Please dispose


SR building 2
Originally uploaded by In Shaw.

In my profession we have these things call records management schedules. They tell you what records to keep, for how long, when to toss them and when to shove them off to the archives. If I could make a schedule for Shaw buildings, I would put the Susan Reitig (not sure if the spelling is right) building on S Street, across from the Wonderbread warehouse, on the dispose when no longer in use category.
The building is fairly new, only a few years old. But remember our present, will be someone’s past. I have this small fear that just because someone designed something and it manages to survive 2 generations or worse gets named after an honorable person it becomes slated for permanent retention. So I propose surveying the neighborhood and finding buildings, that when they have become no longer useful (ie abandoned), as buildings have been from time to time in the history of this neighborhood that they should be disposed of. And the people of the present should guide the people of the future on what buildings to put their energies behind and preserve and which ones need to meet the wrecking ball or get radically redesigned.

9 thoughts on “Please dispose”

  1. I’m all for community involvement in approval of architects’ design plans, but, as we know, for the past 4 years or so, the ANC2C community under the thumb the LIttle Tyrant doesn’t get advance notice of when such plans will be presented and thus rarely has an opportunity to give input. Suzane Reatig designed the MCC which is actually a pretty nice and useful bldg, but the S St and 5th & O St bldgs do look stark and out of place. Someone told me the O St bldg was residential (Yikes!) I’ve seen habitrails for gerbils that looked more homey.

  2. I love it. And I’m all for not letting one group controlling the aesthetics of other people’s property. Isn’t freedom great?

  3. I walk by the 5th and O Reatig building and see it out my windows every day. I think it’s dreadful. It’s even too cold to be an office building. Shaw is littered with her designs and I wish she’d stop. That said, I think a Hysterical Society approving every minor change would be worse.

  4. It is one thing when one little section of the city is designated as a historic district, but it becomes worrying when there are more districts added to the inventory AND current districts’ boundaries grow, particularly when the motivation is based on aesthics and development and not a unique history.
    So if this is a slow trend, I say fight back. Point out buildings that we can afford to lose or change. Put some standards on the “Ernest Hemmingway drank here” line of thinking that may preserve a place because of a minor insignificant role it may have played in a famous person’s life. While on this rant…. don’t preserve the homes of any pop culture personality and if you must, for only as long as there is a market to peddle their history. When the time comes when no one in the future knows who the hell so in so is anymore, take the house off the preservation list.
    I’m a fan of history from the ground up (vs the great man on a horse history) only in document form, not so much in building form.

  5. wait until you see what the UHOP and susan have in mind for the 1300 block of 6th street.

  7. Diane–

    Can you provide any information on the plans for the 1300 block of 6th? Maybe a link or something?
    Thanks in advance…

  8. The community does not have any say over what individual property owners do with their property unless it falls in one of three categories:
    !) a designated historic district
    2) a variance, changes in zoning
    3) public space (street, sidewalk, front yards)
    But what developers do in such cases should be held under public scrutiny before they get approval for their plans.

    Apparently the developer who created the new condo at 5th & Q is working on another similar structure on a nearby block (Marion St?). The 5th & P bldg could be a lot worse, but I’m always hearing complaints from local residents and visitors alike about how it breaks up the the look of the area.

  9. YT Is that the one with the stainless steel decorative grill at 5th and P you speak of?

    Carmen LOL. you will be shocked!

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