The city of Racine may soon begin cataloging its historic items to prevent them from disappearing.
The City Council is scheduled to take up an ordinance (read here) Tuesday night that would protect Racine's "historic artifacts." The ordinance would apply to any city-owned objects, but not to any real estate.
An example of where the ordinance would have been useful is in protecting eight Civil War cannons that were once placed on Monument Square. The cannons disappeared and no one knows where they're located, said Eric Marcus, chairman of the Landmarks Preservation Commission.
More modern examples - where the ordinance could actually go into affect - include the Karel Jonas statue on Douglas Avenue and the historic paintings that hang in City Hall, he said.
Under the ordinance, the Landmarks Preservation Commission would compile a list of historic city-owned objects that are over 50 years old. The City Council would review the list and, within 60 days, vote to remove an object from the catalog of historic items. After 60 days, the items would be protected, essentially, forever.
Private owners could also submit items for the list, but the city cannot compel a private owner to include an item. For example, Gateway Technical College's Mary Todd Lincoln statute could not be included on the list unless Gateway approached the city and asked for it to be included. (The ordinance includes a specific provision directing the commission to work with Gateway, Racine Unified, and county and state governments to expand protection to their historic objects.)
Marcus described the city's historic objects as the "fabric of Racine" that's slowly disappeared over the years. He noted the urns outside of Winslow School, city bubblers, and countless others items have been lost.
"We need to take a proactive step so this does not happen again," he said.
Brian O'Connell, director of city development, told the commission he hasn't heard objections to the proposed ordinance from city departments or aldermen.
Alderman Bob Anderson said he expected the ordinance to pass.
"Any controversy will be on what's included on the list," he said.
Feb 1, 2010
Preserving history: City may catalog its artifacts
Update: The City Council voted Monday (Feb. 3) to send this ordinance to the Finance and Personnel Committee for further consideration. The committee will consider the proposal Feb. 10.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
84 comments:
It's unfortunate that the City of Racine no longer retains public water fountains. Those were lost following a State requirement that dictated that state inspectors inspect the annual turn-on and turn-off function. The Racine approach - just take the 'bubblers' out citing prior vandalism. The city fathers never explained how a cast iron bubbler could be vandalized!
Great idea! This is an ordinance we all should be able to support. If anyone is opposed, it will be Rick Jones and his Department.
The bigger question is why don't they already know what they have in their possession. Governments are supposed to have inventories just like business. The fact they apparently don't have an inventory should be explored.
Two of the cannons disappeared in the late 1960s. I would suspect some young guys pulling them off as a prank and they'll turn up some day in Root River or Lake Michigan.
Later Racine's public works removed the other six cannons.
I suspect Fred Larson thought it was cheaper to just remove the remaining six rather than making the two replacements. The monument was cleaned around that time. Maybe the company that was hired to clean it also removed the six cannons.
It's wonderful to see the two big cannons restored. "Thank God" we have some watchdogs out there.
Wouldn't it be great if the one of the persons responsible for there disappearance would make things right. Come on Guys ---WHERE ARE THEY?
There are so few of these relics that have survived. To preserve them is the right thing to do.
When they were widening Hwy 31 between Spring Street and Durand Avenue. They pulled out all the markers that marked the trail of the old Green Bay Road. The sentiment of the County Public Works manager was who cares about them anymore.
I cleared my throat and said, I DO! And I'm willing to raise hell about it too.
After the short verbal battle the County guy gave in and put the markers back up. I had already made my case on WRJN and the county guys were listening.
It was interesting a old guy once told me there was a marker in the middle of the Horlick airport land.
That part of Green Bay road most have moved west but the marker stayed put. I'm sure it's long gone now.
One Near Durand, Kinzie, Spring.
One still stands at Douglas at 6 mile. Are these priceless treasures doubtful. But they are interesting relics of the past. People should leave them alone.
With double-digit unemployment and poverty galore, Racine shouldn't be worried about artifacts. It's time for our leaders to care about our less-fortunate residents. People, not inanimate objects, should be Racine's priority.
If you want to see what's wrong with the mindset of our elite, take a look at a certain corporate crime clan's sacred seaplane and its pretentious shrine. The last thing this sad city needs is more artifacts and the worship thereof.
