Charleston and the Falsification of the Old South

"I'm going back to dignity and grace. I'm going back to Charleston, where I belong." (Rhett Butler, Gone with the Wind) Rhett Butler's statement is often the way people imagine Charleston, South Carolina to be today; a decadent historical southern city that has not changed since prior to the Civil War. However, this image is very misleading. It is through efforts of historical preservation in the twentieth century that Charleston has been able to emulate a pre Civil War historical appearance. This preservation movement began in the 1920s as a response to the destruction of historic structures in order to accommodate automobiles. Thus, the historical preservation movement lead Charleston to economic stability as a means of “sell[ing] the city... to the outside world” and creating tourism as its main industry.

Figure 1: This image is a plan of Charleston in 1704 during its first settlements. The map will be later useful to describe the development and layout of the city and how Charleston expanded and what of the original structure still remains today.

Figure 2: This is a map of Charleston's Historical Preservation Plan. The dark red area represents the existing historical district and the other colors are those the city still proposes to preserve.

Figure 3: The rainbow Row Section of East Bay Street in the early 20th Century.

Figure 4: The Rainbow Row Section of Charleston today.

Figure 3 and 4: It is interesting to compare these two images as both of the images are of the same area. One can see that the Rainbow Row Section resemble early 20th century industrial architecture whereas figure 4 although it is the image of today shows a more dated version of Figure 3.

A dream debauched: The decline of individual as homemaker in suburban America

Update: Image uploading seems to be working now so I will add images.

America, since its first settlement by Europeans, has developed an intense cult of individuality. In many cases the new settlers were those whose individuality was too strong to allow them to remain comfortably in Europe. They set out to the New World as individuals. Upon arriving, they strode into the woods and individually carved sites for themselves, and, perhaps most importantly, they rolled up their shirtsleeves and began building their own individual houses. This notion of the heroic individual-builder played a major role in establishing another great American ideal, that of the utopian pastoral community. For the first 250 years of European settlement in America, development and expansion were seen as a social panacea. If deserving and upright Americans could acquire their own homes, the thought was, they could surely achieve the ideal of Protestant morality to which the country aspired. Yet gradually this aspiration fell apart. By the 1960s and 70s Americans were starting to see the shortcomings in their grand suburban dreams which had somehow fallen short of the ideal community they were supposed to foster. And while there are certainly numerous factors behind the gradual debauching of the American suburban ideal, the diminishing of the individual’s role in home selection and construction can be traced along a parallel trajectory.

Horace

Images: I couldn't figure out how to add captions so I guess I will describe them here. 1: Architect's model for suburban house. Even simple "undesigned" vernacular architecture (which is intended to derive from the inherited styles that had been designed by homeowners themselves) now adheres to prescribed models. 2: Aerial view of defense housing (i.e. for returning GI's) in Vancouver, WA. Shows the anonymity and homogeneity of post-war suburban housing.

3: Page from Federal Housing Administration pamphlet advising subdividers on how to properly arrange lots. The act of carving one's space out of the wilderness, previously a very individual and independent act (see next image) also becomes ordained by corporate or government authorities.

4: "Among the Pines/A First Settlement" Currier and Ives Lithograph; ca. 1850's.

This image is in contrast to the previous 3 as it shows the early rural ideal of the American settler making it on their own in the wilderness.

The Museum As Art and Philosophy

Visual art is often defined by the space in which is found. It can be contained, protected, and kept captive by the space; or it can be let free into the open air to truly be experienced, and the organic nature of its presentation becomes part of the viewing itself. The emergence of the public museum in the American city was a physical manifestation of the shifting national attitude towards art. Art was once a thing restricted only to the educated upper classes. But the museum movement beginning in the early 19th century introduced the idea of art as a public commodity, something that should not be hoarded away in dark halls but displayed for the education and betterment of the general population. This philosophy of art made available for the greater good is made plainly apparent by the multitude of public museums now present in American cities, and in the design philosophies of the architects contracted to build them.

Victory Gardens for the 21st Century

In the later half of the 19^th century, urbanization was a sign of progress. But as land was developed and millions left the country for the city, feeding the nation was left to fewer farmers on fewer acres. During World War II, because of the threat of food and fuel shortage, 20 million Victory Gardens were tilled in non-rural areas. Today, especially in its cities, America faces a serious shortage of healthy, fresh produce in addition to many other social and environmental problems. The Victory Garden movement can be used as inspiration for the current promotion of urban agriculture. America is fighting a different war now, a war on hunger and malnutrition, joblessness, and environmental degradation, but this war is taking place within our borders. Only by approaching the challenges we face like the Victory Garden movement of World War II, will Americans be able to reshape the urban landscape so as to sustain a healthy population.

