The ongoing battle

Tonight I added a small but important section to the site's front page, with a working title of "Urgent - Help Needed!"

It's something I've wanted to do for a while, based on a long-standing frustration. I get a lot of emails from visitors lamenting the fall of the city's historic architecture, but so very rarely is there any sense that there's anything that can be done about it. Furthermore, I get a sense that it's treated as something over and done, as though the decay had reached its conclusion, and all the possible damage had been done.

But the struggle to preserve architectural heritage is not a on-and-off switch; it is a continual cycle, a living thing, like the city itself. Buildings fell ten, twenty, thirty years ago -- but they continue to fall today. New threats arise; once-healthy buildings go vacant, then derelict; older buildings are reclaimed, redeveloped and rejuvenated, or torn down.

And whether you live in the city today or moved away thirty years ago, there are still things you can do to help.

Let the city's officials know the world is watching. Let them know that you care about the city's physical fabric, the buildings that compose it, and how it's all put together. Give money, give time, give your voice.