Public Interpretation of Local History

If Guilford develops tougher policies on automobile-oriented land use, demands new projects of higher design quality to preserve its historic scale and character, and works for greater diversity, citizens also need to consider whether or not there is sufficient interpretation of history in public places. Ordinary citizens and visitors have more access to the Green, the Harbor, and the public beaches than to the interiors of many privately owned historic houses. There are four house museums, including the Whitfield House, the Hyland House, the Griswold House, and the Dudley Farm. Guides to the Westwoods Trails or the architecture around the Green are available for purchase in the local bookstore. Hikes through preserved open space areas are led by the GLCT. A few free leaflets are found in the Community Center, Library, and Town Hall. Citizens may find the buildings and trails quite easily, but not fully understand them. A stranger coming to town would not find it obvious where to go or why. If Guilford citizens want the town to be considered a regional or a national treasure more coordinated efforts are needed to make public interpretation accessible.

As ever, resources are scarce and priorities must be selected. Every person in town, young and old, needs to be able to define loved places, define appropriate growth, justify aesthetic decisions, articulate environmental ethics. All have to be involved in prioritizing town needs for preservation, maintenance, and public interpretation. Ultimately, the historic character of towns like Guilford must be understood, represented, and defended in ways that stimulate larger, democratic processes of engaged citizenship, or the historic scale and pedestrian areas of Guilford, and similar older suburbs and small towns, will disappear.

So, can this town be saved? In spring 2000, a revised town plan is under discussion. A committee has been formed to study the problems of Route 1, and consultants are working on zoning review and design guidelines. Two new preservation groups have been formed recently, Protect Our Guilford, and Guilford Vision Project, while older organizations like GPA and GLCT have greatly increased their level of town activity. An Independent party has formed around an anti-sprawl platform. A hundred people turn out for Planning and Zoning meetings that used to attract little participation. This aerial photography and cultural landscape history website is another tool, designed by Barbara Rockenbach, and hosted by Yale University's Art and Architecture Library, to bring photos and research to the public.

It is too soon to say what Guilford's future may hold. In 1935, the architect Le Corbusier wrote, "The airplane indicts."(17) He claimed that anyone flying over old French towns would see the need to tear down and rebuild to his modernist designs. We suggest the opposite. Aerial photography with a hand-held camera heightens awareness of unique cultural landscapes by documenting land use in an accessible way. Because of the Web, these images are available. They can help architecture buffs and environmentalists, citizens and specialists, visualize common ground.

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