Since Racine's history is largely a sorry saga of entrepreneurial avarice and labor exploitation, preserving it is a farce. We ought to be making history by reining in the rich, not glorifying their greed. For starters, we can elect officials who aren't afraid of the Waxtrash corporate crime family and who will rescind the Waxies' property tax exemptions.
Why no coverage of the little church that the City was thinking about kicking to the curb?
9:18 and 9:21 - quit blaming someone else - get out and do something on your own. The city government does not owe you a job. You need to earn it!
Get real! Ordinary people possess very little power and, hence, scant responsibility for their plight. I hope and pray that you may never find yourself in their situation. Telling downtrodden victims of a system they never made to do something for themselves is tantamount to taunting cripples.
9:26 You're a gem. What side of the bed do you wake up on each day?
Mr. Angry,
Many parts of your angry comments I agree with, but your going to far.
I know who you are and I'm not surprised that you need to vent your anger in this manor. You have every right to be angry. But I'm telling you as a friend you have to stop or it's going to eat you up. Your way above all this. I know what they did to you and I think I know why. You have every right to be angry. But You are a much bigger and better person then they are any day. It may be the hardest thing you'll ever do, but its time to let it go.
Save the self-reliance lectures for Emerson, Horatio Alger, Samuel Smiles and other dead-and-damned Victorians. We don't need them during the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. Thank you very much!
JT did a good job on covering the church story. Read their story from last night here:
http://www.journaltimes.com/news/local/article_a177a0d2-1073-11df-8c81-001cc4c03286.html
Dear 10:37, Alas, I'm not
Mr. Angry. Sad to say, capitalism has severely harmed thousands of Racine residents. Needless to say, many of us hate the system and those who've imposed it on us for their exclusive fun and profit.
Losers blame everyone else and take no responsibility for their own lives. It's always someone elses fault, the system or whatever. Take a look in the mirror - then you'll find out who is to blame.
If we don't learn from history we are doomed to repeat it. So many of today's problems are directly related to people not learning from history. Bad business practices, bad government, too much debt and bad public policy always have the same results. Yet, because people don't learn from the past they doom us to keep repeating it.
Dear 1:30 PM, The rich and their six-figure income lackeys want us to believe that everything is our fault. In actuality, those who possess money and the power which it bestows bear most of the responsibility for our misery. Please stop blaming capitalism's victims and start following the money to the mansions of the real culprits. There's blood on hands with platinum bands.
Something I find interesting is that this is the ONLY story that Pete and Dustin decide to put up on this site concerning last night’s city council meeting. There is no mention of the fact that the city council voted 10 - 4 to ignore the desire of the majority of the taxpayers in this city and denied us the request to hold a referendum concerning the recycle bins. Nope, they just shoved them down our throats. Or, that there was a 100% showing of support for retaining the church on Douglas Ave., which the city council wanted to use the Conditional Use Permit "club" to kick out.
This is not exactly what I would call unbiased, objective reporting on local issues. Pete, Dustin…, your left is showing, again.
Anon 9:18, just because we have the unemployment and poverty problems that you mention, it is no reason for the city council to completely ignore every other issue.
Anon 9:18 = stupid.
Anon 9:18 IS Anon 9:21 and Anon 9:26.
It amazes me how often those who aren't willing to apply themselves are so quick to blame anyone who makes more or is better off than they are. My wife and I have worked hard our whole lives to better our finances and position in society and life. We have earned what we have by diligence and hard work. We worked our way through putting each other through school, even though we could have sat back with our hand out to the government and cried about how disadvantaged we were and how society was to blame for our situation. But we knew that wasn't the truth. We didn't blame those who went before us and worked even harder to be wealthier or better off. More power to them. They worked for it and they're entitled to reap the benefits of their toil and keep it. We never even would have thought of asking the government to take away what they worked for and give it to us so that we wouldn't have to apply ourselves. But that's just exactly what I hear the whiners doing here. "Oh, I'm so poor and down-trodden because the Johnson's have so much money." "I'm so deprived of everything because of the hateful capitalists and their capitalistic society." Well, get off you ass and apply yourself and you wouldn't be so down-trodden and pathetic!
AMEN
Damn skippy, brother.
Dustin, can you delete all this spam about socialism so people can comment on the article?
