Saving Historical Sites, Structures, Objects, Etc

There's a ship called the SS United States and this ship in particular is a big part of American history. She was partly designed by the US government, was build to be the blue ribbon winner witch it did win on its first voyage on July 4 1952, and she was the true American ship. Recently(early 2010) there were plans to sell her and one of the biggest buyers was scrap company. Apparently, Norwegian Cruise Line could not hold the ship for much longer and was by rumor going to build another new cruse liner (BTW NCL has been known to scrap famous ocean liners such examples as the SS France, though the boiler did explode on that on so...) Thankfully The SS United States Conservancy managed to buy the ocean liner and now have plans to reopen it as a Hotel/Casino, this also will bring in high tourism from what some people at the Conservancy say.

The question is really is it a good idea to tear down buildings or scrap example like the one above with historical properties to just bring in the "new", or, its it good to keep them not only in the hopes of high tourism, but to preserve history.

My stance is this, I love history(Yes, I'm a history geek) and I think its wonderful that there are groups out there who go though great lengths to save and preserve historical objects, I do plan in the future to join one of these groups myself. Although for me, there are certain limits to what we can save and what we can not. For example, lets say a company wants to build an office building over a site, but there's a building there that was home to one of the most historic moments in a certain countries history(where the founding fathers signed the countries declaration of independence, something like that) but the building was falling apart, half of it was gone, the floors collapsed in on each other, and its impossible to rebuild, then I say sadly there's nothing we can do, and then let the company do what it has to do. But, if the building was in pretty good shape, some windows smashed in and some graffiti on the walls but everything was intact, I would say definitely keep the place and try to convince the company to build there office building somewhere else.

What's your opinion on this, definitely if you have a similar situation where you live do use it in your reply.

[Yitik]

History's very important to me as well. Not just from tourism, but the simple notion that reflecting on different aspects of our past is how we learn, both as individuals and as a civilization. Restoration efforts are admirable for this reason.

The town in which I grew up did have a similar situation, although they were just grain silos - nothing terribly special. However, for many, they represented the style and grass-roots origins of the area.

To play Devil's Advocate, though, consider that such large things as ships and silos take up space, which is at a premium in this overpopulated and highly industrialized world we live in. If we kept everything, our natural geographical history would be completely gone. So we need to think of what's worth keeping, and what is not. I would question whether these grain silos, which frankly are just grain silos, are worth keeping, or even this American ship which doesn't seem to have much historical significance in itself. It broke a speed record, but it's up to us to decide if that's something important to preserve and recall.

There's something like this happening in Australia right now, with mining companies stealing (the government has no rights to the land, and thus the sale thereof, it belongs to the aborigines!) aboriginal land, rich in truly ancient history, (cave paintings, etc) and ripping it apart in search of resources. Far as I'm concerned, that's inexcusable, and shows an utter lack of morals, and value for history, culture and natural beauty, and might even be considered a little racist.

I do agree with Yitik though, in that when it isn't a capitalism-fuelled money grab, sometimes we just can't keep the past (think what a mess we'd be in if we hadn't, say, replaced the Roman, cobblestone roads with tarmac.).

it's up to us to decide if that's something important to preserve and recall.

Its very true what you say Yitik, I love the fact that they did save the ship, but it all depends on weather it is really something we can keep. Although I do think it was a good idea to save the SS US for this particular reason, the area where its docked is very run-down and out of use. The plans are to not only to change the ship, but to build a new urban area on this old dock, this will have condos, offices, a park, cafes, restaurants, etc. Its very lucky that the ship did have its own pear for I do believe that if it was any other ship that had similar history and the same plans but had no dock to stay in then sadly then I would think then there's no other choice but to scrap it.

All I can really say more for the SS US is that ship was dam lucky...