A March 22 Press Herald op-ed asked: “Who is historic preservation for?”

At Greater Portland Landmarks we have been working to answer that for 60 years.

Historic preservation is for all of us, whether our families have been here for generations or are recently arrived immigrants from a foreign land. Most important, historic preservation is for future generations, so that they will have a better appreciation of where we’ve been as a community and where we need to go.

As the National Park Service states on its website: “Historic preservation is an important way for us to transmit our understanding of the past to future generations.”

And make no mistake, our understanding of the past is continually evolving, leading in many cases to a more open, honest and inclusive accounting of our history and the people and places that shaped it. We embrace that and are doing our part to ensure the stories of underrepresented communities are told and preserved.

We also have played a leading role in establishing clear, reasonable and fact-based criteria for protecting Portland’s historic buildings and neighborhoods, far too many of which had already been lost when Portland finally adopted a comprehensive historic preservation ordinance in 1990.

That ordinance has helped to create more than a dozen historic districts throughout the city, which have in turn attracted millions of dollars in public and private investment and have helped make Portland one of the most attractive destinations in the country for new residents and visitors.

Ordinance criteria ensure that all properties within a district are properly evaluated as to their historic value and that all property owners in a district play by the same rules, regardless of their financial means or prominence in the community. Those criteria protect all of us from ill-advised plans and undue political influence.

But now the very integrity of that ordinance is being challenged by the Portland Museum of Art, which is asking the Portland City Council to arbitrarily change the classification of the former Children’s Museum building at 142 Free St. so that it can tear it down to make way for a major expansion.

The writer of the March 22 op-ed cites the gender and color of the expansion’s lead architect; the fact that the designers have engaged a Wabanaki consultant; the musuem’s plans to use Maine timber; and the expectation of thousands of new visitors as reasons to ignore the ordinance and allow the museum to tear down a “contributing structure” within the Congress Street Historic District.

While all of those points are laudable, they could just as easily apply to an expansion plan that respects and includes the historic status of a building that the museum bought in 2019 – knowing full well that it could not be demolished.

Does that mean preservation advocates can’t do more to ensure the history and stories of underrepresented communities are preserved? Of course not. In fact, all across the country in cities that have historic preservation ordinances very similar to Portland’s, more and more sites connected with underrepresented populations are being nominated and given historic designations.

At Greater Portland Landmarks we’ve been documenting resources associated with Portland’s historic Chinese American as well as African American residents. Although we lobbied city leaders to include homes of the founders of the Abyssinian Church in the India Street Historic District, they did not, but we again lobbied to protect several homes of African American families on Lafayette and Merrill Streets with more success. Several homes on Lafayette Street are now protected as part of the Munjoy Hill Historic District.

We invite BIPOC communities to become historic preservation supporters, and to bring forward ideas for both new and old structures that they believe merit designation because of their significance to their cultures and identities.

A decision that allows 142 Free Street to be demolished will do nothing to further those goals. It will, however, send efforts to protect any building of historic consequence in Portland down a slippery slope if the owner has the power and connections to convince city leaders to ignore the rules.

The city’s Historic Preservation Board and the Planning Board have heard all of the same specious arguments that the Portland Museum of Art and its supporters continue to make, and both bodies overwhelmingly have come down on the side of respecting the city’s historic preservation ordinance.

We urge the City Council to do the same – for all of us.

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