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“I don’t begrudge him his love for brownstones and their restoration. What I dislike is his making it a virtue, and disparaging those who think differently.”
Rewrite:
I don’t begrudge Benson his love of Fedders and Fiberama and his disdain for quality materials and preservation. What I dislike is his making a big stink and disparaging those who think differently.
Perhaps you should take up this issue with those annoying preservationists over at This Old House.
Insertsnappyname:
In my opinion New York is much more like parts of Europe than it is like many parts of the U.S. The history of a city is what unifies it in many senses and grounds the people to a time when things were more simple (something many humans strive for). Look at Warsaw…a city which was completely ruined after the war and then was totally rebuilt as it had been before. Same for many cities over there. I would guess that if Benson would look more to some of the great cities of Western Europe for comparisons instead of some town in Indiana, he wouldn’t necessarily feel the same.
I think the majority of people even outside this blog would have preferred the newly restored place on Waverly to that “Garden State brickface.”
I get that this board and Mr.B’s sensibilities naturally favor old school housing etc., but I have to agree with Benson that such preferences quickly turn into shitting on anything that isn’t exactly that. It is one thing to say “I appreciate restoring old buildings to their 19th or 20th century glory and love to live in such housing.” It is another thing entirely to say “There is no room for appreciation of old buildings that go modern or newly built modern buildings because they are automatically shit boxes sense they don’t try to copy 19th or 20th century homes.” Whether people mean to or not, it often comes off as though they are saying the latter and not the former.
Montrose;
Mr. B. has expanded this website way beyond the coverage of old brownstones and their restoration. He covers new development work, social issues, heck even crime stories. As a person who has a deep interest in Brooklyn, I therefore read his site, and comment. I might add that I comment at Mr. B.’s pleasure. If he doesn’t want my commentary in this site, he can ban me, as he has done with others.
I don’t begrudge him his love for brownstones and their restoration. What I dislike is his making it a virtue, and disparaging those who think differently.
IJ has my perspective summarized nicely.
Benson, your definition of history is pretty narrow. It is impossible to talk about people or events in the past without looking at the places, conditions, or surroundings in which they lived. No one contributes to history in a vacuum. The conditions in which people live prompt them to do what becomes history. That includes buildings, whether for work, shelter, worship, whatever. A building can be as historic as any battlefield.
yeah – but sports illustrated doesn’t report on american sports, and then sporadically cut to some pakistanis playing cricket and make fun of them.
I want the old ‘historic’ washing machines back!
That’s exactly it Jester. It seems as though a lot of people on B’Stoner act like they have never seen other housing styles and communities outside of Brownstone Brooklyn and they hate on anything that is ‘foreign’ to them, even if it can be found in mass quantities just a few miles away.
Benson, this is a blog started by a guy who loves old buildings and historic neighborhoods. The blog is read by many people who enjoy the same, and work to keep it that way. A post celebrating the restoration of an attractive old building, in yesterday’s Waverly thread, is hardly reason to get your blood pressure up. The Garden State Brickface muddle that preceeded it could not be construed as attractive or desireable by too many people here. I don’t know why you continue to read Brownstoner, if you are going to get your back up every time Mr. B. posts about preservation, restoration, or the use of period style materials, and a number of people agree. It’s like getting upset with Sports Illustrated because they keep talking about sports. Sheesh.
I said this on the cafe thread today, and I repeat it here.