Monday, December 4, 2006
Ghost Sign No More
On his website, Aldermanic President Jim Shrewsbury has an article celebrating the efforts of Bob Corbett and the Dogtown Historical Society to restore a faded Alpen Brau sign in Dogtown.
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6 comments:
Some people think it is gauche to restore historic wall signs.
They do. Other people, however, think that the painstaking restoration of an historic wall sign is no different than the careful restoration of an historic building, painting, or sculpture.
PE
I love the signs, but feel that they should remain current. They're cool because they use available space and brighten the streetscape, but I don't really want to see ads for a defunct 1921 hat shop - let's see an ad for Metro (like that will happen), ipods, whatever . . .
While I enjoy the aged, faded look of an old wall sign, I also appreciate the effect of a careful restoration. Deferring all maintenance is not good conservation practice.
Historic codes seem to be very fluid.
I've heard from some experts that the cost of restoring a faded wall sign is not eligible for historic tax credits, in fact is frowned upon.
Then I've also heard that in Baltimore, vinyl replacement windows and window air conditioning units or maybe even through the wall a/c systems on high-rise buildings have qualified for historic tax credits.
Perhaps we have boxed ourselves in with too high standards for historic rehab in St. Louis?
I'd be interested in seeing a source on that last anonymous assertion about Baltimore. One of Baltimore's development corporations actually publishes an easy-to-follow brochure about tax credits (hey!) and its first easy-to-follow rule is (this is a quote):
"All wooden windows all the time!!!" (really, three exclamation points)
find it at:
http://www.jubileebaltimore.org/pdf/HPTC.pdf
The purpose of the federal and state tax credits is to encourage historic rehab, not the installation of window units. Although there could be some other tax credit program for that.
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