It is relevant. Socialism will be an artifact.
Dear 6:06 PM, I'm glad that you and your spouse have prospered in a system designed to degrade and destroy the rank-and-file for the benefit of propertied predators. However, what you and your wife accomplished is not within the ability and means of ordinary people. If we are truly serious about eradicating poverty and extreme socio-economic inequality, capitalism and its Emersonian propaganda touting self-reliance will have to head for history's museum of horrors. Collective problems require collective solutions geared toward the greatest well-being of the greatest number. Our outdated Transcendentalist cult of the triumphant individual is merely a richman's myth designed to divide the masses and prevent them from uniting to demand and implement socio-economic reforms.
The bottom line about artifacts is their intrinsic nature as inanimate objects. In plain English, artifacts are things. From a moral and ethical perspective, people and their needs should prevail over the preservation of artifacts. It's time for government at all levels to accord priority to people and stop fretting about bits and pieces of our pathetic past.
9:48 - Ok let's just throw them all away - now that they are gone, people and their needs will prevail and a lot of jobs will be created - what, more garbage men?? Idiot.
It's probably a good idea to systematically keep track of historically important artifacts. It's very easy to lose them over time. The International Time Capsule Society estimates that 80 percent of time capsules are lost.
dear 1:46PM, Nobody I know advocates throwing away our artifacts. Even so, people and their needs should possess priority over inanimate objects and their preservation. During the present economic crisis, when so many of our citizens lack the basics while the rich grow richer at their expense, caring for the poor should trump concern about things.
How I wish that our Public Library would recruit anti-poverty lecturers instead of experts on inanimate objects such as Frank Lloyd Wright's buildings!
Although artifacts aren't intrinsically evil, our elite's obscene obsession with them is.
3:23 - There is absolutely no correlation between the two. But no matter what - even if the topic was the weather somehow you would be whining about the poor. It does not matter what the subject you always resort to the poor.
Dear 3:29 PM, Just drive around this toadish town and you'll know why I'm concerned about our less-fortunate citizens. Racine is nothing but a tarted up poverty pit misruled by corporate oligarchs and would-be richie-poos who adore things while exploiting people.
Mr. Angry - how do artifacts have anything to do with driving around town. and don't you ever get tired of saying the same thing "corporate oligarchs and would-be richie-poos?" I know we all tired of reading it. Get a life or take you own. You are too sad for all of us.
Who's Mr. Angry? As for telling some poor soul whose ideas irked you to take his own life, that's extremely unethical conduct. Please grow a heart. Thank you very much!
Dear 4:12 PM, If you ever toured this town and observed the poverty here, you'd understand why caring for downtrodden people must trump cherishing inanimate objects.
9:55 - I've been in parts of town you probably aren't even aware exist, but that does not change my opinion - there is no correlation between tracking artifacts and the poor. Let's not blame all poverty issues on everything.
Dear 9:44 AM, You bet there's a connection between the two--when a city invests money and effort in artifact-related projects, that cash and concern don't reach people in need of assistance.
...and when the poor run out of the cash we give them, what should we do?
Find a job - quit with the handouts.
Anon 9:40, your argument doesn't hold water. You suggest that my wife and I, "have prospered in a system designed to degrade and destroy the rank-and-file for the benefit of propertied predators." Dumb-dumb, we came from the rank and file. We didn't come from money, we didn't inherit anything, we took responsibility for ourselves and WORKED to improve our station. A concept that is obviously foreign to you.
You say, "...touting self-reliance will have to head for history's museum of horrors. Collective problems require collective solutions geared toward the greatest well-being of the greatest number." That's just outright stupid, fascist, nationalization garbage. Taking from those who apply themselves and giving to those who won't does not promote well-being, it makes those who apply themselves stop doing so because there is no reward for themselves for the effort they put forward. When individuals take responsibility for themselves and improve their status it creates self-confidence and self-esteem within them. You can't do that when you rob hard workers and hand over what they earned to leeches.
