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1 0 6

PRESERVATION BY ADAPTATION

Is It Sustainable?

GREGORY DONOFRIO

University of Minnesota

Figure 1. Stereograph of butcher shops on the ground floor of Faneuil Hall Market, late nineteenth century.

Photographs of marketing activity on the interior of Faneuil Hall and Quincy Market prior to their redevelopments

in the mid-1970s are rare. (Bostonian Society, Boston Streets photograph collection, ca. 18551999, VW0001/-

004075)

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The historic preservation field is aggressively promoting itself as green. Adaptive reuse of historic buildings is

now widely considered a sustainable development practice. As with architecture in general, however, sustainabil-

ity in preservation is too often narrowly framed around environmental issues such as the conservation of

materials, energy, and water. Commonly accepted definitions of sustainability recognize two other components:

economics and culture. Rarely does the preservation field consider sustainability as an entire system of interre-

lated environmental, economic, and social relationships, as envisioned by the Brundtland Report of 1987. This

article offers several reasons for the preservation field to engage in the full spectrum of sustainability concerns,

including economic and social issues. It then reexamines one of most famous case studies in the canon of

historic preservation in the United StatesFaneuil Hall Marketplace in Bostonto consider the extent to which

sustainability was addressed as a system of interrelated relationships. In conclusion, it suggests that preserva-

tion could be made more sustainable by drawing connections among several existing concepts, findings, and

methods developed by Randall Mason, Setha Low, and others.

You cannot ever really turn back the clock, or have things as they were. The

appropriate resolution of the hard realities of necessary change are what

preservation is all about. And yet every appropriate solution kills the old buildings

a little bit at the same time that it keeps them alivea practical and philosophical

paradox.1

Adaptive reuse involves many decisionsoften compromisesabout modifying his-

toric buildings to accommodate new uses, a point emphasized by Ada Louise Huxtable, the

influential architecture critic for the New York Times, in her review of Bostons Faneuil Hall

Marketplace, which reopened to enormous crowds during the summer of the United

States bicentennial in 1976. The well-documented success of Faneuil Hall demonstrated,

to the extent no other project had before it, that preservation was financially feasible,

socially desirable, and environmentally responsible. In the contexts of the environmental

movement and the energy crisis of the 1970s, preservationists promoted adaptation of

old buildings for new uses as a form of recycling. While preservation saves and recycles,however, Huxtables quote suggests that sometimes other valued aspects of old buildings

are destroyed in the process. She sensed that adaptation had changed Faneuil Halls tradi-

D O N O F R I O P R E S E R V A T I O N B Y A D A P T A T I O N 1 0 7

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1 0 8 C H A N G E O V E R T I M E

tional social and economic character (Fig. 1). Although at that time she would not have

phrased the question in this way, today we might ask: Is adaptive reuse inherently sustainable?

Preservation advocates have recently become fond of saying that existing buildings

are the greenest ones of all, an expression that begins to reveal the degree to which the

natural environment has overshadowed other aspects of sustainability. New initiatives and

guidelines developed by the National Trust for Historic Preservation and the National Park

Service further reinforce this bias.2 To be sure, energy conservation is a critical global

concern. It is therefore appropriate and desirable that sustainability has become one of

the most visible concerns in the contemporary field of historic preservation. However, as

with architecture in general, sustainability in preservation is too often narrowly framed

around environmental issues such as the conservation of materials, energy, and water.

Commonly accepted definitions of sustainability recognize two other components: eco-

nomics and culture. Of course, preservation scholars and practitioners also address these

issues, but separately. Rarely does the preservation field consider sustainability as an

entire system of interrelated environmental, economic, and social relationships, as envi-sioned by The Brundtland Report of 1987, and other similar documents.3

Significant opportunities exist to implement sustainability in a more holistic manner,

perhaps addressing in the process some challenges and criticisms that have been expressed

about preservation over the past several decades in popular and scholarly literature from

both inside and outside of the field. While preservationists have championed energy con-

servation since at least the 1970s (Fig. 2), there is also a lesser-known, but equally long,

discourse related to social and economic sustainability. This article offers several reasons

why the time is ripe, and the need is great, for the preservation field to engage in the full

spectrum of sustainability concerns, including economic and social issues. It then reexam-

ines one of most famous case studies in the canon of historic preservation in the United

StatesFaneuil Hall Marketplace in Bostonto consider the extent to which sustainabil-

ity was addressed as a system of interrelated relationships. The ultimate objective here is

not to propose a radical new structure of preservation thinking, but rather to suggest the

connections among several existing concepts, findings, and methods developed by Randall

Mason, Setha Low, and others.

As its influence grows, preservation practices and nor ms, the fundamental policies of

which have changed relatively little over the past forty-five years, have an ever-greater risk

or conversely an opportunity to affect the development of social and physical environ-

ments. Preservation has gained a level of popular acceptance and professional recognition

as a mainstream planning tool that would have been inconceivable even a decade or two

ago. One small but telling indicator of preservations ascendance: out of a total of thirty

neighborhoods, streets, and public spaces celebrated by the American Planning Association

in 2011 as Great Places in America, twenty-six (nearly 90 percent) were listed in the

National Register of Historic Places, if not also protected by local forms of designation.4

Success, however, brings its own challenges and draws additional critics. While pres-ervationists should celebrate their achievements, they would also be wise to thoughtfully

contemplate criticismsfrom inside as well as outside the field. There is always the poten-

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tial for cultural and political backlash. One recent example is the Cronocaosexhibit by Rem

Koolhaas and the partners of his firm OMA. Installed at New York Citys New Museum in

summer 2011, it argues that we are approaching a climax of preservation, a choice of

words that implies descent is imminent. According to reviews and interviews, Koolhaas

and company offer a battery of preservation critiques, among them: preservationists

already control too much of the world (12 percent of the globe by their estimate), and

they have perverted heritage places by marketing them as commodities.5

While indictments of this type are hardly originalarchitectural historian Reyner

Banham blamed preservationists for overzealous restrictions, mismanagement, and gener-

ally undermining the good life in his 1963 essay The Embalmed City6Koolhaass

point about the growing commodification of preserved sites is still worth taking seriously.

Increasingly sophisticated direct and indirect measurements overwhelmingly document

that preservation activities such as rehabilitation of historic property, landmark designa-

tion, heritage tourism, and museum operations are all sound investments with substantial

economic returns.7 Once widely perceived as an impediment to market-based develop-ment, preservation is increasingly seen as the enabler of, even the catalyst for, developer

profit, according to Alison Isenbergs history of downtown marketing.8 With so much

emphasis on dollars and cents, some rightfully question if economic considerations have

overshadowed preservations other traditional values such as history, aesthetics, and cul-

ture.9 If the very act of preservation changes or subverts some of the most valued qualities

of historic properties, how are we to mitigate this outcome in the interests of sustain-

ability?

Delighted and Disconcerted by Adaptive Reuse

Programming old buildings with new uses became an economically viable and increasingly

popular downtown development strategy in the 1970s. The Advisory Council on Historic

Preservation trumpeted adaptive reuse as the clarion call of the new preservation in its

1978 report to the president and Congress of the United States.10 New federal rehabilita-

tion tax incentives helped to level the economic playing field between historic preservation

and new construction.11 A handful of books published at this time documented successful

case study examples in an effort to disseminate best practices.12 Finally, there was positive

proof of the financial feasibility of recycling old buildings as offices, housing, and retail

establishments to meet the demands of an increasingly postindustrial economy. Historic

preservation was seen by many as a tool to create distinctive and entertaining social and

retail environments downtown that could compete for economic activity with the suburbs.

Bostons Faneuil Hall, the first of the so-called festival markets that inspired dozens

of imitations across the globe, became the public face for preservation in general and

adaptive reuse in particular. These retail-centered adaptations featuring food, unique bou-

tiques, and sidewalk entertainments were enthusiastically patronized by middle-class con-

sumers. Preservationists looked to them as the future of the movement.13

In the ensuingdecades, however, academics and architecture critics expressed mixed opinions about festi-

val markets and the type of adaptive reuse associated with them, while some urban devel-


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Figure 2. National Trust for Historic Preservation, poster for Preservation Week, May 1117, 1980.

