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         8               CULTURAL HERITAGE TOURISM CONFERENCE

         9                       HISTORIC PRESERVATION

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              HISTORIC PRESERVATION -- SEPTEMBER 14, 2007

         1

         2                   MR. LARSON:  I want to say good morning to

         3    all the distinguished panelists, distinguished guests, and

         4    the attendees who have come out today in support and

         5    interest for this very unique and specific topic to our U.S.

         6    Virgin Islands.

         7                   It is a distinct pleasure to be in attendance

         8    at this We the People Cultural Tourism Conference organized

         9    by the Virgin Islands Humanities Council.  I am especially

        10    thrilled for the opportunity to moderate this important

        11    topic of Historic Preservation.

        12                   As we all should know, the U.S. Virgin

        13    Islands is fortunate to have retained the vestiges of its

        14    historic past, clearly visible in the historic towns of

        15    Charlotte Amalie, established in 1666; Cruz Bay, founded in

        16    1719; Christiansted, 1733; and Frederiksted, circa 1751.

        17                   All of our islands have historical monuments,

        18    structures, and symbols that speak to the cultural past of

        19    these former Danish West Indies.  Primarily colonized by the

        20    country of Denmark, the Virgin Islands African population

        21    brought here during slavery left an indelible mark on our

        22    physical surroundings by providing us with some of the most

        23    exquisite masonry rubble structures and highly refined

        24    master carpentry.

        25                   Today, as you walk through our towns, their

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              HISTORIC PRESERVATION -- SEPTEMBER 14, 2007

         1    hand can be seen in the neoclassical architecture brought

         2    here by the Danes and executed by African craftsmen.  An

         3    even better example is our world-renowned and highly coveted

         4    antique Danish West Indian empire mahogany furniture which

         5    also depicts this unique Afro-Danish fusion.

         6                   This leads me to ask these questions as food

         7    for thought:  Why should we care about our past, our towns,

         8    and the built environment created by these historic

         9    structures?  How does preservation of these structures

        10    reflect our understanding of our history, and what does it

        11    convey to our citizens and visitors to our territory?  How

        12    can we improve our preservation efforts, and consequently

        13    improve our tourism product, and increase the number of

        14    visitors to our shores?

        15                   Historic preservation issues are addressed

        16    daily in my profession as an architect.  As a member of the

        17    St. Croix Historic Preservation Commission, and as the V.I.

        18    adviser to the National Trust for Historic Preservation, I

        19    witness the daily challenges of the preservation effort.  In

        20    my opinion, the greatest challenge for preservation in this

        21    territory is the restoration and the revitalization of the

        22    dilapidated historic buildings in our towns.  Too many

        23    wonderful wood vernacular row houses, which are jewels of

        24    our past and our craftsmanship heritage, are neglected and

        25    are rotting away.  Too many valuable historic buildings are

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              HISTORIC PRESERVATION -- SEPTEMBER 14, 2007

         1    viewed as liabilities rather than assets.

         2                   I challenge the V.I. community to forge ahead

         3    and invest in these historic properties, and to follow our

         4    federal and local historic preservation guidelines when

         5    doing so.  I also challenge our people with historic

         6    buildings to restore rather than renovate these structures,

         7    to ensure authenticity.  This respects our rich craftsmen's

         8    past by honoring all our ancestors who labored and

         9    fabricated these stunning properties.

        10                   Realistically, in order to achieve

        11    revitalization and restore historic properties, there must

        12    be funding sources beyond personal financing.  On the local

        13    level, we have the Economic Development Authority's

        14    Enterprise Zone Revenue Enhancement Act, and the

        15    Christiansted and Frederiksted Revitalization Act, which

        16    provide individuals with local tax incentives.

        17                   On the federal level, we have the Federal

        18    Rehabilitation Tax Credit, Transportation Enhancement

        19    Funding, the Trust's National Preservation Endowment, and

        20    the National Trust Loan Funds, which are also available to

        21    owners of historic properties.

        22                   Finally, there are local and foreign

        23    partnerships, specifically between the Virgin Islands and

        24    Denmark, to foster the preservation effort through the

        25    Virgin Islands Danish Apprenticeship Program, VIDA, and

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              HISTORIC PRESERVATION -- SEPTEMBER 14, 2007

         1    potential investment from Danish foundations.  We must begin

         2    to use all these tools as catalysts to revitalize our

         3    historic properties.

         4                   I will now present and let the panelists

         5    speak.  I would like to tackle the questions raised, and

         6    also reiterate this workshop focus on historic preservation,

         7    and the present state of our cultural heritage and natural

         8    resources, and what initiatives need to be implemented to

         9    improve our cultural tourism product.

        10                   I request that this discussion maintains a

        11    focus on this concept of authenticity as it relates to all

        12    our preservation efforts.  Thank you.

        13                   What I would like to do is to have the first

        14    panelist, Mr. Felipe Ayala, basically address the audience.

        15                   MR. AYALA:  Good morning, everyone.

        16                   In preparation for this speech today, I've

        17    been wrestling with this for the past two months.  As

        18    chairman of the St. Thomas Committee of the Historic

        19    Preservation Commission, I went back into the district to

        20    find my inspiration for today.  I ask myself constantly, Why

        21    do I do this?  I gave my entire youth, at thirty-seven, over

        22    twenty years, to historic preservation.  I was Edith Woods'

        23    apprentice, and I tagged along with her trying to understand

        24    why I should save this.

