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Our Commonwealth - January E-News from Preservation Massachusetts
Our Commonwealth
Preservation Across Massachusetts
January 2009
In This Issue
A Day in the Life of a Circuit Rider - Anne DodgeWhere Are They Now?Save the Date! 2009 Annual Meeting Save the Date! Cape Cod Historic Preservation ConferenceSave the Date! 2009 Annual Awards DinnerContribute to Our Commonwealth
PreservationMassachusetts
Greetings to All!
Happy New Year!
As we begin 2009, the PM staff has made a New Year'sResolution: communication
. We resolve to better communicateas an organization with all of our members, partners andcolleagues. There are so many exciting thing happening in ourpreservation community and we are determined to better sharethat information, experiences and opportunities with you. Anothergoal of PM for 2009 is to reach out to our culturally diversecommunicates across Massachusetts. It is clearly a priority tostimulate conversation and better understand the many diversecultures and neighborhoods that make up the fabric of ourCommonwealth. Our Circuit Rider, Anne Dodge, provides someinsight into embracing diversity within preservation in the followingarticle. We are excited for this new year and look forward to thechallenges ahead!Jim Igoe, President
A Day in the Life of a Circuit RiderBy Anne Dodge
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Our Commonwealth - January E-News from Preservation Massachusetts
Board of Directors
Claudia S. Wu - ChairJack Hodgkins -Vice ChairDouglas Kelleher - ClerkPhil A. Madonia- Treasurer
James G. Alexander, FAIAPamela BaileyDaniel R. BenoitThomas F. BirminghamJean Carroon, FAIAStuart GregermanTodd McCabeJames McDermottSean McDonnellLouis C. MillerMichael H. RosenbergYanni TsipisRita WalshFran Weld
Staff
James W. IgoePresident Erin D. A. KellyAssistant Director Anulfo G. BaezOffice Manager Elsa FitzgeraldSpecial Projects Manager
Circuit Riders
Michele P. BarkerAnne DodgeDorr Fox
Support Preservation Massachusetts!
In my job as a Circuit Rider,
Iget to work with a wide range ofhistoric properties all over easternMassachusetts. However,although the properties can bevery different from one another,the people who call the CircuitRiders tend to have a lot incommon. But every once in awhile, a property's fate hinges onthe participation of a racially andculturally diverse population. TheWollaston Theater is one of thoseproperties.
The Wollaston Theater in Quincy
is a single-screen, classicalrevival-style building on a bustling commercial street neardowntown Quincy. Known locally as "The Wolly", the theateroperated as a first-run movie theater until the 1990's, when itbegan to fall into disrepair. The Boston Globe reports that agroup of individuals in the arts have entered into a purchase andsale agreement with the estate that owns the building; reportedly,the new owners intend to keep the theater in use as some type ofperformance or cultural center.Since the 1980's, the Wollaston's North Quincy neighborhood hasalso been home to many Chinese and other Asian immigrants.According to The Next American City, Quincy's Asian-Americanpopulation stands at around 14,000, or around 17% of the town'stotal population. When I was contacted by a concerned localcitizen about the theater's recent sale, we spent much of ourmeeting talking not only about the theater, but about thecommunity around it. My client worried that it would be difficult toform a collaborative, diverse coalition of advocates - not becausethe theater didn't matter to all of the neighborhood's residents, butbecause she had no knowledge of any Chinese-Americans inQuincy who worked in preservation. And unfortunately, neitherdid I, and neither did my coworkers, although the city has no
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Our Commonwealth - January E-News from Preservation Massachusetts
Preservation Massachusetts is entirelysupported by our Corporate and IndividualMembers and Foundations.Find out about Corporate benefits,events, programsand take an active role in preserving ourCommonwealth. Join today!
Did you know? PreservationMassachusetts is on...
Check us out online as we strive to takepreservation across Massachusetts!
Who are the Circuit Riders?
Interested in learning more about ourCircuit Riders?
Find out which one is apublished author, studying motels alongRoute 66 and who grew up in aneighborhood designed by Mies van derRhoe by visitinghttp://www.preservationmass.org/staff.shtmland meet the people are activelybringing preservation acrossMassachusetts!
shortage of knowledgeable preservation professionals.From my perspective as a Circuit Rider and someone relativelynew to the field of preservation, the Wollaston Theater is not onlya building to be saved, but an opportunity to explore the issues ofdiversity, relevancy, and communication that characterize thehistoric preservation field. The field has worked hard in recentyears to broaden both its participants and the types of resources itcelebrates, but there is definitely more work to be done. Ridingthe "Circuit" around eastern Massachusetts has shown me howfew new Americans are engaged with historic preservation. And Idon't believe that this is primarily because the buildings oftenrepresent Anglo-American history or because historic preservationis a luxury business, but because preservation organizations havefailed to create sustained and meaningful relationships with newAmerican individuals, groups, and organizations.It also seems to me that historic preservation may be in a bit of anidentity crisis, which makes this a great time to start talking aboutrelevancy, diversity, and the future of this field. In its struggle toexplain itself (and support itself financially), the field is looking tothe environmental movement, to modernism, and to financialincentives, to name just a few, in order to make its case to theworld. But at its core, the field is about remembering,demystifying, celebrating, and criticizing our past. It's a field ofmemory, and as this country's collective memory changes toembrace the narratives of a broader population, so must theparticipants in the work of preservation. I believe that theWollaston Theater and cases like it are a golden opportunity forPreservation Massachusetts, since they give us a chance to listento new voices and engage new partners in the act of rememberingand interpreting this country's history. More importantly, I alsohope that these kinds of partnerships will reenergize the field ofpreservation - a field that means so much to me, but can feel soremote to many - and help it forge a more modern, inclusiveidentity that reflects the critical importance of this work, now andin the future.
Anne Dodge is the Circuit Rider serving Metro Boston, Central and Eastern Massachusetts. The Circuit Rider Program is in partnership with the National Trust for Historic Preservation.
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