Thoughts on preservation, and the Marriott.

Preservation seems to be holding on to things, whether they are ideas or objects, which may or someday will hold residence to our culture. I do agree to an extent that preservation is important. The births of certain styles of architecture completely need to be erected forever. The sights of great battles should be maintained and watched over. America seems to have a problem of letting go of the past, though. Preservation needs to emphasize importance, as well as dyer significance to how historically prevalent a place was. There needs to be a line drawn in order to appreciate history for what it is.

At this moment preservation is a tool to glorify historically, beautiful places. Not only beauty in the sense of aesthetics, but also in knowledge, in leadership, and in American authenticity. These are places of celebration. To preserve their needs is to bring dignity of the original, and if a place of historical significance needs to be maintained, it should be done in the most precise way. With that being said, “Not everything old is historic. And not every old building needs to be saved.”

With the Marriott planning on taking two buildings down from the third ward, along with one of my favorite bookstores, at first I was beside myself. Throughout reading the articles I quickly came to terms with how good this hotel would be for Milwaukee’s economy. The preservation of the buildings became not as important as the economical standpoints only because in reality the building was never very important. Sure it had some historical milestone, but this is the problem I find with preservation. There was one thing that made that building special, and there were powerful people willing to compromise jobs and economic help in order to preserve an idea that in relation is minuscule. The Wisconsin Jewish Chronicle was certainly a big deal for our city’s history, though that building never housed anything else as noteworthy. For me, the process of approving the Marriott took too long trying to compromise an architectural plan. The new plans on what is to be preserved demean the design of the building, and don’t seem worth it for how little is being saved.