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READERS RESPOND TO BARTON HINKLE OPINION COLUMN FROM AUGUST 31, 2004
ACORN is not a group that simply rises "in irate indignation to the imminent demise" of old and historic buildings. Preservation groups tend to be noticed more when they stand up to voice their concerns. The countless behind-the-scenes actions of ACORN and other groups don't make news.
Mr. Hinkle did acknowledge an example of ACORN making material contributions. This is not the exception to be noted; this is, instead, the rule. As a grass roots organization, ACORN doesn't have the budget to ride in like the preservation cavalry and dole out thousands of dollars to every at-risk building. Instead, it budgets it's money towards unglamorous things like community outreach, education and supporting outside architects and businesses that see the importance of historic preservation.
All that ACORN has to offer means little to VCU in its initial actions towards the West Hospital. Dr. Trani boasted of meeting with a multitude of community groups (including ACORN). This was a meeting that presented a course of action and did not attempt to seek advice or input. Preservationalist can volunteer their time, their expertise, and their money, or find other like-minded professionals to help all they want. When they stand at the door, ringing the doorbell and no one answers, whose fault is it?
Matthew Cushman
3317 W. Grace St.
Richmond, VA 23221
804 355-7432
Editor. Times-Dispatch:
It was with considerable interest that I read Barton Hinkle¹s article in
Tuesday¹s edition titled ³Preservationists Seldom Put Money Where Their
Mouths Are.² Mr. Hinkle seems to believe that preservation groups such as
ACORN have stables of architects and contractors on call to respond to
ill-advised proposals such as the demolition of the MCV hospitals.
Unfortunately, non-profit groups like ACORN do not command funds necessary
to ensure the preservation of large blocks of our architectural heritage.
Unlike VCU, ACORN does not have the resources to, as Hinkle seems to
believe, ³step up and volunteer the money, or the work² to save the MCV
hospitals.
Hinkle may be interested to learn that ACORN did, however, spend almost two
thousand dollars of hard-won contributions for advertising in the effort to
find a suitable developer for the 1895 Leigh Street Armory building in
Jackson Ward. This is in contrast to the usual small classified newspaper
ads that the City of Richmond routinely uses to call for proposals for this
kind of project. After ACORN bought advertising in national and regional
publications directing interested parties to the City, proposals were
finally received. Any action that might save the Leigh Street Armory has,
after all these efforts and expense, been stalled in the office of the
City¹s Director of Real Estate for over six months.
This important structure has now languished under the ³stewardship² of its
owner, the City of Richmond, for over thirty years. After a fire in the
1970s, the City simply locked the Armory doors and walked away. Now the
building has been reduced to a roofless ruin beside Leigh Street. The
oldest armory structure still surviving in Virginia and a building vital to
African-American history in this city has become a monument to bureaucratic
indifference and mismanagement, despite ACORN¹s best efforts.
Times are tough for groups like ACORN and contributions are often made in
the form of one and five dollar bills. This is an organization that
believes that Richmond¹s architectural history should not be disposed of by
indifference, or neglect, or whim. In some cases, like that of the MCV
hospitals, perhaps all that ACORN can do is raise the public awareness of
the loss of a Richmond landmark in the hope that the citizens will rightly
become both alarmed and revulsed. In the case of the Leigh Street Armory,
blatant negligence by City Hall demanded the expenditure of ACORN¹s meager
resources.
Hinkle¹s disingenuous demand that ACORN ³put its money where its mouth is²
is both unfair and uninformed. The anti-preservation stance he endorses
will only ensure an unloved cityscape of modern mediocrity and in the end,
rob our future of a past to learn from.
Selden Richardson
683-9651