COMMENT OF THE DAY: KEEPING PRESERVATION UP TO DATE “I’m glad to see it’s still standing, glad the wiring and plumbing have been upgraded so that it won’t burn down or rot in place. The rest is just personal taste, and fleeting. In other words, I’m delighted. I just visited San Antonio, where every other building dated back to the 1800s or early 1900s. A lot of them had been reno’d over and over again, at least on the inside. Some had kept a lot of period detail; some hadn’t. This made them alive, much in the same way that the English language lives by constantly changing. One of my tour guides had been born in a hospital building on the riverwalk. The place had long ago been converted to an office building with tchochke shops in front, but the guide was proud that the building was still standing after being the birthplace of a century of San Antonians. If we in Houston make our buildings stay vital, useful, desireable and, most of all, sound, they will live on and make Houston a place we’ll be happy to show to our grandkids.” [Sihaya, commenting on The Plan To Flip Houston’s LBJ House]