An organization called Save the Bungalows sends out a press release today bemoaning the demolition of the house at 647 Arlington St. in the Heights — which was mentioned in our February 1st demolition report, and whose final moments are documented in this photo, included with the release. The press release appears genuinely exciting. It features a tantalizing headline:
“Orgy of Irrational Destruction*” Continues: Home Tour House is Latest Victim
and some interesting details on the house:
A home that was featured on the 1997 Houston Heights Home Tour has been demolished.
Neighbors and friends expressed shock and outrage over the latest piece of authentic history to fall to ignorance. The sturdy house at 647 Arlington was built in 1910 by Frank J. and Nina Daly. The property remained in the Daly family until it was sold to Jack Spivey in 1980. The home’s interior was carefully renovated and updated and a garage was added to the rear. Spivey sold the house in November of 2007.
Pam August of August Landscape Design, came to know the house when Jack Spivey hired her to design his yard. She then volunteered to be the head docent for the house on the Heights Home Tour. “It is just a terrible shame that a house so beautifully restored, a house that was on the tour as an example of wonderful restoration, has been tossed in a dumpster.” August said.
After the jump: About that orgy.
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The headline quote about irrational orgies was dug up from a 2006 comment by Richard Moe, president of the National Trust for Historic Preservation. Here’s Moe’s more complete statement, from the bottom of the release:
The pace of teardowns has amounted to an orgy of irrational destruction. Teardowns spread through a community like a cancer. I believe they represent the biggest threat to America’s older neighborhoods since the heyday of urban renewal and interstate highway construction.
Moe continues with some mumbo jumbo about communities and visions and mechanisms, but that’s really the meat of it.
Save the Bungalows experiences its own local catharsis, getting readers all riled up with a photo that catches a dinky machine in the act of raising its grubby little arms to rip off an innocent balcony. You’d hope that a few rabid words of outrage from a national organization would whip up local activists like Save the Bungalows into even further eloquent frenzy. Instead, we get a press release where the climax is in the headline and the details pale in comparison.
But hey, an orgy is a hard act to follow. What’s next?
