been going by on the highway for years are now stopping in because something is there! A bunch of street cars in a field is no longer enough in this day and age.Yes, context is important but so are the facilities the public has come to expect. ted_miles@nps.gov |
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| Author: | Ken Middlebrook [ Mon Sep 08, 2003 4:12 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Aaah, context..... |
> How can we decide where to draw the line and > how much to compromise to build institutions > which will be self supporting and still > interpret reasonably accurately? Can a line be drawn when self supporting capabilities and interpretation accuracies are, in themselves, moving targets? kamiddle@rockwellcollins.com |
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