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Bringing welcome attention to the battles of preservationists nationwide, the National Trust for Historic Preservation (NTHP) recently announced its 2003 list of America's "Eleven Most Endangered Historic Places." Since 1988, the National Trust has compiled yearly lists of important historical and cultural sites that are threatened by demolition, slow and steady deterioration, and neglect. The need for such a list is clear: raising awareness of the threats facing such important historical sites nationwide is the best way to save them.
"In their amazing diversity, these places tell us who we are as a nation," said Richard Moe, president of the National Trust. "They constitute an epic cultural narrative whose chapters include not only world famous icons like Minute Man National Historical Park but hidden treasures such as the elegant bathhouses of Hot Springs. Unless all of us become aware of the importance of our heritage and take action to preserve it, America's past won't have a future. That's the real message of the Eleven Most Endangered list."
Among the sites hoping to benefit from a place in this year's list are Minute Man National Historical Park in Massachusetts, an important American Revolutionary site threatened by heavy air traffic from nearby Hanscom Field Airport; Eero Saarinen's 1962 TWA Terminal at JFK Airport, which may become obscured and obsolete if the Port Authority goes ahead with its plans to demolish parts of the building and construct a new terminal behind it; and urban houses of worship nationwide, which are both architectural landmarks and meeting places and are threatened by changing demographics, limited capital budgets, and high real estate values.
In the years since the National Trust began compiling its "Eleven Most Endangered" list, all 150 sites mentioned, except one, have been saved. Past lists have included Abraham Lincoln's retreat in Washington D.C., in which he drafted the Emancipation Proclamation, and Pompey's Pillar, a sandstone pillar in Montana into which explorer William Clark carved his name.
Sites on the 2003 list of America's "Eleven Most Endangered Historic Places" are:
- Urban Houses of Worship (nationwide). Churches, synagogues, meetinghouses or mosques, such as the 1891 Quinn Chapel AME Church in Chicago, the 1850 Beth Hamedrash Hagodol Synagogue in New York City, the 1907 First United Methodist Church in Seattle, and hundreds of others across the nation are falling victim to changing demographics, limited capital budgets and soaring real estate values.
- Ocmulgee Old Fields Traditional Cultural Property, Macon, Georgia. Onetime home of the Muscogee Creek Nation, which contains evidence of 12,000-year-old Ice Age settlements, numerous burial and ceremonial mounds, and valuable wildlife habitat, is threatened by a proposed multilane highway.
- Amelia Earhart Memorial Bridge, Atchison, Kansas. Opened in 1938, and now a memorial to the famous pilot, this Missouri River span is facing the threat of demolition and replacement with a new bridge.
- East Side and Middle Schools, Decorah, Iowa. The 1896 East Side School, a local landmark, is empty, deteriorated, and both it and the adjoining middle school, built in 1922, face an uncertain future.
- Zuni Salt Lake and Sanctuary Zone, Catron and Cibola counties, New Mexico. This lake, considered sacred by at least six Native American tribes, and its surrounding area are threatened by plans to strip-mine coal and build a forty-four-mile rail line that will destroy many burial and cultural sites and possibly drain the lake itself.
- Little Manila, Stockton, California. Three modest buildings are the last survivors of the once bustling neighborhood that housed the largest Filipino community outside the Philippines, and now they could be torn down to make room for a strip-mall parking lot.
- Minute Man National Historical Park and Environs, Bedford, Concord, Lincoln, and Lexington, Massachusetts. Heavy air traffic, unchecked noise and visual intrusions from a busy regional airport are taking a devastating toll on this national park on the site where the American Revolution began.
- TWA Terminal at JFK International Airport, New York, New York. The Port Authority plans to demolish portions of Eero Saarinen's 1962 curvilinear masterpiece and construct a hulking new building behind it, rendering the modernist icon useless for aviation purposes.
- Bathhouse Row, Hot Springs National Park, Garland County, Arkansas. Known for their eclectic architecture and decorative flourishes, six of the eight surviving buildings along Bathhouse Row are vacant and deteriorated and badly in need of renovation.
- United States Marine Hospital, Louisville, Kentucky. Constructed in 1851, this three-story Greek Revival landmark served the community and the nation faithfully for more than a century but is now unused and crumbling.
- Michigan Boulevard Garden Apartments, Chicago, Illinois. One of the nation's foremost examples of workforce housing, this 1929 apartment complex, constructed by philanthropist Julius Rosenwald has been vacant for years, even though it has great reuse potential.
The National Trust has more information online at <http://www.nationaltrust.org/>.
Jennifer E. Jackson is a junior at Indiana University and is serving as an editorial intern with the OAH Newsletter this summer.
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