Here where I live, the recently hired President of the University seems intent on making over our town in his own image of what it should look like, meaning massive demolition of entire sections of town to build monstrosities that for some of us serve no purpose other than to demolish entire neighborhoods. I am hearing from people who work there that this particular President wants to elevate our University to a Tier 1 status a la Ohio State, but Columbus is a far bigger city and far better able to handle massive landscape changes than we in our small town can deal with. Nonetheless, demolition of entire neighborhoods continues to go forward, and one home standing in the path of it all is this historic home dating from sometime around the mid-19th century. An architect friend of mine calls it one of the finest examples of Greek Revival architecture left in the city and he's a valuable ally to have in this fight to save it. The reason that the University wants to demolish it is to build this ridiculous "Esplanade", which is supposed to be some sort of walkway that makes it easier for the college students to walk downtown, as if they ever had any problem at all. Since the University doesn't have classes anymore on Friday (which I find terribly odd, given the skyrocketing cost of tuition), the parties go on not just Friday and Saturday night, but on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays now, so for three nights in a row, I see students migrating downtown from both off-campus housing and from the dorms on campus. They seem to have no difficulty whatsoever getting to the bars on weekend nights, so why they need this "Esplanade" is beyond me. It's going to be nothing but a trash magnet and a nuisance to the city, filled with drunken students who will leave it strewn with beer cans and beer bottles that somebody's going to have to clean up. Who, I do not know, but somebody.
The house we are trying to save has a very strong possibility of being of significant historic value. It might have been the residence of a Dr. Aaron M. Sherman, a physician, a Captain in the Civil War who served as a battlefield surgeon at the Lincoln General Hospital in Washington, DC, a founder of the First Universalist Church here in town, now the Unitarian Universalist Church, and an all around mover and shaker in this area. According to one report I read, he was at Ford's Theatre in Washington the night that Lincoln was shot, which is very significant indeed, especially given that he was a doctor. I don't suppose he rushed to the stricken President's side, but who knows, maybe he did. Just the fact that he was there that night makes Dr. Sherman a historic figure in town, and if it can be proven that this was his house, its saving is even more important. I had coffee with an architect friend on Saturday morning to discuss what steps are going to need to be taken to save it and yes, it's a longshot, to be sure, but we've got to try. I couldn't live with myself if I didn't do anything to try to preserve this beautiful old house. I hope that we're successful in saving it, but in the meantime, I have my work cut out for me. There will be many hoops to jump through, many steps that will need to be taken, many people I will need to contact and work with. Things are already in motion but we've only just begun the first steps in what will no doubt be a long process to save this beautiful historic home from the wrecking ball. We have two months before it comes down, not much time, but enough time to maybe convince the University that it is in their best interest to save a historic landmark and preserve a piece of our rapidly disappearing local history. Stay tuned.....it's going to be a long and uphill battle.
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