Partnering with Stepheny – February 13th – 6:00PM – Station Square

YOU ARE INVITED

Preservation of our architectural assets needs a critical mass of people who are interested in having a voice in the matter. As a board member of Preservation Rocky Mount,  I’m heading up a new Advocacy committee. I know many of you who read this blog have a great interest in the continuing revitalization efforts of Rocky Mount. PRM believes that together, we can do something important.

Make a note that on February, 13th, 6:00, Station Square, I’m leading a meeting. I want you to come! We are calling this meeting a  Conversation Cafe. The seats will be arranged in a circle as opposed to a lecture style. I’ll set the tone for the meeting with my usual cheerleading pom poms, state a few ground rules so that all of you can chime in with your thoughts.

WHAT CAN WE DO TO SAVE MAIN STREET & ENVIRONS?

You don’t have to join Preservation Rocky Mount to come to the meeting, though I wish you would join because we need to strengthen our voice and demonstrate how important preservation and revitalization is to us.  Preservation groups in other cities have worked hard and become an influential presence. Wouldn’t you love to be remembered as someone who helped secure our architectural inventory, our sense of place, and embraced preservation as an economic engine that helps build a future? I know I would.

Let’s help find a new will to carry on the great efforts of the Peter Varney years of preservation that we see at the Train Station, Bus Station, Imperial Center, Douglas Block, Streetscape and the fantastic things going on at the Mill, and more. At the moment we are dancing to the political music on all the airwaves, but Conversation Cafe Night won’t be playing that music.

Stepheny’s army is about hanging crystal prisms (Click Here) and looking at historic preservation as much more than preserving bricks and mortar. (Paul Miles – The Financial Times and Craig Potts – Kentucky Heritage Council have said much the same thing, but they say it exactly right.) Preservation recognizes that our built history connects us in tangible ways with our past and provides context for the places we occupy and the world we live in. It fuses art with craftsmanship. Reuse affords a sense of history and texture, taking advantage of buildings with atmosphere, history, and stories inscribed in their fabric. Sometimes sustainability isn’t just about energy and materials saved, but about the stories, craft and intelligence embodied in its walls. These words inform our advocacy. Come to the meeting and let us reason together. SFH