The Future of Post-Industrial Sites
The General Motors Site at Sleepy Hollow. To be developed for the better? Or for the worse?
Henry John Steiner, from a 2006 address--
Historic preservation can be
as endangered as the landmarks it seeks to preserve. As a local historian, I can say with certainty
that there is more money in development than there is in preservation. Even when the forces for preservation are
reasonably well-coordinated and in good order, they are often outflanked and
routed by much better funded, profit-driven interests.
In my 1998 book, I pointed
out that each of our collective treasures is “constantly threatened with
extinction due to a lack of time, money, and interest.” We may well ask the question, “Who is
guarding our cultural treasures.”
Tarrytown has a historical preservation ordinance with no teeth, and
Sleepy Hollow has none at all. In recent
years both the James House and the Fremont House were subjected to encroachment
by development, in spite of a village-adopted and state-approved LWRP that
specifically forbade such encroachment.
Who is responsible for
preservation? We are of course. Do we as a community have the will and
resolve to protect our shared assets?
When taxes are high we are told that development will solve the
problem. I have never seen proof of
that, but I have seen many harmful historic and environmental impacts in the
name of so called lower taxes. Local
historian, Edgar Mayhew Bacon, wrote in 1897 that the march-of-time is ever at
work on our inventory of historic treasures; what we don’t protect will soon be
trodden over.