Hoggard mourns the passing of the Ice House:
Rather than rail against the city’s inept efforts to save it, I think it is time that the responsibility for the loss of that historic building – and the future loss of others like it – be shifted to where it belongs: Greensboro’s preservation community. I include myself in that community.
Local preservationists continuously operate in a reactive mode. Every time some historic structure is slated for relocation or demolition, we gnash our teeth, curse at the owners, and talk among ourselves as to what dumbasses people are for not recognizing the value of our historic architecture.
Well, we preservationists are the real dumbasses.
The N&R had a picture of the demolition on the front page of the metro section, plus a mention in its article on the city’s proposed downtown cultural district.
The biggest news, in my opinion, was buried in that story: The Weaver Foundation bought the Duke Energy property yesterday at a cost of $ 1 million in order to “protect the property from undesirable development,” whatever that is.
But the bottom line is downtown advocates have been wanting to do something with that property for quite some time now. It will be interesting to see what, uh, develops.