And what several people here have noted about you is absolutely true: it doesn't matter what the topic is, you are so jealous and self-consumed in hatred for anyone who as even a penny more than you that you attack everyone. You say, "Just drive around this toadish town and you'll know why I'm concerned about our less-fortunate citizens." You are so misguided that you blame the achievers for being the reason that other people are poor. Get a grip! The reason there are so many poor and low-income people in this town is because we've had incredibly ignorant, self-serving, liberal idiots as mayors and aldermen that are so anti-business that they drive businesses out of the city so that there's no one left to hire them. Then they turn around and penalize the property owners with increased taxes to compensate for the lost tax income from those defunct businesses.
There must be some kind of medication available for you somewhere.
Dear Graham, Socialism is the medicine which will cure our sick society. Despite your disdain for the downtrodden masses as lazy losers, they shall prevail. Once the current crisis morphs into a full-blown depression and our gutted middle class finally chucks individualism into history's trashcan, you'll witness the wholesale dismantling of the capitalist system.
Returning to our main subject (artifacts), someday history buffs will research and collect corporate logos the way they now study and acquire crests or coats-of-arms. After we build an egalitarian society, both heraldry and corporate iconography will be rendered harmless.
Dear Graham, If work were so wonderful, most of the downtrodden wage slaves whom I know would be living like maharajahs. Some of my friends have two or even three utterly rotten jobs. They put in hours which even Southern states wouldn't inflict on convicts. Even so, they can barely survive. On the other hand, this community is oppressed by a clan whose only claim to its cash and cushy lifestyle is the fact that somebody died and left it a bundle. Regarding your rise from poverty, I never said that it was impossible. Rather, I stated that the system was designed to keep ordinary people poor and readily exploitable by the oligarchy. (Back in Ancient Rome, an occasional slave would obtain his freedom or pile up a fortune. Nevertheless, such isolated cases didn't invalidate the fact that the Roman economic system was based on the exploitation of slave labor for the benefit of the elite.)
So, Graham, the fact that you and The Missus managed to claw your way up and out of poverty doesn't refute the fact that capitalism is a system contrived by the elite to exploit the impecunious and unlucky majority of humanity.
I love bein exploited.
When some trust fund twit or his six-figure lackey sends your job and your income to Elephant Land or Dragon Country, you'll sing a different tune.
I don't sing.
Get some help for your hatred, dude.
Once the rich cease their hateful war against the rest of us, I'll reconsider my views. Until then, I'll fight the foes with every non-violent, legal weapon at my disposal. (Please wake up and see that the hyper-privileged classes and their Ivy League flunkeys are your enemies as well as mine. Thank you very much!)
The history of America is nothing but the sorry story of the war waged by the greedy against the needy.
Living, suffering people are more important than inanimate objects.
That is what you think!
Dear 6:31 AM, That is also what the victims of our evil artifact-adoring elite think. Believe it or not, capitalism produces far more victims than victors. Eventually, the impoverished majority and the lower-middle classes will overthrow their oppressors. Pray that the coming socio-economic revolution may be political and peaceful. (Having researched revolutions for over half a century, I can tell you that a violent socio-economic upheaval could terminate the top three to five percent of our population. If the elite and its retainer classes are smart, they'll voluntarily relinquish some of their ill-gotten gains and goodies to save the bulk of their assets and their lives.)
Dear 6:31 AM, Things are inanimate objects which possess no value other than that which people and their feelings about objects may give them. Hence, suffering human beings are more important than things.
Racine's fixation on art, architecture and artifacts didn't happen by accident. Starting in the Victorian Era, a clique of aesthetically-obsessed labor exploiters (e.g. Bull, Horlick and Case) got the evil ball rolling. Then a group of corporate criminals led by a clan I'll call the Waxtrash made sure that the trend continued. The result of their endeavors is an arty-tarty pretty city loathed and ridiculed by the elite's victims, a pustule of corruption on the shores of Lake Michi-gone and a hell-pit wherein few help the poor while the rich darned well help themselves to everything.
Mr. Angry - blah, blah, blah - what a sad sole. Get a job you depressing old man.
I'm not Mr. Angry. Furthermore, I've held jobs, most of which were rotten. By the way, did it ever occur to you that jobs are related to oppression and a negative view of life? If most folks were honest, they'd admit that what they want is an income rather than a job. (In other words, if they could get the moolah minus the stinking drudgery, they'd be happy.) Please get real and stop bullying the less-fortunate members of our community.
Mr. Angry - get real, quit whining about your miserable existance - do something about it or shut up.