(National Trust for Historic Preservation; Old Town Restorations records [N 171], Northwest Architectural

Archives, University of Minnesota Libraries, Minneapolis)

opment specialists highlighted festival marketplaces as exemplary models of public-private

partnerships that were integral to the revitalization of American inner cities. 14

Urban sociologists have generally been less sanguine about the socioeconomic, cul-

tural, and aesthetic effects of adaptive reuse. Christine Boyer argues that festival market-

places manipulate historic buildings and their functions to create tourist destinations with

a false sense of authenticity and a spurious sense of place, obscuring the citys actual

history.15 Sharon Zukin forcefully articulates the relationships among preservation, build-

ing use, and local heritage when she writes that at Faneuil Hall Marketplace preservation

techniques are completely detached from specific places. A visual theme is used to

replace a specific social and material context, which results in non-place places.16

Cri-tiques that were once applied to a particular genre of historic building redevelopment are

now commonly asserted about preservation more generally. In most American cities,

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writes Michael Sorkin, the historic has become the only complicit official urban value.

The result is that the preservation of the physical remnants of the historical city has

superseded attention to the human ecologies that produced and inhabit them.17

The general proliferation of adaptation led even some preservationists to question

the entertainment and luxury retail uses to which many historic buildings were being

put. Former Keeper of the National Register William Murtagh coined the term Boutique

Syndrome to describe the replacement of [local] service-oriented businesses by specialty

shops catering to tourists of historic districts. The ironic result of adaptive reuse activi-

ties, according to Murtagh, was that urban residents were being forced to shop in subur-

ban malls for the services that no longer existed in their historic neighborhoods while

suburbanites flocked downtown to take in the entertainments offered by newly repro-

grammed historic attractions.18 Others argued that fancy cheese shops and high-end cloth-

ing boutiques undermined or somehow trivialized the inner history of certain buildings,

especially historic industrial and waterfront neighborhoodsformerly blue-collar, working

environments.19

Eminent preservation practitioner and educator James Marston Fitch alluded to

preservation of function as an elusive goal, an unmet challenge, of the historic preserva-

tion movement. He noted that in certain historic districts, it was desirable to preserve the

physical fabric as well as the traditional function and indigenous population. He described

the challenge metaphorically as an obligation to intervene to preserve both, the container

and the contained.20 Fitch admired preservation projects that fulfilled this obligation,

singling out as examples the regeneration of Split by the socialist regime of Yugoslavia,

and the rehabilitation of Bologna, Italys historic city center carried out under the direction

of the communist-controlled municipal government. Urban preservation projects in the

United States like Charleston and Savannah were, he thought, less successful with respect

to social policy.21 On the one hand, Fitchs observations raise important questions about

the feasibility of planning for social and economic sustainability in the free-market econ-

omy of the United States, a country with strong individual property rights. Additional

oversight may, on the other hand, be viewed as merely an extension of current practice;

to balance preservations overemphasis on designs and appearances, preservation commis-

sions might issue Certificates of Reuse to exercise more control over the new uses of

restored historic properties.22

The growing movement to make historic preservation more inclusive with respect to

race, ethnicity, and sexual orientation raises additional implications for social and eco-

nomic sustainability. Properties nominated to the National Register of Historic Places for

their historical association with various racial, ethnic, and GLBT constituencies are slowly

becoming more common.23 The significance of these sites may not be readily reflected in

their architecture; rather, it stems in part from how they are used, when, and by whom.

One recent article suggests that this represents the emergence of a new type of preserva-

tion concerned with cultural history and practices of ethnic cultures [and] marginalizedpeoples.24 Ostensibly the goal is not only to interpret the meaning and significance of

such places, but also to understand and safeguard their living usesin a sense, managing


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if not preventing their adaptation. As a preservation impulse, this too has deeper roots

than commonly acknowledged. One early historic preservation textbook suggested meth-

ods for cultural preservation of ethnic ambiance.25 Other scholars maintain such tactics

preserve only the symbols of ethnic community, not their vitality. They see ethnic

preservation as exploitation, the economically motivated manipulation of Ghettos as

Tourism Attractions.26 Cultural geographer David Lowenthal has made similar observa-

tions, stating that preservation turns some buildings into treasured relics but seldom

extends their living virtues, because what we save is property and artifacts rather than

ideas or culture.27

Various municipalities across the United States experimented in the 1970s with

hybrid forms of land-use controls that were part landmark designations, part finely tai-

lored zoning regulations. New York Citys Special Districts are a notable example. Created

by amending the citys zoning ordinance, special districts implement regulations and

incentives tailored, in part, to shape or curtail building adaptation, often with specific

economic and cultural objectives in mind. Their first use in the nation in 1967 is alsoprobably the most well known: the New York City 42nd Street Theater District was

designed to preserve existing theaters and to subsidize the construction of new ones in an

area of the city long-renowned for live entertainment.28 Several special districts were

drafted in the 1970s to protect or enhance neighborhood uses considered historically and

cultural significant.29 The Special Little Italy District, for example, was created in 1977 to

preserve and strengthen the historical and cultural character of the community and,

more specifically, to retain stores and shops considered historically unique to the area.

Specialty uses thought to enhance the retail character of the neighborhood include baker-

ies, small-scale specialty grocers, liquor stores, and ice cream shops.30 Although their site-

specific nature makes them similar in some respects to landmark designation, special dis-

tricts are generally intended to address nonarchitectural considerations beyond the scope

of most local preservation ordinances, or issues for which architecture is interrelated with

uses that are, or were once, considered economically and culturally significant. 31 Their

effectiveness as a tool for architectural, social, and economic preservation has not been

widely studied.32

An ambitious movement arose in the early 1980s to broaden the preservation fields

policies and legal protections to include a more diverse spectrum of historic resources,

including cultural resources that have no tangible form (Fig. 3). Congress directed the

Secretary of the Interior to work with the American Folklife Center of the Library of

Congress to develop recommendations to preserve cultural heritage such as arts, skills,

folklife, and folkways that could be integrated into the National Historic Preservation Act.

The resulting report recommended a number of clear legislative and administrative

changes necessary to bring this vision to fruition.33 None were codified into historic pres-

ervation law. Nonarchitectural heritageso-called intangible culturestill does not

receive the same government support, subsidies, and protections afforded to historicproperty in the United States.

Nevertheless, within various academic disciplines there is a growing recognition of

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Figure 3. Kevork Bebserekian at the Narjarian familys Sevan Bakery, Watertown, Massachusetts,

documented in 1982 by Folklife Centers Ethnic Heritage and Language Schools Project. (Photograph by

Vicky Westover, Ethnic Heritage and Language Schools Project Collection, Archive of Folk Culture, American

Folklife Center, Library of Congress)

heritage places with cultural and functional significance, but little aesthetic merit or mate-

rial integrity measured against established architectural canons or professional standards

and guidelines. For example, Dolores Haydens Power of Place project showed that parking

lots with no obvious physical referents to historic events or persons could form the basis

for dialog about, and dissemination of, community values, meaningful stories, and shared

heritages.34 Substantial research, most by geographers, documents understandings of place

that recognize the value of meanings, practices, and uses that are historically fluid and

contingent, as well as sometimes independent of material integrity.35

It has, however, been challenging to integrate this research with mainstream preser-

vation policies. The preservation field follows a paradigm of practice in which material

fabric is thought to convey significance, as if buildings, landscapes, and objects speak their

meanings. Randall Mason calls this the memory/fabric connection, a way of thinking about

historical significance that has been part of the preservation movement since its begin-

nings in the mid-nineteenth century.36 It still influences preservation decision making.

One recent study of preservation planning in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina found

that commonplace sites with special meaning for communities could not be recognized

in the National Register of Historic Places due to differences of opinion about the interpre-tation and application of historic eligibility and integrity criteria.37 Similarly, geographers

studying Maxwell Street Market in Chicago found that despite broad recognition of its


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Figure 4. Maxwell Street Market, 15th Street near 14th Place and Sangamon Avenue, Chicago, Illinois,

spring 1989. (Photograph by Alfonso Morales, private collection of Alfonso Morales)

historical significance and continued vitality as a nexus of economic and social exchange,

preservation administrators determined the market lacked sufficient material integrity to

merit National Register listing (Fig. 4).38

These preceding examples point not only to a deeply rooted bias toward the physical

aspects of architectural preservation, but they also indicate the preservation field has

fundamental blind spots that inhibit seeing economic and social values worth saving. At

the risk of stating the obvious, planning for sustainable preservation requires studying

and understanding the ways that economics and culture may be historically significant as

they relate to place, practice, and activity. The case study that follows examines a food

market listed in the National Register of Historic Places and the conscious attempts ofpreservationists to preserve place-based economic and cultural conditions deemed histori-

cally significant.

