PHA needs a history lesson
Thank you for “Trash or treasure?” [June 28], your article surveying the preservation and development issues surrounding the Smith-Reaves house at 223 Fourth St. SW, one of the 65 individually listed historic structures in the city. The building’s owner, the Piedmont Housing Alliance, has tried to demolish the house to build affordable units on Fourth Street. PHA is full of fine people doing important work. For reasons that aren’t entirely clear they are treating the house at on Fourth Street and its rich associated history as just so much “trash” needing to be swept out of the way.
This is a house built by African-American freedmen immediately after the Civil War and lived in and owned proudly by African-American residents of Charlottesville who worked as laborers, domestic servants, cooks, repairmen and other respectable positions in our community. Interestingly, it is precisely people in similar positions whom PHA today advocates tirelessly on behalf of.
The house on Fourth Street is a modest house. One of the oldest frame houses in Charlottesville, it reveals something of the history of affordable housing in our community. Does PHA feel any responsibility to work respectfully with the modest material remains of affordable housing in Charlottesville? Do the good people at PHA feel any sense of responsibility to treat respectfully the history of people who struggled to build, live in, and maintain affordable housing units in the city?
Seeking a demolition permit from the Board of Architectural Review and then from the City Council, PHA’s Mark Watson established his commitment to preservation by stating that he had worked on preservation projects to preserve Charles Bulfinch’s Massachusetts State House and Frederick Law Olmsted’s Boston park system. Those monumental places, built by celebrated designers, are frankly easy preservation projects. The challenge that
PHA has attempted to avoid through demolition is the challenge to be creative and respectful of a house that is not celebrated, is not monumental, is not beautiful, but can be an inspiration and is totally consistent with the PHA mission to provide decent housing for people of modest means.
The section of your article titled “Don’t know much about history?” could unfortunately be directed at PHA, which has a somewhat perplexing history of demolishing affordable housing units in Charlottesville with little or no effort to explore their history or their potential to be actually improved in order to continue their service. Fourth Street is a case in point. Here was a lot purchased for $75,000 that actually had two dwelling units, a house and a cottage, that were by definition affordable housing units. PHA has proposed, using two adjacent vacant lots and the lot where the house and cottage stand, to build a total of three affordable units. This is a dubious tradeoff at best.
Moreover, PHA’s cost estimate for preserving this house is based on preservation assumptions fit for an 18th-century building by Bulfinch but not on a realistic assessment of what it would take to keep in service an existing modest unit of affordable housing.
PHA did not know they were purchasing a historic house when they bought the Fourth Street house. Unfortunately, once they found out their response was to push the old argument for demolition. Their efforts stand in unflattering contrast to the Legal Aid Justice Center’s effort to preserve the C. B. Holt Rock House at 1010 Preston Ave., chronicled recently in the pages of C-VILLE [“Legal Aid is in the house,” The Week, June 14]. Legal Aid had in the C. B. Holt house a building that had been abandoned for years, had major water damage, and was in many ways in worse condition than the Smith-Reaves house. They put together a committee to consider preservation even though preservation is not Legal Aid’s main business. Nevertheless, they were inspired by the history of the building and saw that Holt’s own efforts as an African-American to build his own home against the odds in the Jim Crow era in many ways resonated with Legal Aid’s own mission to fight for equity in the law. The result will be added space for the Legal Aid’s community outreach effort. PHA might want to explore such an approach.
Daniel Bluestone
Charlottesville
Not in their pocket
It is absolutely stunning that you failed to reserve eight spots in this year’s “C-VILLE 20” [June 21] for The Legends of Kesmai, Charlottesville’s conquering team 8-ball champions.
The Legends (The Sniper, Run C.M.D.—Cuts of Mass Destruction, The Dragon, Tu-Bank Shakur, The Chameleon, Mr. Electricity, Droopy and Jon “Robo” Kopco, respectively) won this past season’s American Poolplayers Association pool league and put Charlottesville on the map by going to Richmond and finishing first for all teams in Central Virginia (Fredericksburg, Richmond and Lynchburg).
In 20 years people will have forgotten the contributions of Mr. Boyd Tinsley and Miss Sissy Spacek, but they will remember the Legends.
Shawn Decker (a.k.a. Tu-Bank Shakur)
Charlottesville
CLARIFICATION
In the June 21 “C-VILLE 20” story, a caption incorrectly stated that the Thomas Jefferson Foundation raised $15 million to buy Montalto. The Foundation took out loans to cover the $15 million, and has thus far raised $10 million toward repaying the debt.