Category: Historic Preservation
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One City’s Castle – The Army and Navy General Hospital of Hot Springs, Arkansas
Just around the time of last Christmas, I wrote about my travels to Hot Springs, Arkansas, for a preservation planning assignment. I mentioned the Army and Navy General Hospital in that blog post – a prominent landmark building worthy of further discussion. After visiting Hot Springs again this past February, I had the opportunity to…
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Soulard, the “Little Apple,” and Bathhouse Row – A Year in Pictures 2024
Places change—that is a given. I am fascinated by how they change over time while continuing to tell an ongoing history story. These are places that are well cared for and curated. Fortunately, my travels in 2024 have taken me to incredible places that do just that. Before I get to the pictures, this past…
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Flaneuring – Main Street and Basketball Memories in Lebanon, Indiana
Once a Main Streeter, always a Main Streeter. Main Street is in my blood. I say that because I started my professional career as a Main Street manager years ago, in another life as they say. I served as a Main Street in Ottawa, Illinois, a small town of just under 19,000 in population located…
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Flaneuring – Exploring Cleveland’s Iconic Bridges Along the Cuyahoga River
“What I do is the opposite of building walls. I build bridges. A bridge is something that connects instead of separating.” – Santiago Calatrava Bridges have always facinated me. They’re engineering and art rolled up into one bare and essential structure meant to transport us from one place to another. And who knows more about…
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Readings – Transforming Places with Adaptive Use
The discussion on adaptive use in the mainstream media has been gaining ground in recent years. There is not a week that goes by when there is a report on a signature building somewhere being resurrected from the doldrums of vacancy and neglect into something dramatically new and regenerative. A case in point – the…
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Flaneuring – MacArthur Park, Little Rock, Arkansas
I promised in my 2023 end-of-the-year post that I would write more about my recent travels to the MacArthur Park neighborhood in Little Rock, Arkansas. As with my recent post on Van Buren, Arkansas – where a well-worn but well-cared-for downtown exudes a high level of meaning and character – MacArthur Park is another example…
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A Year in Pictures and Travels – 2023
It has been a busy year indeed. Travels for work assignments in 2023 took me to many different communities and destinations.
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Industrial Landscapes and a Smelterman’s Paradise
Of all the heritage places I have come to know through my work travels and vacation journeys, industrial landscapes have long captured my imagination the most. It is a curiosity that has not waned since the days I first visited the Pullman neighborhood in Chicago when I was a younger version of myself back in…
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Ben Halpern and I
I’ve known Ben Halpern for many years. It was not until very recently, however, that he came to know me. It was last year October, on a chilly, early autumn day that I received an unexpected phone call from him — he was reaching out to me on an architectural photography project he was working…
The Places of Sense Chronicles 