Faneuil Hall Marketplace: Preservation of Function and Use

Ada Louise Huxtable was not particularly troubled by the structural modifications or

design interventions that she saw at Faneuil Hall Marketplace during the summer of 1976.

Yes, the buildings had been altered, some of them radically so, and she admitted as much.

Rather, what she most regretted was the loss of the honest shabbiness of the old FaneuilHall Marketplace, Bostons primary food district, in continuous operation since the mid-

eighteenth century. Food merchants were forcibly displaced from the area throughout the

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1960s by several urban renewal projects. One of these was the reuse of Faneuil Hall and

Quincy Market, brought to fruition by developer James Rouse working in partnership

with the architect and design collaborators Benjamin and Jane Thompson. According to

Huxtable, in the process of restoration and adaptation, the markets had become elite,

cleaned-up, skillfully merchandized to appeal to the affluent and sophisticated public

that she called the Saturday generation.39 It was their money that was needed to support

such extensive and costly restoration. The market had become a place to pursue leisure

and entertainmentweekend activities for the Saturday generationnot a venue for

the purchase of lifes more fundamental everyday necessities. Changing the function, use,

and socioeconomic context of the district seemed to undermine its historic character,

regardless of its material preservation.

Today Faneuil Hall Marketplace is a six-and-a-half acre complex situated in the heart

of downtown Boston, adjacent to Government Center, the North End, the waterfront, and

Haymarket Square. In its present form, the market complex consists of four separate

buildings: Faneuil Hall, Quincy Market, and two rows of connected stores known as the

North Market Block and the South Market Block. The four are separated by cobble stone

streets, which, now closed to vehicular traffic, form a pedestrian mall interspersed with

light standards, planters, and benches. Together the buildings form a visually impressive

and historically significant urban composition widely considered an important contribu-

tion to the canon of great American architecture. At the western end of the complex

closest to Government Center is the oldest building, Faneuil Hall, a Georgian style brick

structure built in 1741 as a mixed-use market to accommodate food stalls on the first

floor, and city hall meeting rooms and offices above, a design typology that was common

in medieval England and colonial America. The building was financed by Peter Faneuil,

whose will mandated that food shops occupy the ground floor of the building in perpetuity.

To its east is Quincy Market, a massive, 535-foot-long Greek Revival building clad in gran-

ite that features a copper dome at its center. Flanking Quincy Market across the cobbled

North and South Market Streets are two blocks of attached commercial buildings that

form architecturally unified facades, also of granite. All three granite buildings in the

Quincy Market development were built between 1824 and 1826.

Faneuil Hall Marketplace was the most important food distribution district in Bostonuntil the mid-1960s, when it was redeveloped as a Festival Market. At midcentury, the

market district occupied approximately thirty-five acres in which nearly all buildings held

food-related businesses (Fig. 5). Local-government statistics indicated that in 1962 a sub-

stantial percentage of all the food traveling through the city funneled into the Faneuil Hall

Market area, especially commodities like produce (19 percent), poultry (58 percent), and

butter and cheese (70 percent). Moreover, while more modern distribution facilities

located elsewhere in Boston handled a greater volume of food, Faneuil Hall Market had

the greatest concentration of food dealers (43 percent of city total) and was the secondgreatest concentration of food-wholesaling employment (38 percent of city total food

wholesale employees).40


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Between the end of World War II and the nations bicentennial in 1976, different

constituencies made arguments for and against retaining food marketing functions in the

Faneuil Hall Market district. A 1949 U.S. Department of Agriculture analysis provided the

first major postwar economic justification for relocating food wholesalers to some place

outside the center of downtown Boston.41 The issue did not attract the attention of preser-

vationists until the middle of the next decade. Ironically, it was in the name of preserva-

tion itself that the food distribution function of Faneuil Hall was again called into

question. In 1955, the U.S. Congress created the Boston National Historic Sites Commis-

sion (hereafter the Boston Commission) to study colonial architecture in the city and

surrounding areas, and to make recommendations for its preservation and interpretation

in partnership with the National Park Service (NPS).42

Public criticism focused the Boston Commissions attention on Faneuil Hall, specifi-

cally the appropriateness of its ongoing use as a food market. There were two opposing

points of view on the matter: on the one side were those who thought that the market

vendors were a disgrace to the Cradle of Liberty; and on the other were those who arguedthat market uses were in themselves socially and economically significant, and therefore

merited preservation. The former point of view was nicely summarized in an editorial

submitted by a Proper Bostonian, who wrote that food vending made the market a mess

with its sawdust, grease, tangled lettuce leaves and carrot crates! . . . The 40,000 visitors

who come every year to pay their respects to what Daniel Webster named the Cradle of

Figure 5. Map showing the uses of buildings in the Faneuil Hall Market area in 1950. Source: C. J. Otten,

et. al., The Wholesale Produce Markets at Boston, Mass . (Washington, D.C.: USDA, 1950)

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Liberty must seek out the sense of the honored past amid the smells and disorder of the

market stalls. The atmosphere is completely out of harmony! The interior of Faneuil Hall

would be more appropriate, suggested another writer, if the stalls were restored to more

of an eighteenth-century atmosphere, along the lines of the old-time shops seen at Stur-

bridge Village; they could sell confits, confects, sweetmeats of spiced delights, Indian

nectar in lump and lozenge balls and cakes and chocolate sticks, sturdy mustard to put

the stomach in Good Temper.43

The Boston Commission carefully considered these criticisms and suggestions. Would

it improve Faneuil Hall from a historic point of view if the shops were removed?44 The

Boston Commissions congressionally mandated charge was to study only eighteenth-

centuryarchitecture. It did not matter that Faneuil Hall and Quincy Market were fully

occupied by merchants, as the Commission was well aware. It was assumed they could find

accommodations elsewhere, just as businesses in the way of Independence Mall were

forced to relocate. Merchants protested, but as Charles Hosmer wrote of the Philadelphia

project, there was no interest in 1947 in keeping businesses operating inside an area tobe designated as a shrine.45 Nearly ten years later, the same could be said of at least

some preservationists in Boston.

Other highly respected and well-connected Boston preservationists saw things from

an opposing point of view. The preeminent preservationist Walter Muir Whitehill acted

quickly to mobilize Bostons most powerful preservation advocates to speak in favor of

retaining the Faneuil Hall food merchants.46 Bertram K. Little, Director of the Society for

the Preservation of New England Antiquities (SPNEA, now Historic New England), offered

alternative perspectives on historic preservation. Prepared malls were a bad idea in his

opinion. He pointed out that Faneuil Hall had always been occupied by merchant stalls.

Little reminded the commission that architect Charles Bulfinch remodeled and substan-

tially enlarged Faneuil Hall by a factor of two times its original size in 1805. Eighteen

merchants occupied the market in the mid-twentieth century, but when the market hall

was first built, it housed only seven. The most difficult thing to clear up in the visitors

mind is that it is not the original Faneuil Hall, the building in which the famous pre-

Revolutionary meetings were held.47 Little was suggesting, in other words, that the mer-

chants and their market activities were more reminiscent of the eighteenth centurythey

had more historical integritythan the building itself.Whitehill drafted a powerful defense of Faneuil Halls food merchants, which he later

published under the title: Historical Continuity versus Synthetic Reconstruction.48 In

it he described how the widespread popular enthusiasm for historic restorations and

reconstructions like Colonial Williamsburg, Cooperstown, and other outdoor museums

were both threatening the integrity of existing historic structures and giving tourists a

beatific vision of eighteenth-century elegance filled with so much quaintness or cute-

ness. As a result, some Boston residents who should know better failed to see the true

historical significance of the market stalls on the ground floor of Faneuil Hall:

The historical continuity of life in Boston is nowhere more genuinely represented

than in the stalls of Faneuil Hall market. . . . At any season the pleasing sight of


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sides of beef and crates of vegetables being unloaded from trucks reminds the pas-

serby of the vitality of an unbroken tradition that still serves a valued purpose in

the present day life of Boston.49

For those who complained of trash generated by the market, this was a matter of perspec-

tive. The markets produced both delightful as well as distasteful clutter; during the holi-

days, fragrant . . . piles of spruce trees, were one of the markets many delights, a

harbinger of changing seasons through changing market products.

