Last Thursday I made my first baby steps back into the arena. I read that the Bethlehem Historic Preservation Task Force was going to be giving a presentation about the status of historic preservation here in my fair city. Since I live in ground zero of Bethlehem's historic preservation efforts, I thought I would attend.
I was glad I did. First off three of my Twitter pals attended, it is always nice to be in the company of such brilliance, grace and charm and secondly I learned a great deal. I was actually expecting a presentation and instead I participated in small group discussions about about what direction the city's historic preservation efforts should be going.
Our table was nice mix of people, one person was second generation Hispanic whose family are small business and property owners, one person rides a bike to work as often as he can and has a background in architecture, two are or will be affiliated with Lehigh (not that they are / were defined by that), one person grandparents were part of the initial wave of Eastern Europeans who made Bethlehem Steel work and then there was me, lucky to have lived in the city's finest neighborhood for more than half his life and someone who fancies himself an historian.
In the end most of the attendees were in basic agreement as to what path the city should follow.
Details of our discussions can be found on the website http://www.preservebethlehem.com/.
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Hillary Kwiatek has some great perspective on the evening and more over at Lehigh Valley Independent, click the link below.
http://www.lehighvalleyindependent.com/2010/04/oh-irony.html
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