So That's... Old

One of the great things about living in New England is that we really appreciate our history around here. I'm not just talking about Faneuil Hall or the USS Constitution. Go to almost any town in the area and you will find a building with a plaque out in front telling you the year it was built and the significant event that took place there. It is a great way to remember that some huge events happened in this area. However, there are other times when you can tell the people making the decision for the historical committee were flying a little fast and loose with the permits to designate a building as an historic landmark on that particular day. There is a house that I pass all the time which has a plaque from the historical society in front of it, but the plaque has faded to the point you can't read it from the street. So the other day, after driving passed it for the thousandth time, I came home and decided to satisfy my curiosity and find out just what the hell made this house so special. I looked it up online and do you know what made this house really significant, to the point it had to be preserved from all the other new developments going up around it? It was old. That's it.

I can't begin to tell you how disappointing this revelation was. After driving by this house for years I had concocted a very intricate story about the home and its previous owners. I mean, it is not much to look at, so I figured that if there were people who thought it was important enough to save it had to be very important in the Nation's history. In my mind it was a rally point for the earliest American soldiers, the place Paul Revere switched horses and George Washington's summer home. Instead I learned it was built in 1688... and that's it. That's the list. So, we are keeping this kind of dilapidated, shed-sized structure up on a piece of land that would probably be worth a few hundred thousand dollars, simply because it is old. C'mon, people, just because something was built a long time ago that doesn't make it important, it just makes it old. It is possible for something to be one without being the other. In fact, after thinking it over, I've come up with a few rules to determine whether or not a structure is worth preserving.

1. It has to be old. Ok, I agree with it having to be a few hundred years old. In fact, as long as it meets this requirement and any one of the next three I'm cool with the landmark distinction. (This is the point where my International readers snicker at my low bar. I know, I know, the additions on your historical landmarks are a couple hundred years old.)

2. It is somehow connected to an important person. Seriously, I'm not even going to tell you what qualifies as a connection. I'll leave that to be determined on a case-by-case basis. They could have lived there as a child or they could have stayed one night in their life. The key is how important the person is: if you ask 10 people with history degrees if they can recognize the name without doing any research and fewer than four of them do, then that place is toast.

3. It is somehow connected to an important event. Again, I'm not even going to tell you how connected the building has to be. I'm not even going to tell you how important the event has to be, because what I find important someone else might find stupid and vice-versa, so I'm not about to pick on someone else's beliefs. But something has to have happened there that more than 25 people give a crap about, otherwise you're just taking up valuable real estate.

4. It is featured in a novel or movie. It doesn't even have to be a good movie or novel. If your building is in the background of some crappy film that no one else saw, I still say you can find to keep it upright. Hell, the structure is still more famous than me. But, if that building's scene has somehow reached the cutting room floor, so have your hopes of it being a landmark.