south end preservation league
Historic preservation on the South End is slightly different than other places. Most areas restore an architecturally significant building — the way folks did in Stanwoodopolis with the Odd Fellows Hall — or you fix up a fancy theater or tidy up the old Pearson House, maybe rehab a train station. Tie a little history to art, throw in a chamber orchestra, occasional theater group, poetry reading — get some volunteers, apply for a grant, hey, we’re halfway there to creating cultural identity.
Down by us we’re toying with a campaign to save the Tyee. The Tyee Store, I mean, an iconic example of 70’s minimalist architecture done in masonry block painted a classic mildewed white with a low sloping shed roof blown off once or twice, and a fully functional outhouse. The store owners weren’t real happy with our ad hoc group to save the Tyee, but considering they’re losing money hand over fist, we plowed ahead. Jack Gunter had already restored the adjoining garage to its present pristine glory, proving that expensive restoration isn’t always necessary for the South End Historical Preservation League.
But it was the EPA that finally derailed our high hopes of creating the Tyee Opera House and Expresso Stand. It turns out those rotating rotisserie deli dogs with their infra-red warming oven carbon tracking for decades, well, apparently it created a super strain of E-coli no known agents can destroy. It was like a culinary meth lab and if they can create bio-suits secure enough to withstand the new strain of unearthly bacteria, they might have a 50/50 chance of burying the place in glass and concrete like a South End Chernobyl. That, or the Defense Dep’t. is interested in expanding it as a toxic agent lab…..
We South Enders are in no danger, we’re told, somehow building antibodies to the superbugs, but we sure couldn’t expose outsiders to the pestilence. So… for the time being our cultural aspirations are on hold. But don’t you all worry. We won’t be stopped. After all, the Elger Bay Store has that early ‘80’s shotgun stripmall architecture that will be stylish in, oh, a decade or so….
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