According to Whitehill, Faneuil Hall needed neither interpretation nor improvement

for tourists. Proposals to displace real market merchants in favor of imitation eighteenth-

century shoppes would only alienate the building from its original and ongoing func-

tion. For Whitehill, who was beginning to formulate these ideas into a larger philosophy

of historic preservation practice, the fight over the markets uses was a case study in

standards and ethics. There is little intellectual honesty in substituting the imitation of

an imitation for what is authentic. The ground floor of Faneuil Hall tells its own story asit stands. . . . The market in operation was a veritable object lesson in food processing

where Bostonians could participate in the increasingly rare experience of buying their

victuals straight from the carcass, without the dubious embellishments of cellophane (see

Fig. 1).50 As Whitehill surely knew from his own shopping experiences, prepackaged meat

was becoming the norm in the postWorld War II supermarket.

The advocacy of Whitehill and other preservationists had an immediate influence on

urban renewal designs for the market area. Subsequent planning studies wrote favorably

of the markets past, current, and future functions. As one of them noted, Any attempt

at restoration which displaced the present [food] retail activities would not only be histori-

cally false, and cause economic loss to the city, but would destroy an essential ingredient

of the areas life and character. With the added pedestrian traffic generated by the new

Government Center, planners envisioned a market district of unusual intensity where

both tourists and Bostonians of many classes and interests would come to shop in and

observe the colorful market activity. The physical and human infrastructurebuildings

and merchantswas already there; the city need only capitalize on these assets and

further encourage the present activity. In closing, it recommended market activities be

preserved through leasing arrangements under the control of a federal agency such as the

NPS.51

Later studies executed under Edward Logue, Bostons new city planner, gradually

retreated from the idea of preserving food functions in the market area. The subtle evolu-

tion of the wording and preservation terminology that marks this shift is significant. A

renewal plan prepared by Kevin Lynch determined preservation of the market structures

was a priority, but it proposed to do so by adapting them to practical contemporary uses,

and by continuing orcommemoratingtraditions of early Boston.52 Lynch and his colleagues

quoted Whitehill on the market buildings architectural significance, but overlooked orignored his evaluation of the economic and social significance associated with their func-

tions.

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Figure 6. Benjamin and Jane Thompson at the entrance to the site office of Benjamin Thompson &

Associates in the Quincy Market Building, circa 1976. (Photograph by Peter Vandermark, private collection

of Peter Vandermark)

Just as it was beginning to apply for urban renewal funding from HUD to restore

Quincy Market and the flanking rows of granite stores, the Boston Redevelopment Author-

ity (BRA) received a reuse proposal from the husband and wife team of Benjamin and Jane

Thompson (Fig. 6), who were later joined by the developer James Rouse.53 They proposed

restoring the popular functions for which the area was well known by rejoining historic

form and function for public enjoyment.54 In fact, historic uses were rhetorically empha-

sized even more than physical preservation. As a press release announced on the eve of

the markets reopening in 1976, continuation of valid patterns of use, more so than

preservation of architecture, is fundamental to all the design concepts for the restoration

of the market.55 Fresh foods were central to the redevelopment concept. Rouse gave the

Thompsons total control over retail programming and tenant selection. Their goal was to

create a complete food market to emphasize the nature of the area as an everyday place,

where Bostonians would come to buy daily staples and seek emotional fulfillment. It would

operate like a traditional public retail market where stalls were rented by independent

businesses that maintained a direct relationship between buyer and seller.56

The Thompsons articulated the rationales for this concept as a series of deeply held

personal and philosophical positions. Restoration of the market was a defense of urban-

ism, a defiance of the supermarket syndrome and chain-store credo of homogenizationand nationalized commercialism.57 They were likely rebelling against supermarket chains

like Safeway, Grand Union, and Giant, the names of which, according to food historian


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Warren Belasco, honored security, centralization, and homogenization.58 Ben Thompson

stated a general desire to preserve the multifaceted quality of regions as places with dis-

tinct physical settings, identities, and historical continuities. These existed even on a

micro-scale within cities as districts, zones, and enclaves [that] achieve special character

often based upon ethnic values and traditions.59

While they rhetorically stressed food growing, harvests, and abundance, the Thomp-

sons did not emphasize other rules and goals of traditional public markets. Although a

fact sheet produced by the Rouse Corporation stated that Quincy Market would remain a

Farmers Market, the presence of actual farmers was neither alluded to nor anticipated.60

Likewise, the Thompsons made repeated references to locally grown foods . . . available

from the countryside,61 but never mentioned specific agricultural regions or demon-

strated any knowledge of the relative vitality of diversified farming in Massachusetts or

neighboring states. It remained unclear where the markets food would come from, or, for

that matter, if its sources were really ever a priority. The preservation of farming, farm-

land, and farmers was not a stated goal of the Faneuil Hall Marketplace redevelopment.

The Marketplace was an incredible commercial success when it opened for business

in August of 1976. Some 10,000 shoppers were said to visit the market during weekdays,

and as many as 100,000 on weekends.62 In reviewing the new attraction, reporters mar-

veled over Ben Thompsons triumph in having recreated an authentic food market . . .

satisfying daily needs of local customers.63 The Rouse Corporation (TRC) actively pro-

moted the traditional merchants and their fresh foods in its Marketplace Life, a publication

combining advertisements and a market business directory in a magazine-like format with

recipes and merchant profiles. The second issue featured an article that followed two

professional chefs around the market as they checked items off their grocery list (Fig. 7).

Could the Romagnolis purchase within the Quincy market everything needed for their

menu? it asked rhetorically. Would the selection and quality meet their professional

standards,andprovide the sensuous excitement of remembered excursions? The answer,

of course, was a resounding yes. They found fresh spaghetti, extra dry Parmesan, calves

liver, zucchini, garlic, tomatoes, coffee, vinegar, and even a new paring knife. The selection

and quality, they said, were excellent; the atmosphere, magnetic.64

Behind the scenes, however, Benjamin and Jane Thompson soon began to worry thatthe market was losing its special character and failing to attract the local consumers they

had most wanted to serve. By 1979, the Thompsons were so concerned by changes they

observed in the Quincy Market food merchants that they drafted a lengthy memo to TRC

describing and illustrating the issues with photographs accompanied by suggestions to

address each shortcoming. First, they perceived a troubling image problem. Quincy Mar-

ket was becoming associated with pizza, piano bars, no-park, push and shove. The suc-

cess of fast food and singles drinking operations was deterring the attendance of serious

shoppers seeking groceries. While it was admittedly impossible to regulate tourism,souvenir-seeking sightseers with limited time and money were contributing to the alien-

ation of the local customer. To address the issue, they suggested downplaying the Go-

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Figure 7. Franco and Margaret Romagnoli, hosts of the hit television cooking show calledThe Romagnolis

Table shop for Parmesan cheese at Doe and Sullivan, one of ten original businesses that came back to

Quincy Market after the rehabilitation. Source: Fanny Hall, A Mornings Marketing with the Romagnolis,

photograph by Peter Vandermark, Marketplace Life, no. 2 (SpringSummer 1977): 7. (Authors private

collection)

Go aspects of the market and developing promotions and advertising that emphasized

comfortable uncrowded shopping days, evening hours, and family goods.65

Second, the quality of goods and services that were supposed to accommodate local

shoppers were suffering as a consequence of a drift toward quick-sale food items primar-

ily catering to the crowds of tourists. In a series of Polaroid snapshots, the Thompsons

illustrated how merchants who were contractually bound to only sell certain fresh, spe-

cialty foods were, on their own initiative, diversifying into other ready-to-eat snacks. They

recommended establishing clearer guidelines specifying precisely what tenants could sell,

followed by rigorous enforcement by designating someone to police the merchants and

implement the standards. Noting that leasing to and management of food vendors was

unlike working with boutique retail tenants, they suggested TRC hire someone with the

specialized skills necessary to understand the fresh-food industry. Third, there was a

looming specter of homogenization raised by franchise businesses.66 The secondary liter-

ature maintains the marketplace, initially at least, was filled with independent Boston

merchants, not the moneyed chains that dominated suburban malls.67 Its planners and

promoters surely sought to convey this impression, but in reality chains were part of the

commercial mix from the very beginning. There were the Magic Pan Restaurant and Proud

Popover, franchises owned by Quaker Oats, and a General Nutrition Center (GNC), a natu-

ral-food chain store consisting of more than one thousand outlets by the early 1980s.

