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Should Portwalk Halt Construction?
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Written by J. Dennis Robinson
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 Seacoast History Blog #56
July 24, 2009
Historians do not want to halt progress. Tearing down the ugly Portsmouth Parade Mall and replacing it with a modern hotel is fine with me and with everyone I know. But we want progress to come responsibly. And for historians, especially archeologists, that means extracting all the data possible from beneath the ground in a scientific manner BEFORE the new building goes up. Right now, some very intelligent people think some very valuable artifacts are being obliterated minute by minute by this construction project. Adam Leech’s excellent summary of the story in the Portsmouth Herald sums up the situation. Now what? (Continued below)
As far as I can tell, no one seems to know exactly what the rules are. Historians, lawyers, developers, city planners all seem to have different views on whether federal laws can halt the construction project so that knowledgeable people can take a look.
READ THE ARTICLE by Adam Leech
The team hired to assess the region by the developer says nothing of historic significance is being destroyed. Archeologists who know the North End well say that’s crazy. Of course there are valuable colonial artifacts here, and of course they are being destroyed. Professional articles have been written about the ceramics found during a dig just one street away in the 1980s. I have a copy right here. You can read about the discoveries in the published reports. You can go see the artifacts in a half dozen or more display cases at the Sheraton Harborside within a stone’s throw of the Portwalk development.
Portwalk says they did the paperwork required to move ahead. Very likely they did. And very likely they believe that the experts they hired did a thorough job. A lot of us don’t. The state of NH does not, and the feds do not. Much of the area bulldozed by urban renewal in the 1970s was simply covered with a parking lot. The Parade Mall, I’ve been told, was not built deep into the ground. Anything beneath the footprint of the old building, or in the surrounding parking lot would still be intact, and so far, unstudied. The idea that this is all “fill” makes no sense to me or to anyone with a college degree that I’ve spoken to in the last two days.
So yes, Portwalk should stop, right now, and let people who know what they are doing take a look. Fresh experts should walk the ground, dig a few test pits, study the city maps, review the report of the historical consultants. That would be the politically correct thing to do. And Portwalk would get a lot of positive PR by inviting the historians in now, before the story escalates. Then again, if no one cares, it might just die away.
But it would also be the expensive thing to do. Stopping work in progress is costly, and especially risky in this slow economy. And as far as I can tell, the EPA has no teeth to enforce stoppage on a project like this. They can strongly recommend that the construction be stopped, but they cannot make it happen. At least, that’s what people tell me.
And the digging goes on.
You can bet your bottom dollar that we would not even know the state of things if local citizens had not contacted the NHDHR, and they, in turn, had not contacted the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation in Washington DC, and they in turn hadn’t sent a July 20 memo to National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) in Boston. And you and I would never have known about that unless the memo made its way to the newspaper and the newspaper jumped right in and called Portwalk to see what is happening.
And the digging goes on.
The one thing historians want to see, at least this historian, is more hotels in Portsmouth. Because those hotels will bring conventions and tourists who will visit our historic sites and restaurants and cultural venues. But as I noted in Adam’s article, it doesn’t make much sense to destroy our historic city – when our history is the very lifeblood of our economy. What we could now be learning about the historic North End, if the city had a better preservation system, may now be wiped out by ongoing construction.
I’ve suggested that the city needs to learn more about preserving history under the ground, so that we can prevent this thing from happening again. But I’ve been told that’s crazy. Very few towns want to restrict developers by requiring oversight of precious archeology. Developers are rightfully scared to death that someone will come up with a prehistoric site or, God forbid, another African American burying ground that would shut down a project for good or drive the cost into the stratosphere.
But let’s remember – we already know what we are likely to find in the North End. There could be human remains. There could be Indian a artifact. But more likely there are 19th century foundations, 18th century ceramics, and maybe some 17th century artifacts. That isn’t going to kill the project, but it is going to enhance our knowledge of the city’s founding.
Let’s also remember – that we KNEW there were bodies under Chestnut Street. City workers have been carefully dancing around the “Old Negro Burying Ground” for decades. They knew where the bodies were buried, and worked hard not to find them. I believe it’s true, though I’ve yet to find the documents, that workers found the remains a number of times while building streets and sewers and house foundations in that area – and simply covered them up. In Massachusetts, one archeologist told me recently, that would land you in jail. In New Hampshire, it’s just another topic to discuss over a beer.
And the digging goes on.
Already the historians are giving way. People are already saying that the artifacts may be lost and that we need to learn from this lesson and do a better job next time. Perhaps. Except that Portsmouth has NEVER learned its lesson when it comes to preserving history underground – unless there are bodies in coffins, or unless somebody makes a lot of noise.
So if Portwalk decides not to halt the work and invite in the archeologists, we need a plan. Perhaps 200 Italian-Americans could hold hands and surround the former “Little Italy” until the TV crews arrive. Or we send in a group of Ninja historians at night with video cameras to sift through the soil. Or we float a balloon with high tech archeology equipment over the site and photograph it from the air like they do on that show on PBS.
At the very least, we should send in an observation team, and hold a public forum to discuss how we can (or if we want to) tighten regulations to preserve land for future projects. Or the city could voluntarily send a few citizens to Washington DC to get some training in what is, and what is not, really mandated by the feds. Or Portwalk could step up and suggest a redesign that will leave portions of the development site untouched and available for future archeology.
All I know is that, at this moment, the digging goes on.
© 2009 by J. Dennis Robinson. All rights reserved. |
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| Saturday, November 21, 2009 |
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