Avoiding Easy Street

by M. Stewart
Recognize this East Liverpool building? Perhaps the oldest city building still in use, it serves as an example of what a little maintenance can do.

As the topic of building maintenance heats up once again in our town, we should recognize the successes along with the failures. In the coming weeks ORL will shine the light on some of those buildings whose owners have met or exceeded their civic duty in maintaining or restoring our city’s historic infrastructure. Despite its many critics, East Liverpool remains a beautiful old town filled with opportunities to preserve our priceless heritage.

This is not to suggest that dilapidated structures should remain standing. Clearly there is a point of no return for buildings that have been neglected too long. The Smith building on Broadway and the old Crockery City Brewery building on Webber Way are prime examples. Once among the most impressive structures in our city, they have been allowed to decay past the point of practical recovery.

East Liverpool is far from the only small town in America forced to shrink due to the rise of the suburbs and the global economy, but shrinking isn’t always a bad thing if managed properly. The trick is to preserve as much of the unique beauty of our historic architecture as possible without allowing the effort to be overwhelmed by decay. And most of it has to be done with private capital.

It’s easy to give in to the suburban mindset. We have become a nation of shallow consumers that value only what is new. These days all roads lead to clusters of cloned cinder-block cubes designed to store and display cheap, throw-away products manufactured on the other side of the world. We can’t live without trinkets and toys designed to be replaced with still more trinkets and toys. Worse yet, we have allowed our entire economy to depend solely on our willingness to buy this junk.

So where in all of this do we find hope for our antique towns? It requires a self-conscious effort on the part of those willing to become part of a subculture that says “no” to crass consumerism and suburban blight. We must be willing to bear the insults of the materialistic masses who seek to justify their own depravity by mocking civilization and destroying history. We must be willing to create an alternative to modern barbarism and sterility.

It starts with personal character and public pride as well as a willingness to fight those who have neither. It starts with keeping your own home, yard and sidewalk clean. It starts with insisting that our politicians become active agents for change instead of defenders of the status quo. It starts with a willingness to confront those who profit from poverty and decay, no matter how powerful and entrenched they have become.

Where does it end? It doesn’t. Entropy is a universal law of nature, and keeping it at bay requires constant effort. It’s easy to throw stuff away and buy something new; it takes work to mend what’s broken. It takes money and effort and skill to preserve something of value.

I don’t know about you, but I don’t want my life to be easy. I want to work hard and feel that I’ve accomplished something, that I’ve left things better than I found them. I don’t want a heap of plastic trash to serve as evidence of my existence.

Please don’t misunderstand me. I do not ask that my townsfolk share my personal values, only that we all do our part to uphold those we have in common. To that end, I urge everyone to make the extra effort to maintain and improve your residential and business property. And feel free to go a little beyond your property if necessary. Become part of the solution rather than the problem. I know it isn’t easy, but nothing worth doing is.