Who is Mr. Angry? I'm just a victim of our corrupt socio-economic system who'd like to see the government punish the corporate elite and help the marginalized majority.
My identity aside, our elite's fixation on objects is an obscenity during a depression which has destroyed the lives of our less-fortunate citizens.
OK - rich people bad, capitalism bad, art bad, Racine bad, Wright bad, posessions bad, planes bad, houses bad, money bad...we get it. We really don't needed repeated after every news story.
Please try some different subject matter.
Thank you.SDJ
Dear SDJ, When capitalism ceases to oppress the poor, I'll consider your request for new subject matter. Until then, fighting the foes of social justice remains more important than thematic innovation. The day that a people's government seizes the Waxstash and other filthy fortunes, I'll give you something positive to read.
Dear Bob, Regarding cast iron bubblers, they definitely can be vandalized. Sad to say, old cast iron is a brittle material. Hence, a thug with a sledgehammer can smash fountains made from that substance. (Back in the sixties, that's what happened to cast iron bubblers in Detroit.)
Dear Bob, Regarding cast iron bubblers, they definitely can be vandalized. Sad to say, old cast iron is a brittle material. Hence, a thug with a sledgehammer can smash fountains made from that substance. (Back in the sixties, that's what happened to cast iron bubblers in Detroit.)
That's why fans of Victorian architecture get antsy about protecting the cast iron false fronts and fake columns on some of their buildings. A guy with a grudge and a sledgehammer can take out decorative ironwork from the eighteen-fifties in a few minutes--I saw it happen during the July 1967 Urban Insurrection in Detroit. Fellows with sledgehammers (and men with Molotov cocktails) are part of the explanation for the Motor City's dearth of Ante Bellum architecture.
So maybe our city fathers weren't fibbing when they said that cast iron bubblers had been vandalized.(Well-nigh any material can be destroyed. Even marble, in the proper circumstances, can be burned.)
Where were these cast iron bubblers?
All the Bubblers (drinking fountains) around Racine in the 50s and 60s were cast concrete.
Any cast iron fountains are long gone. Unless they're talking about the Beautiful Garden fountain that was part of the M.M. Secor estate ( Danish Old Peoples Home) which was on Martin Luther King Dr. ( Milwaukee Ave.)
That was rescued by the city when they razed the buildings. But I heard that it is in need of some tender loving care.
There was a very large Cast Iron Fountain in East park and A Fountain and statue of Columbia in Uptown to name a few. But these relics are all long gone.
One of these old concrete bubblers should be taken to the Heritage museum and preserved.
Those bubblers were the tool of the capitalist pigs to keep the poor down.
Oink!
Mr. Angry - no one gives a rats ass about Detroit in the 60's.
I'm not Mr. Angry. As for Detroit (past or present), the Motor City is more important than our moribund backwater company town.
You are Mr. Angry - as I said before, there are two of you and you are both pathetic, depressing losers.
Once again, please remember that I'm not Mr. Angry. As for losing, history will determine who wins and who loses in the struggle against capitalist oppression.
Oppression is awesome!
No, oppression is awful for those who've been forced to endure it.
No one is forced to endure anything - you are what you are, if you don't take control of your life, you'll have to endure your own lack of motivation.
Dear 8:23 AM, For your sake, I pray that you may never be forced to live in the real world. Anyone who says that people don't have to endure poverty and that motivation is the key to upward mobility has been attending too many corporate seminars.
Most people possess darned little power. A system which values things above suffering humanity well-nigh guarantees that poor people will receive zero help. Please get real, grow a heart and refrain from bullying the less-fortunate. Thank you very much!
Maybe bullying is just what some people need to get them off their ass and make a life for themselves. You are what you are - eveyone is in control of their own destiny. Don't blame someone else.
Unless a person is already endowed with power (i.e. money), he shouldn't be expected to change his life. In the real world, such a fellow is lucky just to survive. Get a time machine and send your Victorian self-reliance spiel to Emerson, Horatio Alger and Samuel Smiles. It's of no darned use to anyone alive today.
Mr. Angry you are such a joke and a loser.
No, I'm not Mr.Angry. History--not an arrogant businessman--will decide who'll win and who'll lose in the class struggle.
Mr. Angry #2 - never will happen - loser.
Post a Comment