[Dixielandjazz] Preserving oir Embalming?

[Steve barbone]

Excerpted from a fascinating article in the NY Times making a point that
just because something is old, that doesn't mean we should go crazy trying
to preserve it. Article is not about OKOM, but a similar parallel is easy to
imagine. Not all of the old stuff is particularly worth preserving or
re-playing.

Kinda like when Mr. Crapper invented the flush toilet. Not too many out
houses were preserved afterwards.

Cheers,
Steve Barbone


Commission Preserves the Past at the Cost of the Future

By NICOLAI OUROUSSOFF  Published: May 26, 2005  NY Times

New York City's Landmarks Preservation Commission is unable
to distinguish between preserving the city's architectural
legacy and embalming it. . .

The glamorous era of New York preservation - the outcry over the demolition
of the old Pennsylvania Station, Jackie Onassis picketing to save Grand
Central Terminal - is long over.

But judging from Tuesday's weak-kneed decision by the city's Landmarks
Preservation Commission to approve a scaled-back expansion of the Whitney
Museum of American Art, certain New Yorkers have failed to catch on. To
them, apparently, the overreaching goal is saving what's old - as if the
loss of an undistinguished brownstone parallels the razing of a beloved
landmark. . . . 

The old tradition-vs.-Modernism battles are irrelevant. . .

The Italians, for example, have long understood that the past and future are
not incompatible, and that a love of cities animates desires both to
preserve what is beautiful and to remain open to the new. They understand
that it is the layering of different historical eras - each with its own
sets of values - that gives cities their richness and meaning.

When will the landmarks commission grasp this?