In closing, the Thompsons alluded to the commitments made to the city of Boston

to preserve the physical andfunctional character of the markets. TRC had agreed to theformation of a Faneuil Hall Marketplace Commission. As its lease with the city specifically

stated:


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Lessor and Lessee acknowledge that the present and historic character of the use of

the street floor of the Quincy Market Building is as a meat, cheese and produce

market with related market uses. Lessee shall not use or permit the use of any

portion of said floor for any purpose other than as a meat, cheese and produce

market or for related market use of the same general character. The sale of food for

on-premises consumption shall be permitted to the extent that such sale does not

affect the general character of the street floor. . . . Lessee shall submit any proposed

changes in the general character of the street floor of Quincy Market Building to the

Commission for its review and approval or disapproval, and no such changes shall

be made without the approval of the Commission.68

Thus continuity of policy and leadership they advised, would be essential in honoring

TRCs ninety-nine-year lease with the city.

Though unstated in their memo to TRC, underlying the Thompsons concerns with

the growth of franchises and the drift of fresh provision merchants to fast food wasTRCs rent structure and the skyrocketing charges for taxes and common area mainte-

nance that the company passed on to its tenants. The initial plan to offer leases on a

range of financial terms that charged tenants varying percentages of their gross income

depending on the type of businesses they operated would have benefited the low-margin

food merchants. However, when leases were ultimately issued at Faneuil Hall Marketplace,

all tenants were charged a standard $10 per square foot base rent plus 5 percent of their

gross sales, with the exception of the original returning merchants who were offered spe-

cial three-year terms. They were also assessed a $5 per square foot operating charge for

real estate taxes, heating and cooling, fire prevention, electricity, sewer, trash, and com-

mon area maintenance. By the early 1980s, the base rent had quadrupled to $40 per square

foot and the operating expenses had grown more than fivefold to $27.37 per square foot. 69

Fresh food vendors struggled to keep up with the escalating charges. Instead of

enforcing more rigorous guidelines as the Thompsons had recommended, TRC amended

individual leases to allow fresh food merchants to sell prepared meals. It was a tacit

acknowledgment that there was no other financial way for these merchants to stay in

business given the rent and operating expenses that TRC was charging. By the late 1980s,

reporters began referring to Quincy Market as fast food alley.70 Some of the original,

preredevelopment food merchants like The Produce House were still there in name by

the early 1990s, but at that point they made most of their money selling things like baked

potatoes stuffed with cheese and vegetables (Fig. 8).71

Had it ever been convened, the Faneuil Hall Marketplace Commission might have

held TRC to its commitment to the city to preserve functionally the main floor of Quincy

Market as a place for fresh meat, cheese, bread, and produce by stabilizing the rents of

merchants who sold them. The commission and its requirements were never implemented

and, for a time, they were largely forgotten. Because the marketplace was such a tremen-dous success from the beginning, the city deferred to TRCs expertise in marketing and

tenant selection. However, Jane Thompson remained convinced, long after her direct

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Figure 8. Percentage of Faneuil Hall Marketplace Establishments by Type in the Quincy Market Building,

1978 and 2008. Statistics compiled by the author from Faneuil Hall Marketplace business directories.

involvement with the marketplace was over, that their failure to form the commission was

a terrible oversight. When she wrote the director of the BRA in the mid-1990s insisting it

instate the commission and begin taking a more direct role in managing tenant mix and

other economic issues, one of the mayors representatives responded to say that the city

saw no need to get involved.72 One of the consequences of cities like Boston becoming

more entrepreneurial in their approach to public-private real estate developments is that

they have also become more profit-minded in the management of their investments.

Among the possible reasons the BRA was inclined to look the other way as TRC blatantly

violated the terms of its Faneuil Hall Marketplace lease is that the city had a financial

stake in the profits generated by tenant rents and gross revenues.

TRC wrung staggering profits out of the project; sales per square foot in Quincy

Market were well beyond the income generated by the most profitable suburban shopping

malls.73 The direct, indirect, and induced economic benefits of tourism generated by the

marketplace are an even greater fiscal consideration. While some Bostonians, the media,

and other critics continue to grouse that the marketplace has become little more than a

mall, it remains an extraordinarily popular tourist attraction. In May 2008, Forbes Traveler

rated it the fourth most visited tourist site in the United States; with twenty million

annual visitors, Faneuil Hall Marketplace ranked below the National Mall and memorial

parks of Washington, D.C. (24 million), but well above Disney World (17.1 million), Dis-

neyland (14.9 million), and Universal Studios (6.2 million).74

Even with these measures of success, there are still periodic calls for finally forming

the Faneuil Hall Marketplace Commission, now sometimes referred to as a watchdog

group or an advisory committee. In 2004 TRC sold its marketplace lease to GeneralGrowth Properties (GGP), the second-largest mall operator in the country. GGP has con-

tinued to implement the basic management strategies established by TRC: charging ever


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higher rents to nationally or internally based chains that demand larger and larger retail

spaces. As of 2006, there were a total of only 82 stores in the entire three-building market-

place, down from its 1979 peak of 172; more than half of the total square footage is leased

to national chains. Some food and retail tenants pay as much as $150 a square foot for

rent. Faced with these statistics, Boston Mayor Thomas Menino requested meetings with

GGP in 2006 and threatened to audit the citys lease agreement with the company. At the

same time, the BRAs director voiced his opinion that it was finally time to form an advi-

sory committee.75 Menino had looked into the possibility of forming a commission more

than a decade before, when TRC still held the lease, but nothing ever came of it. 76 After a

number of meetings with GGP in 2006 and 2007, the city canceled its plans for an audit

and, again, the Marketplace Commission was never formed.77 To date, the issue remains

unresolved.

Most of the concerns over the marketplace voiced through the local media involve

the issue of large franchises displacing small, locally owned businesses. The earlier transi-

tion from fresh food to fast food at Quincy Market is not part of this discussion. Perhapsthat battle was lost too long ago for most local observers to even remember that it was

once an issue. More readily apparent is an irony brought about by the national surge in

interest for local agricultural products over the last five to ten years. As in so many other

cities, Bostonians are eagerly seeking out farmers markets to shop for produce that they

value for its freshness, for its connection to the local economy, and for the personal inter-

actions they experience when they buy directly from producers. In 2000 a nonprofit group

called Friends of the Boston Public Market joined forces with the Massachusetts Depart-

ment of Food and Agriculture to undertake a study to determine the feasibility of estab-

lishing a year-round indoor public market somewhere in the downtown waterfront area.78

No one mentioned Faneuil Hall Marketplace.

Conclusions

Is Faneuil Hall Marketplace an example of sustainable preservation? One could reasonably

argue that embodied energy was retained by preserving parts of the original buildings.

Whether the project was also socially and economically sustainable may depend on our

understanding of these concepts. Anthropologist Setha Low offers a useful definition of

cultural sustainability that builds on the scholarship of economist David Throsby. Cultur-

ally sustainable development refers to the preservation of arts and societys attitudes,

practices, and beliefs. Low goes on to define social sustainability as a subset of cultural

sustainability that refers to maintaining and enhancing the diverse histories, values, and

relationships of contemporary populations situated in unique cultural ecosystems. Fur-

thermore, in order to achieve social and cultural sustainability, the place-specific cultural

ecosystems that support them must also be preserved. Social relations and cultural prac-

tices are, in other words, structured and made possible by physical places. Material and

cultural heritage are in this way interrelated.79

Extending this definition one step further,economic sustainability in the context of preservation can be construed as ensuring the

financial conditions necessary to retain the material and social components of the cultural

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ecosystem. This requires sufficient economic resources to preserve not only the material

aspects of place, but also the interrelated uses, practices, interactions, and transactions.

