Paving the birthplace of the American Revolution to put up a parking lot

Playwright Oscar Wilde once said "Nowadays people know the cost of everything and the value of nothing."  That is essentially what singer song writer Joni Mitchell meant when she wrote the words about paving paradise to put up a parking lot.  In this case it isn't paradise it is the birthplace of resistance that lead to the American Revolution that is slated at any time to become quite literally a parking lot.

Saving our precious heritage is not just a trip down memory lane.  There is something unpatriotic about tearing down something historic just for more parking space. 

Who will read a historical marker at the end of an unused parking lot?  It is likely that knowledge about this event will begin to fade back into obscurity like it has until the house became an issue.  We will continue to believe that the Sons of Liberty just rose up against taxation without seeing the connections to events all the way back to the French and Indian War that likely made conflict with England inevitable. 

There are those who view preservation as a violation of individual property rights.  I believe they fear that preservation means that the property will be confiscated in some way from the owners.  Once a property is designated historic it is often worth more and along with historic preservation comes the willingness to pay the owner the new fair market price.

According to preservation articles there is a virtual epidemic across America to tear down older historic building like the Justice William Smith House in Mercersburg, Pa.  This has a tendency to wipe out whole historic neighborhoods one house or building at a time and in the process to wipe out a conscious and visible connection to our history one building at a time.

We live in a visual age.  It is one thing to read about George Washington and another to go to Mount Vernon and see where and how he lived.  The same can be said for Monticello.

What we have forgotten is that this country was not created by an aristocracy even though our Founders were men of extraordinary talents and vision.  Much of our history is not made by a few extraordinary individuals but by ordinary men and women.  That is one aspect of what democracy is.

That does not mean that every scrap of history must or should be preserved.  In each individual case we need to evaluate the importance of each site and weigh and measure the significance of events as they relate to our history. 

But for those who worry about how much saving our history will cost and whether our tax dollars should be spent to buy and save precious aspects of our jointly held national heritage, studies show that saving history actually makes money in the long run.  Richard Moe of the Trust for Historic Preservation in an April 14, 2009 op-ed piece that appeared in the St. Paul Pioneer Press notes that in Maryland a recent report by the Abell Foundation showed that over 12 years, completed rehabilitation's of historic buildings both residential and commercial generated 1.74 billion dollars in total economic activity.  It provided employment to 15,120 persons.

The construction labor on renovations alone amounted to 9,248 jobs in a field hit especially hard because of the housing crisis and the recession.  It also generated increased property taxes.  Will a parking lot do that for any community?

The economic benefits of preservation efforts can be documented in four ways and already has in other communities:

1.)  Job creation.

2.)  Increase in property values. The neighboring houses appreciate faster in value, retain their value longer when historic properties are saved.

3.)  Historic preservation is a vehicle for economic growth through tourism.

4.)  Historic preservation spurs historic revitalization of entire communities.

The Justice William Smith House was the location or meeting place where the first resistance to British Rule was organized.  How much might the whole community benefit from saving the House?  Will turning it into a parking lot as very soon could be its fate, generate the same potential for economic growth?

I hope everyone who reads this will take just a few moments to access the website: http://savesmithhouse.com.  Considering what the economic impact of historic preservation can mean we should be saying save the birthplace of the American Revolution.  Please help save the Justice William Smith House.   We could create paradise by not putting up a parking lot.