River of Words was the first of a series of temporary
public art commissions installed in Pittsburgh’s Northside neighborhood, along
a public thoroughfare called the “Garden-to-Garden Artway.” The project, led by
writer Israel Centeno and visual artists Carolina Arnal and Gisela Romera,
natives of Venezuela explored the way words are a “metaphor for neural synapsis
and the connection between human beings and places.” The artists worked with
residents to choose words, which the residents then “hosted” on the exterior of
their houses and gardens. The project was opened on July 25, 2014, and was set
to close at the end of the year, on December 27, 2014. However, in the interim,
something curious happened. The residents fell in love with their words. These
words, which included “resilience,” “poem,” “passion,” and “friend,” served as
a way for residents to represent themselves to their neighbors, and to the
world. On December 27, 2014, the “hosts” received letters that noted that the
exhibit had run its course, and were they to keep their words on display, they
would have to pay a $100 application fee. Why the fee? Part of the Northside neighborhood
is within the historic preservation district, and as such, is subject to strict
guidelines on the maintenance of the exterior of houses. The fee is to apply to have a hearing to get permission to keep the words on their houses. However, these words,
installed on the interior of windows, or with one-inch screws within the mortar
of brick walls, were low to no impact, and the benefit, according to residents
was immense. On February 4, 2015, a Pittsburgh resident addressed the members
of the Historic Preservation Commission, trying to gain an exemption for the
project.
I am Glenn Olcerst, the applicant, owner of 1200 Resaca, a 39
year resident of the Mexican War Streets Historic District, and the
host of two of the 140 words in the"River of Words" art
installation --which is the product of a partnership between
the City of Asylum and the Pittsburgh Office of
Public Art. I’m appearing today on behalf of my words, and
all my other historic district neighbors who also want to keep their
words.
In addition to its beautiful historic buildings, our
neighborhood boasts a thriving art community. The"River of
Words" Garden to Garden walkway art installation involved extensive cross
cultural collaboration within the Central Northside community and between the
residents and the artists.‘River of Words’ has received much favorable press –
even internationally – and requests to display Words by homeowners in
other historic and non-historic Pittsburgh neighborhoods.
If a purpose of historic preservation is “to preserve and
restore the harmonious outward appearance of structures which attract tourists
and residents”, then ‘River of Words’ is helping the City reach this
goal in our historic district. Since 42% of Words
are affixed to houses inside the Historic District, when homeowners were
told that their Words must be removed by December 27, the Commission
undermined its mission by conveying a negative message about living in a
historic district….
I will share two positive excerpts from the Facebook page on
this subject: “river of words is not an insignificant matter – it is
public art very well conceived and embraced by the whole community.
Preservation need not be at war with artistic expression.” A second post
noted that "I think river of words is the best thing that has happened to
our neighborhood since I've moved here. If homeowners desire to keep their
words, there is no better neighborhood suited to housing the project long term
than ours. I think the words complement the historic backdrop, and have given
us much needed positive press and excitement.”
Mr. Orcest went on to discuss that the project, wherein
residents chose a word that was meaningful to them and displayed it somewhere
visible on the exterior of their house, was a vital exercise in free speech. It
was a way to get residents involved in public discussion and deliberation, as
well as a means to further unite the neighborhood.
The
Historic Review Commission, peopled by Chairman Ernie Hogan, Sarah Quinn, Ray
Gastill, Joe Serrao, and Erik Harliss, is responsible for overseeing permit approval
for construction and repairs made in the historic districts throughout
Pittsburgh. Their job is largely to ensure that the “historic” character of a
neighborhood perdures and so they serve as the gatekeepers of style, and of
maintaining (and as such, defining) the character of a neighborhood. Theirs is
a complex discursive argot of architectural vocabulary; knowledge about
different building materials and their historic provenance; and a more
situational operation of judgment about what constitutes appropriateness.
The three hours of public hearings
that I observed included a couple of property owners violating historic
district requirements by installing glass block windows (the kind one often
sees in commercial buildings, and/or in bathrooms, these windows are
multilayered and opaque); a fencing company forgoing the style of an older
railing and hence breaking with the “original” style; an architecture firm
requesting to put a permanent awning on a restaurant in Market Square, a
request met with refusal on the grounds that it would set a precedent for
awnings and “turn the square into an arcade”; and a builder requesting, on
behalf of property owners, to replace the rotting shingle from an 1830s
railroad car house with “hardy plank,” a fibrous concrete, a request that was
met with refusal with the demand that they investigate the possibility of
rehabilitating the wood, to “save an important part of history.” These four
moments, of about seventeen, index the way that value is articulated within the
framework of the HRC. “History,” “origins,” and “authenticity,” are key terms
for navigating the exigencies of urban transformation. The historic is the
valorized term the contemporary or ahistoric devalorized. Other concerns
(security, cost, feasibility) are for the most part understood as second-rate. And
gatekeeper identity seems fully internalized by commission members. “I can’t allow it!” many would express
after minutes of fidgeting, consternation, and questions. Moreover, the
priority here, is architecture, community understood as building materials, not
culture as social process. This is evident in the procedural language, “Is item
number 1 here?” “Is agenda item, 324 Carson street here?” Not property owners,
but buildings.
The
commissioners exercise a significant amount of situational judgment, given that
each building is treated on a case-by-case basis, even though there are general
requirements. For instance, the glass-block case occurred on a corner-house
that was across the street from another
building that also had glass block windows on the basement level. However, this
analogy failed to persuade the commissioners, who noted that the building could
be outside the boundaries of the historic district, or could have been updated
before the district was created, or even was violating the rules but had not
been caught yet. These three possibilities illustrated how district standards
are difficult to enforce, and hard to actualize in a uniform manner. In the
case of the metal railing, where the ironwork company defended their actions,
they too, used the example of another building they had worked on in the
district which had received approval.
They also pointed to other aspects of the building (leaf designs, scrolls above
the doorway) that allowed them to create an “authentic” style. This claim,
however, was met with disgust by two neighborhood watchdogs, two men who
testified on multiple cases about violations of historic standards. However,
their arguments, about the authenticity of the prior railing “because it could
not come from the 1950s when the economy was depressed” were not grounded in
cited evidence. Nevertheless, they swayed the commission. Thus, the public
hearing is a rhetorical space of contestation of competing arguments about origin, history, and authenticity, and as such,
this realm is ripe for rhetorical analysis.
Where does
the River of Words project fit in
here? Given that the project is a series of public texts, challenging because such texts make their own arguments
about the community, its identity, and origins. Moreover, it is a collision
point between understandings of neighborhood identity that place value and
importance on resident activity and communication or physical spaces and
their appearance.
Moreover,
it is a free speech issue and raises the question, how does one evaluate
private property as a zone of free speech? Does it make the public private? To
better understand the controversy, and River
of Words’ importance in residents and word hosts’ lives, I will be
conducting a series of oral history interviews during the month of February,
publishing the audio and transcripts. Stay tuned.
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