If these definitions are accepted, then the Faneuil Hall Marketplace redevelopment

does not appear to have been sustainable over the long term. Although some businesses

survived the social and economic transition instigated by the restoration and adaptation

of the market, it quickly became difficult for them to maintain their traditional products

and styles of marketing. Adaptive reuse radically altered the markets social and cultural

ecosystem; as is so often the case with historic preservation, market management vigi-

lantly enforced design standards, but in the pursuit of financial gain it ignored earlier

commitments to maintain traditional market uses and products.80

The preservation fields preoccupation with material fabric is already well docu-

mented; what else can we learn from this case study? Will newer tools and concepts enable

truly sustainable preservation development in the future? Recognition of intangible cul-

ture might raise awareness of the economic and social values supported by heritage

places. Intangible heritage is a category of culture now officially recognized by the UnitedNations Economic, Scientific, and Cultural Organization.81 However, as folklorist Alan Jab-

bour argues, the term intangible culture creates a false dichotomy that masks more than

it reveals. Rather than describing any salient features, it defines a class of cultural

resources in terms of what they are notthat is, tangible.82 A definition that merely

excludes a resource from some other more established category is a form of marginaliza-

tion. After all, preservationists seldom refer to historic architecture as tangible heritage.

Moreover, the notion of tangibility is itself problematic when applied to foods, ethnic

activities, or unique commercial practices. None of these are intangible if we define the

word as that which is beyond the perception of the senses. On the contrary, as several

scholars have noted, heritage does not exist outside the realm of human experienceit

must be seen, touched, heard, or tasted.83 One might then surmise that intangible heri-

tage is ephemeral or subject to change, as opposed to tangible heritage that is physical

and fixed.84Yet this too is a matter of degree, subject to interpretation. Among the maxims

of modern preservation practice is that buildings and landscapes necessarily change over

time, and that these changes may in themselves become historic.85

Instead of marginalizing culture and economics as intangibles, a more fruitful

approach may be to expand the scope of what is considered significant, and to increase

the level of participation when making these decisions, as Mason has suggested.86 It may

also be time for the preservation field to reconsider its theoretical orientation to the past.

As others have observed, preservationists tend to see their profession as fundamentally

historical.87 Diligent research and documentation of the pastuses and users of a property

are an integral component of preservation practice. Typically preservationists do not, how-

ever, aim to understand or preserve the present functions of historic properties.88 This

mentality is woven into the administrative structure of preservation laws, which generally

state that a property can only be considered historic if it is associated with pastpeople,events, or architectural styles. If people and culture are to join the environment as goals

of sustainable preservation, contemporary users of historic properties must be seen as


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active participants in heritage places rather than passive recipients, mere receptacles for

so much public advocacy, education, and interpretation.

Acknowledgments

My research was enabled in part by an Andrew W. Mellon Fellowship at the Massachusetts

Historical Society in Boston. I would like to thank several people who assisted my research,

including librarian Peter Drummy at the Massachusetts Historical Society, Lisa Starzk at

the Boston Athenaeum, Nicole DeLaria, at the Special Collections Library at the Boston

Historical Society, and Barbara Bezat at the University of Minnesotas Northwest Architec-

tural Archives. Richard Senier generously shared his memories of being among the first

tenants of Faneuil Hall Marketplace after its redevelopment in the 1970s, and his subse-

quent legal fights with the Rouse Corporation in his capacity as president of the Faneuil

Hall Merchants Association. Helpful comments and suggestions were provided by Peter

Hendee Brown, Chad Randl, and anonymous peer reviewers. Meredith Keller expertly

coordinated article submissions, reviews, and publication. Any errors that remain are myown.

References

1. Ada Louise Huxtable, Why You Always Win and Lose in Urban Renewal,New York Times, 16 Septem-

ber 1976.

2. See, for example, National Trust for Historic Preservation, Position Statement: Historic Preservation

and Sustainability, http://www.preservationnation.org/information-center/sustainable-communi

ties/sustainability/position-statements/sustainability.html (accessed 08/22/2011); and U.S. Depart-

ment of the Interior, The Secretary of the Interiors Standards for Rehabilitation and Illustrated

Guidelines on Sustainability for Rehabilitating Historic Buildings, http://www.nps.gov/tps/stan

dards/rehabilitation/sustainability-guidelines.pdf (accessed 08/22/2011), neither of which mentions

social or economic sustainability.

3. The Brundtland Report, also known asOur Common Future, famously defined sustainable development

as development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future

generations to meet their own needs. Although not its primary subject, Jean Carroon provides a

good overview of sustainability goals, policies, and reports in her book Sustainable Preservation: Green-

ing Existing Buildings(Hoboken, N.J.: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2010), 4262.

4. The intent of the APAs annual Great Places program is to honor places of exemplary character,

quality, and planning. See American Planning Association, Great Places in America, http://www.

planning.org/greatplaces/neighborhoods/2010/ (accessed 08/23/2011). The APA barely acknowledgedpreservation as late as the 1980s, according to Eugenie Birch and Douglass Roby, The Planner and

the Preservationist: An Uneasy Alliance,Journal of the American Planning Association 50, no. 2 (1984):

194207. Another example among many: a report on Americas older industrial cities published by

the Brookings Institution recently singled out historic architecture as vital competitive assets for

revitalization, suggesting that the number of National Registerlisted properties in a city was a posi-

tive indicator of its potential for economic recovery, in Jennifer S. Vey, Restoring Prosperity: The

State Role in Revitalizing Americas Older Industrial Cities, Brookings Institution, Metropolitan Pol-

icy Program, May 2007. One could legitimately question if these examples are objective or method-

ologically sound, but the point is they reflect a strong cultural and professional embrace of

preservation principles and programs.

5. James Kessenides, Beyond Preservation?, MetropolisMag.com, 3 June 2011, http://www.metropolis

mag.com/pov/20110603/beyond-preservationmore-19715 (accessed 07/30/2011); Lunch with the

Critics: Cronocaos, a review by Alexandra Lange and Mark Lamster, Places, 2 June 2011, http://

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places.designobserver.com/feature/cronocaos/27628/ (accessed 07/30/3011); and Nicolai Ouroussoff,

An Architects Fear that Preservation Distorts, New York Times, 23 May 2011.

6. Reyner Banham, The Embalmed City,New Statesman (12 April 1963): 52830.

7. Reviews of the literature include Randy Mason, Economics and Historic Preservation: A Guide and

Review of the Literature, Brookings Institution, Metropolitan Policy Program, September 2005; and

David Listokin, Barbara Listokin, and Michael Lahr, The Contributions of Historic Preservation to

Housing and Economic Development,Housing Policy Debate 9, no. 3 (1998): 43178.

8. Alison Isenberg,Downtown America: A History of the Place and the People Who Made It(Chicago: Univer-sity of Chicago Press, 2004), 259.

9. Randall Mason, Be Interested and Beware: Joining Economic Valuation and Heritage Conservation,

International Jour nal of Heritage Studies14, no. 4 (July 2008): 30318; Marta de la Torre, ed., Assessing

the Values of Cultural Heritage: Research Report (Los Angeles: The Getty Conservation Institute, 2002);

and Randy Mason,Economics and Heritage Conservation: A Meeting Organized by the Getty Conservation

Institute, December 1998 (Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Trust, 1999).

10. Advisory Council on Historic Preservation,Report to the President and the Congress of the United States

(1978), 1.

11. Federal tax incentives for historic preservation were envisioned in the 1966 Act but did not come to

fruition until 1976; they have since gone through a number of revisions. Details about their evolution

can be found in Listokin, Listokin, and Lahr, The Contributions of Historic Preservation to Housing

and Economic Development.

12. Examples include Gene Bunnell,Built to Last: A Handbook on Recycling Old Buildings (Washington, D.C.:

Preservation Press, 1977); National Trust for Historic Preservation,Economic Benefits of Preserving Old

Buildings (Washington, D.C.: Preservation Press, 1975); Robert W. Burchell and David Listokin, The

Adaptive Reuse Handbook: Procedures to Inventory, Control, Manage, and Reemploy Surplus Municipal

Properties (Piscataway, N.J.: Rutgers Center for Urban Policy Research, 1981); Urban Land Institute,

Adaptive Use: Development Economics, Process, and Profiles(Washington, D.C.: ULI, 1978).

