Payback Time
Bestowing awards rewards us all.
BY DWIGHT YOUNG
What's more enthralling than a batch of before-and-after
photos? Nothing, that's what—and that's
why I enjoy preservation awards ceremonies so much.
Last fall I attended three in two weeks, and the experience
left me downright giddy.
The first was in Columbus, Ga., where the Historic
Columbus Foundation marked its 40th anniversary by
handing out a passel of awards, most of them to people
who had renovated a house or donated hours of volunteer
time to the planning and staging of foundation events.
As they posed for photos, the honorees looked proud
of what they'd done—and rightly so, judging
by the pictures that flashed on the screen: Shots
of people eating hot dogs at Riverfest and showing
off their party duds at the Heritage Ball alternated
with images of sagging porches straightened and scabby
paint jobs smoothed. It was a celebration of preservation
at its grassroots-iest, and by evening's end
there wasn't a face in the place that didn't
sport a big grin.
A week later, the presentation of the Mayor's Awards
for Excellence in Historic Preservation here in Washington,
D.C., showed what a multifaceted undertaking preservation
has become. Winners included an exhibition on the
work of an underappreciated 19th-century architect,
the conversion of historic auto showrooms into apartments
and commercial space, and the community-driven creation
of a neighborhood history brochure. A celebrity was
in attendance: Kevin O'Connor, host of PBS' This
Old House, accepted an award for the on-air rehab
of a dilapidated Washington row house. And in the
something-you-don't-see-every-day category, the D.C.
Department of Transportation was honored for restoring
the layout of one of the city's original traffic circles—a
project that was warmly (and deservedly) lauded even
though it had snarled traffic for months.
The Trust presented its own awards at the National
Preservation Conference in Pittsburgh. If you've
ever attended this event, you know that occasionally
a winner will punch you right in the heart. Several
years ago, one of the honorees was a frail 92-year-old
man who had spent much of his life as caretaker of
an abandoned Spanish mission in central New Mexico—and
when that little old guy shuffled onto the stage,
the theater echoed with the kind of cheering usually
reserved for rock stars. More recently, a similar
thing happened when we saluted the crew of a historic
fireboat that played a heroic role in the aftermath
of the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center:
I'm sure those men are used to rough waters,
but the huge, noisy wave of audience adulation was
enough to knock them down.
This year's presentation didn't have that
kind of "choke-up" factor, but it had just
about everything else. The ceremony recognized throngs
of architects, lawyers, artisans, planners, public
officials, and private citizens for developing innovative
programs and policies, turning eyesores into icons,
and restoring everything imaginable: a seaside hotel
in New Hampshire, an adobe mission in Texas, a movie
palace in Hawaii, and much more, including the Alabama
bus that carried Rosa Parks to fame. The event lasted
an hour, and I was sorry to see it end.
In these cynical times, it's tempting to be dismissive
about these quintessentially American parades of plaques
and trophies and grip-and-grin photos, but I find
them inspirational. I think this is because, in a
world of mixed blessings and diminished returns, awards
ceremonies are an unalloyed pleasure, a feel-good
rush with no harmful side effects—what Martha
Stewart calls "a good thing," pure and simple.
We heard a lot about legislative anniversaries last
year—the 100th anniversary of the Antiquities
Act, the 40th anniversary of the National Historic
Preservation Act, and so on. If you ask me, awards
ceremonies show that we preservationists (plus lots
of people who wouldn't dream of wearing that
label) are doing a good job of building on the foundation
laid for us by the visionaries who wrote and enacted
those laws. Happily, more praiseworthy work is being
done every day, so we can—and should—keep
handing out awards for years to come. That means more
before-and-afters, which suits me just fine.
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