A Slow Reconciliation: Yale’s Expansion and its Impact on Town-Gown Relations

In the early morning hours of February 17, 1991, a gunshot disturbed the New Haven chill. In the turbulent, drug-riddled years of the 1980s and early 1990s, that was a tragically common occurrence for the city. This particular gunshot, however, attracted the attention of the city and, indeed, the country, because it resulted in the murder of Christian Prince, a nineteen-year-old Yale sophomore. Testimony by his would-be accomplice—although still contested—named James Duncan Fleming, a local youth, as the murderer. Reportedly, Fleming had demanded only money from the Yale student, but still decided to murder him after Prince relinquished his wallet willingly. Fleming, who is black, is said to have mused “I should shoot this cracker” before directing his gun at the white, and privileged, Prince. Christian Prince’s murder served as not only a tragic shock to the entire Yale community, but also a spark to set off unprecedented dialogue about race relations and town-gown relations in New Haven. For nearly a century preceding 1991, Yale’s growth and expansion had been unchecked physically and mentally; rather than the symbiotic relationship which the university and the city had once pursued, Yale became one of the world’s foremost universities and left New Haven abandoned in its dust. The opulent gates of the ivory tower remained permanently closed to most members of the New Haven community, and the distinction between the privileged “haves” of Yale and the destitute “have-nots” of the struggling, post-industrial city had never been clearer. Christian Prince’s death cannot be viewed as anything other than a tragedy, but it does seem to have compelled Yale to work to revitalize this decaying relationship. Nearly twenty years later, town-gown relations have recovered a bit from their low point in the early 1990s. The major reason for this improvement seems to be Yale’s less self-centered attitude towards expansion. While Yale had pursued its earlier expansion at the detriment of the city, the two now work in conjunction to allocate land, resources, and tax money. Although the complexity race and town relations cannot be fully explained by any singular factor, the correlation between those relationships and Yale’s attitude towards expansion are striking, and can teach a tremendous amount about the connection between physical and psychological development.




Sarah Landers

Park on the Railroad: Bringing the Twenty-First Century to the High Line and New York City’s Meatpacking District

“Parks are our town-hall meetings. We disrupt them, with shows of contempt, or little displays of impishness, for the same reasons that protesters tote AR-15s instead of talking about PPOs: to wrest a bit of control. The thrill of sullying pristine environments—of planting a handprint in freshly laid concrete—is particularly acute in those precincts in which there aren’t many pristine environments left to sully.” Lauren Collins, The New Yorker, 14 September 2009

Three years ago, an area of the West Chelsea neighborhood in New York City was industrial, dirty, and covered with graffiti. A decaying iron railroad dominated the landscape. Today, in that same area, the young and the fashionable mill about. Stores and cafes abound. A trendy, newly opened hotel brags that it is located “in the heart of downtown Manhattan’s meatpacking district.”[1] What happened?

In 2006, construction began on the High Line, an industrial railroad that was built in the 1930s, totally abandoned by the 1980s, and, in the past three years, reborn as an urban park. The site, which runs from Gansevoort to 34^th street between 10^th and 11^th Avenues, makes no pretense at concealing its past: the iron frame of the railroad remains exposed, but it now supports gardens and benches instead of rubbish and undergrowth. The High Line project has renewed the elevated railway, but has also prompted shops, clubs, hotels, restaurants, and museums to come to the area. The revitalization of the High Line as an urban park is the last step in the gentrification of New York City’s meatpacking district.

--Erica

The Politics of the Interstate Highway System

With the passage of the Federal Aid Highway Act in 1956, construction began on America's interstate highway system. Regarding this act, many scholars have argued that the legislation was passed merely because of a desire to promote national defense and to facilitate quick transportation between urban centers. This perspective, which has long been corroborated by the federal government, represents a simply apolitical view of highway construction, and one that is based on a functional argument about the necessities of a modern automobile-driven society. Proponents of this reading of the construction of America’s interstate highways site benevolent social causes as another important factor in the movement, such as reversing suburbanization and invigorating blighted urban neighborhoods. This argument for the construction of America’s highways has, however, encountered a good deal of criticism because of its purely apolitical, nonpartisan focus. In fact, the birth interstate highway system in America represents a tug of war between competing interests, each of whom sought to use taxpayer money to advance their own agendas. Infrastructure legislation is often considered policy that is developed without the weight of private interest, and many scholars have attempted to frame the Federal Aid Highway Act in this light. However benevolent government intentions were, the implementation of such a massive program – one that completely changed the fabric of American communities – has clear political undertones. Private interests, especially from the side of local business chambers and the automobile industry, contributed significantly the development of the interstate highway program.


The use of the images wasn't completely explained by the introduction, so here is a quick rundown of how they will be used. The first image shows the sheer size of interstate highway infrastructure and its ability to facilitate the nearby suburban development. The second picture shows the construction of the Route 34 Connector in New Haven and its selected route through one of the city's poorest neighborhoods, and demonstrates the political nature of route placement. This idea is also expressed in the third photo, which is a map of a portion of the New York State interstate system. In the center of the photo is I-88, which is one of the least traveled interstates in the United States, chiefly because it runs only between Albany and Binghamton - cities between which there is not a great deal of traffic. It was constructed under political pressure from a powerful Binghamton Congressman and adds little useful value to the interstate system in New York. The final photo of the construction of I-95 through Richmond, VA demonstrates the destructive power of highways as they cut across cities and, once again, addresses the issue of route placement through poorer neighborhoods.