13. To get a feeling for the sense of limitless preservation possibilities inspired in the late 1970s by the

rehabilitation of Faneuil Hall and Quincy Market, see Richard Ernie Reed, Return to the City: How to

Restore Old Buildings and Ourselves in Americas Historic Urban Neighborhoods (Garden City, N.Y.: Dou-bleday & Company, Inc., 1979): 14555.

14. Bernard J. Frieden and Lynne B. Sagalyn, Downtown, Inc.: How America Rebuilds Cities (Cambridge,

Mass.: MIT Press, 1989).

15. M. Christine Boyer, Cities for Sale: Merchandising History at South Street Seaport, inVariations on

a Theme Park: The New American City and the End of Public Space, ed. Michael Sorkin (New York: Hill

and Wang, 1992), 189.

16. Sharon Zukin,Landscapes of Power: From Detroit to Disney World(Berkeley: University of California

Press, 1991), 20.

17. Michael Sorkin, ed., Variations on a Theme Park: The New American City and the End of Public Space

(New York: Hill and Wang, 1992), xiv.

18. William J. Murtagh, Keeping Time: The History and Theory of Preservation in America, rev. ed. (New

York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 1997), 167, 215; Mur tagh did not offer a cure for Boutique Syndrome;

rather, he presented it as one of the pressing problems that preservation would confront in the future.

According to Sharon Zukin, boutiquesrelatively small clothing and accessory shopssuperseded

department stores in the 1960s as the places where women shopped with the intent of constructing

a unique identity; see Sharon Zukin, Point of Purchase: How Shopping Changed American Culture (New

York: Routledge, 2004), 13437.

19. Geographer Peirce F. Lewis argues that adaptive reuse is a poor strategy if our desire is to preserve

cultural memory in The Future of the Past: Our Clouded Vision of Historic Preservation, in Contro-

versies in Historic Preservation, ed. Pamela Thurber (Washington, D.C.: National Trust for Historic

Preservation, 1985). Planner Ann Satterthwaite proposed methods for preserving industrial water-

fronts, beginning with recognize[ing] the critical nature and function of the area or the resource, in

Ann Satterthwaite, Methods of Planning for the Protection and Enhancement of Historic Water-


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fronts in Selected Papers: Conference on Conserving the Historic and Cultural Landscape, Denver, Colo-

rado, May 23, 1975 (Washington, D.C.: Preservation Press, 1975).

20. James Marston Fitch,Historic Preservation: The Curatorial Management of the Built World (New York:

McGraw-Hill, 1982), 177, 76.

21. Ibid., 6566.

22. Wayne De La Roche, Preserving without History, in Historic Preservation: Forging a New Discipline,

ed. Beth Sullebarger (New York: Preservation Alumni, Inc., 1989): 3339; on design preservation

versus preservation of building use, see also Robert A. Sauder and Teresa Wilkinson, PreservationPlanning and Geographic Change in New Orleans Vieux Carre, Urban Geography 10, no. 1 (1988):

4161.

23. See, for example, Antoinette J. Lee, The Social and Ethnic Dimensions of Historic Preservation, in

A Richer Heritage: Historic Preservation in the Twenty-First Century, ed. Robert E. Stipe (Chapel Hill:

University of North Carolina Press, 2003): 385404; and Gail Lee Dubrow, Blazing Trails with Pink

Triangles and Rainbow Flags, in Restoring Womens History through Historic Preservation, ed. Gail Lee

Dubrow and Jennifer B. Goodman (Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2003): 28199.

24. Eric W. Allison and Mary Ann Allison, Preserving Tangible Cultural Assets: A Framework for a New

Dialog in Preservation,Preservation Education & Research1 (2008): 2940.

25. Nathan Weinberg, Preservation in American Towns and Cities (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, Inc.,

1979): 14247.

26. Irving L. Allen, The Ideology of Dense Neighborhood Redevelopment, inGentrification, Displacement

and Neighborhood Revitalization ed. J. John Palen and Bruce London (Albany: State University of New

York Press, 1984), 33; and Joseph M. Conforti, Ghettos as Tourism Attractions,Annals of Tourism

Research23, no. 4 (1996): 83042.

27. David Lowenthal,The Past is a Foreign Country (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1985), 406.

28. The special theater district has generally been considered a success; see Todd W. Bressi, ed.,Planning

and Zoning New York City: Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University

Press, 1993), 74.

29. Examples include Little Italy, Chinatown, and the Yorkville-East 86th Street District; on Little Italy

see Conforti, Ghettos as Tourism Attractions; on East 86th Street see Alexander Garvin, The Ameri-can City: What Works, What Doesnt, 2nd ed. (New York: McGraw-Hill, 2002), 25; on Chinatown see

Richard F. Babcock and Wendy U. Larsen, Special Districts: The Ultimate in Neighborhood Zoning(Cam-

bridge, Mass.: Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, 1990), 90.

30. The City of New York, Zoning Resolution, Article X: Special Purpose Districts, Chapter 9: Special Little

Italy District, section 10900.

31. The clear separation that exists between the responsibilities of the New York City Landmarks Preser-

vation Commission to control building appearance, and the City Planning Commission to regulate

zoning matters such as building height, bulk, and use was the result of one of the last revisions to

the New York City landmarks legislation before it was enacted into law; some think this separation

contributed to the success of the law because it avoids conflicts that might have resulted from overlap-

ping bureaucratic responsibilities. See Eric Allison, Historic Preservation in a Development-Domi-

nated CityThe Passage of New York Citys Landmark Preservation Legislation, Journal of Urban

History 22, no. 3 (March 1996): 35076.

32. See Babcock and Larsen,Special Districts, 3; Conforti, Ghettos as Tourism Attractions; Satterthwaite,

Methods of Planning; one exception is Emily Goldman, Dusting off the Deeds: Land Use Control

for Sunnyside Gardens (19242007) (MA Thesis, Cornell University, 2007).

33. Ormond H. Loomis, coordinator,Cultural Conservation: The Protection of Cultural Heritage in the United

States(Washington, D.C.: Library of Congress, 1983).

34. See her chapter on Grandma Masons Place in Dolores Hayden, The Power of Place: Urban Landscape

as Public History(Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1995).

35. Tim Cresswell and Gareth Hoskins, Place, Persistence, and Practice: Evaluating Historical Significance

at Angel Island, San Francisco, and Maxwell Street, Chicago, Annals of the Association of American

Geographers98, no. 2 (2008): 392413.

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36. Randall Mason, Fixing Historic Preservation: A Constructive Critique of Significance,Places16, no.

1 (2004): 65.

37. David Morgan, Nancy Morgan, and Brenda Barrett, Finding a Place for the Commonplace: Hurricane

Katrina, Communities, and Preservation Law, American Anthropologist108, no. 4 (2006): 70618.

38. Cresswell and Hoskings, Place, Persistence, and Practice.

39. Huxtable, Why you Always Win and Lose.

40. Daniel J. Ahern and Martin R. Adler, Progress Report on Food Market Relocation, Including a Rec-

ommended Site for a New Food Distribution Center, unpublished report marked InternalConfidential, Rotch Library, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

41. C. J. Otten et. al.,The Wholesale Produce Markets at Boston, Mass. (Washington, D.C.: USDA, 1950).

42. There is scant mention of the Boston National Historic Sites Commission in the secondary literature.

One exception that mentions it briefly is Bruce Ehrlich and Peter Dreier, Tourism and the Livable

City: The New Boston Discovers the Old Boston, Revolutionary Ideas in Planning: Proceedings of the

1998 National Planning Conference (AICP Press, 1998).

43. LeRoy Atkinson, Whats All the To-Do about Bostons Historic Faneuil Hall and Market? Worcester

Sunday Telegram, 2 December 1956.

44. Transcript of the minutes of the ninth meeting of the Boston National Historic Sites Commission

(hereafter BNHSC), 17 May 1956, Box 5, Walter Muir Whitehill Papers, Massachusetts Historical

Society (hereafter MHS), MS. N-2177.

45. Charles Hosmer,Preservation Comes of Age: From Williamsburg to the National Trust, 19261949 (Char-

lottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1981), 772.

46. Surprisingly, Whitehill was not an original member of the Boston Commission, but rather was later

added in 1957 following the death of member Charles H. Watkins, according to Murphree Named an

A.E.C. Adviser [appointees to other commissions named as well], New York Times, 5 April 1957.

