History schmistory

Portland State’s historic house on Southwest 11th Avenue is well on its way to demolition. Some would like to see the house preserved, but ridding the campus of this empty, asbestos-ridden house is not such a bad idea.

The house in question was built in the 1880s and stands at the edge of a little park between 11th and 12th Avenues on Market Street. PSU Director of Communications Scott Gallagher said that the house has been empty for years because of dangerous asbestos insulation, according to a recent article in the Vanguard.

Portland State graduate Brandon Spencer-Hartle believes that there should be talks about preserving the building because of its history. On Hartle’s “Don’t Just Demolish Portland State’s Past!” Facebook page, he advocates for preserving the house or erecting an education exhibit about the house in whatever structure takes its place.

This seems to be a case of saving an old building just because it’s old. The house itself has no special importance to the campus, nor is there any record of important historical events taking place there. There is no really good reason to save the house aside from the fact that it is old.

One big reason given by Hartle and Val Ballestrem, education manager for the Architectural Heritage Center, is that the house is a good representative of homes from Portland’s own Victorian era, according to an article in the Daily Journal of Commerce. It seems to me that other documentation would serve just as well to preserve such a style. Photographs, papers and blueprints of the house can all be saved regardless of what happens to the house itself.

If one of the main reasons for preserving the house is because it is representative of a certain style, the house itself need not remain standing to do so. One could even take the blueprints and build their own house in the same exact style if they so wished. But I guess it’s not the same because the wood used to build it wouldn’t be old enough.

Sustainability is a buzzword that people like to throw around here in Portland, and talk about this house is no different in that respect. Brandon and others have said that, somehow, a remodel may be more sustainable than something else. This, of course, comes without any reference as to what may take its place. In that respect, it is more assumed than anything else.

Who is to say that the new structure won’t be more sustainable than anything the house could be made into?

Moving the house, as was done for the Ladd House back in 2007, would be quite expensive, about $30,000 to $50,000 according to Keith Settle, president of Northwest Structural Moving. It would also require cutting the street car and utility lines that hang over downtown Portland, making it all the more expensive. Most importantly, though, is that no one seems up to the task.

The school has offered the house, for as low as one dollar, to bidders who are willing to move it, with no bites on the line as of yet.

This is about progress, and with progress sometimes comes the demolition of outdated antiquities to make way for better living. We can and should preserve the information of our past, but that can easily be done without leaving a relic standing unused in the middle of an urban campus.