icon Blueprint for October

Looking at History

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3 min read

In “Hamilton,” the most highly praised Broadway musical in some years, author/composer/lyricist/star Lin Manuel Miranda tells the story of America’s Founding Fathers to rap music—and it works. Miranda’s brilliant conceit is that the rebels who sought a better life than they had under King George III share the emotions in the voices of those seeking a better life today. And, in his cast, the faces of his 18th century revolutionaries are those of today’s America.

We need to preserve the past to better comprehend the present. We are only what we are as a result of what we came from. Whether we like it or not, we have all inherited the genes, the looks, the traits, the decisions, the stories of what came before us. Our pasts live. And yet, as a society, we often tend to overlook the past as we worship the new.

As a perk of my work, I get to travel around the country, mostly to American cities, and I often find myself remarking how beautiful and exciting they all now are. It was not this way when I first started working in the 1970s. Then people were escaping urban blight all around the country; now the drift in the country is from the center to the cities on the edges. A good deal of that beauty comes from the mix of the steely new with the patina of old, a merger of the best ideas of the past with the best ideas of the present. Ride the boat up the river in Chicago on the architecture tour, take the Freedom Trail through Boston, ride a bike down the Collins Avenue shorefront in Miami Beach, walk through downtown Cincinnati or Pittsburgh and you feel the thrill of the convergence of the old and the new that “Hamilton” brings to the stage. The living remnants of the past make us feel part of something larger than ourselves. They provide a richness to life.

This issue of Tax Credit Advisor is our annual celebration of historic preservation. Evidence is clear that the Historic Tax Credit program has created better lives for Americans all around the country. Despite this, it has its detractors, a lucid example of how ridiculous government whining can become.

Well, we have the evidence for you. Just look at and read about the nominees for this year’s J. Timothy Anderson Awards for Historic Rehabilitation as presented by Lauren Anderson (Building More than Buildings, p.22). Catch Joel Swerdlow’s glimpse of half a dozen American cities and towns that have been transformed. (The Triumph of Historic Tax Credits, p.30). Or read the facts on the results of the program as provided by pioneer and advocate John Leith-Tetrault of the National Trust Community Investment Corporation (Talking Heads, p. 8). The benefits provided to all by the HTC program are not just an intellectual conceit; they are palpable and visible.

Also this month, we announce the honorees of NH&RA’s annual Affordable Housing Vision Awards. The TCA team congratulates Sheila Dillon and Bill Machen, both of whom are profiled here by staff writer Mark Olshaker.

In “Hamilton,” George Washington sings to the title character that “History Has Its Eyes on You.” Historic preservation provides us all the opportunity to have our eyes on history. And it is a pleasure.

Marty Bell
Editor