47. Transcript of the minutes of the twelfth meeting of the BNHSC, 8 June 1956, Box 5, Walter Muir

Whitehill Papers, Massachusetts Historical Society, MS. N-2177.

48. Walter Muir Whitehill, Historical Continuity versus Synthetic Reconstruction, inWalter Muir White-

hill: A Record Compiled by His Friends(Minot, Mass.: Anthoensen Press, 1958), 13.

49. Ibid.

50. Ibid.; ellipsis in the original.

51. Adams, Howard & Greeley, with consultants, Government CenterBoston (Boston: n.p., 1959).

52. Emphasis added; Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce, Waterfront Redevelopment Division,

Report on the Downtown WaterfrontFaneuil Hall Renewal Plan (Boston: The Division, 1962).

53. Additional background information on development proposals can be found in John Quincy, Jr.,

Quincys Market: Decline and Survival, chap. 7 in Quincys Market: A Boston Landmark (Boston:

Northeastern University Press, 2003).

54. Summary of Fact on Proposal for Faneuil Hall Markets by Rouse-Boston, Inc., subsidiary of the Rouse

Company (undated), Benjamin and Jane Thompson Papers, MHS, Ms U-497, box FHM 2.

55. Press release, Faneuil Hall Marketplace, 8 June 1976, John Quincy, Research Materials on Quincy

Market, MHS, box 2, folder: Press Packet, 1976.56. Benjamin Thompson, Notes on the Restoration of Faneuil Hall Marketplace, February 1974, Benja-

min and Jane Thompson Papers, MHS, Ms U-497, box FHM 4.

57. Benjamin Thompson and Jane McC. Thompson, Reviving Bostons Marketplace, undated typescript,

Boston Public Library, Government Documents, BRA/954.

58. Warren Belasco, Appetite for Change: How the Counterculture Took on the Food Industry, 19661988

(New York: Pantheon Books, 1989), 40.

59. Frederick John Pratson, Benjamin Thompson: Hell-Bent on Staving off Ugliness,Yankee(December

1976): 7277, 14041.

60. Summary of Fact on Proposal for Faneuil Hall Markets by Rouse-Boston, Inc., subsidiary of the Rouse

Company (undated), Benjamin and Jane Thompson Papers, MHS, Ms U-497, box FHM 2.

61. Benjamin Thompson and Jane McC. Thompson, Restoration of Faneuil Hall Marketplace: Comments

on Historic, Architectural and Urban Issues, unpublished typescript, August 1976, MHS, John

Quincy, Research Materials on Quincy Market, Box 1, Clippings, 19902002.


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62. Carleton Knight, III, Restored Market Draws Crowds,Preservation News(January 1977).

63. Jane Davison, Bringing Life to Market,New York Times, 10 October 1976.

64. Fanny Hall, A Mornings Marketing with the Romagnolis,Marketplace Life, no. 2 (Spring/Summer

1977): 7; from the authors private collection.

65. Guiding the Future of Faneuil Hall Marketplace, memo to TRC from Ben and Jane Thompson, 5

Dec. 1978, Benjamin and Jane Thompson Papers, MHS, Ms U-497, Box FHM 4.

66. Ibid.

67. See for example, Frieden and Sagalyn,Downtown, Inc., 6.68. Indenture of Lease between Boston Redevelopment Authority and Faneuil Hall Marketplace, Inc., 21

February 1975, MHS, John Quincy, Research Materials on Quincy Market, box 1.

69. A number of sources document these figures; see for example Jacques Gordon, Case Study: Faneuil

Hall Marketplace, Boston, unpublished typescript, part of a series of case studies of downtown devel-

opment directed by Professors Bernard J. Frieden and Lynne B. Sagalyn, MIT, January 1984, 55; John

Hubner, All That Glitters Is Not Gold: How Rouse Rakes it in at Faneuil Hall Marketplace, The Real

Paper(Boston), 31 March 1979.

70. Gail Perrin, Second Helpings,Boston Globe, 23 November 1987.

71. Sheryl Julian, To Market, To Market,Boston Globe, 17 July 1991.

72. See both Jane Thompson to Marisa Lago, Director of the BRA (CC: Mayor Tom Menino), 14 November

1995; and Antonia M. Pollak, Office of the Mayor, to Jane Thompson, 16 April 1996, MHS, John

Quincy, Research Materials on Quincy Market, box 1.

73. Frieden and Sagalyn,Downtown, Inc., 7.

74. Rob Baedeker, Americas Twenty-Five Most Visited Tourist Sites, ForbesTraveler.com, 5 May 2008.

75. Jenn Ableson, City Seeks Return to Roots for Faneuil Hall Marketplace,Boston Globe, 30 April 2006.

76. Chris Reidy, Menino to Look into Faneuil Hall Dispute,Boston Globe, 12 September 1994.

77. Maria Cramer, High Rents Squeeze Faneuil Hall Vendors,Boston Globe, 19 February 2007.

78. Gloria Negri, Talking of a Boston Market,Boston Globe, 25 October 2000.

79. Setha M. Low, Social Sustainability: People, History, and Values, in Managing Change: Sustainable

Approaches to the Conservation of the Built Environment, ed. Jeanne Marie Teutonico and Frank Matero

(Los Angeles: The Getty Conservation Institute: 2003), 4764.80. Other historic markets in the United States have been managed in a way that intentionally seeks to

preserve their traditional functions, merchant mix, sales methods, and food products; however, the

legitimacy or wisdom of this type of preservation objective has been questioned by some authors who

maintain that markets must constantly change to meet consumer desires, and that over management

creates a false sense of history. For two very different perspectives on Pike Place Market in Seattle,

widely regarded as a preservation success, compare Judy Mattivi Morley, Historic Preservation and the

Imagined West: Albuquerque, Denver, and Seattle (Lawrence, Kans.: University Press of Kansas, 2006),

91126; and Norman Tyler, Ted J. Ligibel, and Ilene R. Tyler,Historic Preservation: An Introduction to

Its History, Principles, and Practice (New York: W.W. Norton, 2009), 19293. See also Ann Satter-

thwaite,Going Shopping: Consumer Choices and Community Consequences (New Haven: Yale University

Press, 2001); and Roberta Grandes Gratz and Norman Mintz, Cities Back from the Edge: New Life for

Downtown(New York: Preservation Press, 1998), 20934.

81. UNESCO codified this policy in the 2003 Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural

Heritage, which stated that the intangible cultural heritage (ICH)or living heritageis the main-

spring of our cultural diversity and its maintenance a guarantee for continuing creativity, http://

www.unesco.org/culture/ich/index.php?pg00002 (accessed 06/02/2008).

82. Alan Jabbour, Folklife, Intangible Heritage, and the Promise and Perils of Cultural Cooperation, in

A Richer Heritage: Historic Preservation in the Twenty-First Century, ed. Robert E. Stipe (Chapel Hill:

University of North Carolina Press, 2003), 441.

83. See Laurajane Smiths discussion of Heritage as Experience and The Intangibility of Heritage in

her bookUses of Heritage (New York: Routledge, 2006), 4548, 5357.

84. On the tendency of preservationists to fix the significance of historic properties, see Mason, Fixing

Historic Preservation.

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85. SeeThe Secretary of the Interiors Standards for Rehabilitation, numbers 3 and 4.

86. Mason, Fixing Historic Preservation; and Randall Mason, Theoretical and Practical Arguments for

Values-Centered Preservation, CRM Journal(Summer 2006): 2148.

87. Jabbour, Folklife, Intangible Heritage, and the Promise and Perils of Cultural Cooperation, 443;

according to Richard Longstreth, Historicity is what distinguishes preservation from all other pur-

suits in shaping the environment; Richard Longstreth, Taste versus History, Historic Preservation

Forum(May/June, 1994): 45.

88. For example, when preparing a historic structures report, the National Park Service recommends thatpractitioners provide a description of original construction, modifications, and uses, based on histori-

cal documentation and physical evidence; observation of current users is not a recommended tech-

nique for understanding historical significance; Deborah Slayton, Preservation Brief 43: The

Preparation and Use of Historic Structures Reports, Technical Preservation Service, National Park

Service, Department of the Interior, April 2005.