The Main Street Approach in the United States
With the so-called Main Street Approach now for 25 years a programm organized by the National Trust for Historic Preservation tries to revitalitze historic commercial districts.
The objectives are:
The Main Street Approach is a community-driven, comprehensive methodology used to revitalize older, traditional business districts throughout the United States. It is a common-sense way to address the variety of issues and problems that face traditional business districts. The underlying premise of the Main Street approach is to encourage economic development within the context of historic preservation in ways appropriate to today's marketplace. The Main Street Approach advocates a return to community self-reliance, local empowerment, and the rebuilding of traditional commercial districts based on their unique assets: distinctive architecture, a pedestrian-friendly environment, personal service, local ownership, and a sense of community.
Quelle:http://www.mainstreet.org/content.aspx?page=3§ion=2
This strategy combining economic goals (commercial develoment) and preservation seems to be pretty successful.
Anually good projects are rewarded with the National Main Street Award.
2005 one of the winners was Barracks Row in Washington, District of Columbia.
The website of the project is providing a lot of information.
"Newspaper Row, Washington, D.C." Engraving from "Harper's New Monthly Magazine" (January 1874).reference:Wikipedia, GNU
1 Grandpoohbah wrote on 06.01.2006:
Hi:
A belated response to the comment you posted on grandpoohbah.blogspot.com regarding the Hampi/
Vijaynagar site in India.
You had asked:
Interesting report! I would like to visit it one day.
How was Your impression of the state of cvonservation of this World Heritage Site?
The site is in general in good conservation state. The Vitthala temple has been aggressively
restored, and I came away a little concerned if the new stone pillars being carved to prop up the
ceiling were interfering with the original design-scheme. This aspect of restoration which also
becomes re-creation is of course not limited to Hampi, but looking at the Ugra Narasimha statue,
which now has a gymnastic band around its knees to prevent the legs from separating, one gets a
very different impression from the original intent of the creators.
Also, it is one of the sports of the Indian tourists to tap (in some cases bang on) the musical
pillars of the temple to make them ring out. The more musical of the pillars are already dark with
grease and sweat from many hands and security guards on site seem to be unable or unwilling to stop
it.
But compared to many of the Heritage Sites I have seen (say Angkor), this one is clean, without too
much tourist load or commercial activity, and looks to last at least several more decades, barring
earthquakes or tsunamis!
2 Saffronsaris wrote on 08.01.2006:
Hi Matthias, thanks for dropping by my blog.
Architecture is really fascinating, unfortunately the profs didn't think I was good enough for it :(
I've compiled a list of UNESCO World Heritage Sites that I visited, and am planning to write about them on my blog.
This year I visited Turkey, and really like Pammukale and Troy (some pictures of Troy and Pammukale on http://saffronshots.blogspot.com).
I visited the palaces at Potsdam too, although I arrived there quite late and couldn't see much of the architecture.
Your site on the world heritage sites is really informative!