        25                   And walking through our streets in Savan, I

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              HISTORIC PRESERVATION -- SEPTEMBER 14, 2007

         1    realized why I save this, and why I fight for this, and why

         2    I ask everyone to join me in this fight.  It's because it

         3    honors our past.  I mean, without it, we have no future.

         4                   I looked at the three hills of Charlotte

         5    Amalie, our town.  I'll speak based on my experience on

         6    St. Thomas, but the things that are pertinent issues to the

         7    Virgin Islands as a whole.  My drive through, from the

         8    airport to the Carambola resort today, it was sort of

         9    romantic.  Terry took us through the scenic route, and the

        10    road less traveled.  I drove through scenic corridors,

        11    passing windmill structures and all these other things that

        12    St. Thomas does not have, and I realized the unique aspect

        13    of heritage tourism.  Each island offers something really

        14    special.  It's not just the St. Thomas experience or the

        15    St. Croix experience or St. John.  When you come here, what

        16    you see in St. Thomas is totally different from what you'll

        17    see over here, versus what you see in St. John.  But the

        18    experience is a unique one as a whole.

        19                   Listening to Ms. Drew, I realized we don't

        20    really don't market our islands the best way we should.  In

        21    going back to our district, I think people live and work in

        22    the downtown area, but they don't really see the district.

        23    And they don't understand why a few of us -- and when they

        24    look and talk about preservationists, the names are the

        25    same.  It's Myron, it's Felipe, the Lady Lethwoods.  It's

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         1    their personal agenda, it's not something that's beneficial

         2    to all.

         3                   The city of Charlotte Amalie, built on three

         4    hills divided by two gutters and then divided again into

         5    quarters, is very unique for the Caribbean.  It should be

         6    marketed as an 18th Century seaport, not just a tourist

         7    destination, streets filled with jewelry stores and

         8    T-shirts.  It should be about an experience.

         9                   And looking at that experience, as I was

        10    flying out of our harbor today, I looked back and I realized

        11    that one of the identities of Charlotte Amalie is being lost

        12    steadily:  It's our red roofs.  You can close your eyes and

        13    picture anywhere in the world, and if we saw red roofs and

        14    white buildings built on three hills, you always knew you

        15    were in the harbor of Charlotte Amalie.  It's unique to us.

        16                   If you went to Curacao, the color schemes

        17    there would welcome you, and you'd know you were there.  The

        18    same with El Morro, it stands in the harbor of Old San Juan.

        19    These are things that we really need to look at.

        20                   I think the challenge is on all of us.  We

        21    really need to talk to our friends.  I think as a

        22    preservationist, in sitting on this commission on the

        23    Governor's Task Force, we don't have the ability to tell our

        24    friends no, and still be their friends; which is, I realize,

        25    a very difficult choice.

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         1                   I think what happens when you sit in the seat

         2    and you have regulatory powers, and you tell somebody that

         3    this is not the best use of their property, and I stress

         4    their, that they don't understand what you're saying.  They

         5    look at the financial gains, but they don't look at the

         6    financial gains or costs in the long term.

         7                   Preservation is expensive, I'm not going to

         8    fool you about that.  The desire to save a building has to

         9    come from within.  It honors the past.  You're just a

        10    custodian of this for a short space of time.  You're going

        11    to pass it on to someone, anyway.  So you need to at least

        12    hand it down as it has been handed down since the 1600s, in

        13    a tradition that honors that past, and welcomes other people

        14    to share in its future.

        15                   I look to the problem areas in terms of

        16    revitalizing the historic districts, not just St. Thomas,

        17    but a lot of it is education  and lack of enforcement.  Once

        18    again, we really don't understand why we're trying to save

        19    these buildings.  I think people see it, and they have a

        20    little romantic feel for the building, but they don't

        21    realize that there are tax abatement programs and other

        22    things that can benefit from this work, which brings more

        23    people to our island just to see this work, and then

        24    everybody wins in terms of the general fund.

        25                   I was pleasantly surprised two weeks ago when

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         1    I went to Frederiksted.  I attended a wedding, and the

         2    wedding was held in the park.  On St. Thomas, that's a new

         3    concept, to have a wedding in a public space like that.  But

         4    how wonderful it was to walk down the streets of

         5    Frederiksted leading up to this park.  I felt that the whole

         6    aisle for the church was the entire new harbor front

         7    boardwalk area.  It had a lot of landscape, royal palms,

         8    green spaces of grass, charming vendors plaza, a storybook

         9    fort.  All the elements that made this wedding really,

        10    really unique.  And I thought about how special it was for

        11    everyone in this community to be able say that they have

        12    public spaces like that.  Green spaces, and the balance

        13    between architecture and new construction, and the natural

        14    aesthetics are what we wrestle with as a community.  These

        15    are things that we really, truly have to look at more

        16    closely.

        17                   Infrastructure needs, access to our historic

        18    towns, access out.  On St. Croix, this is really not a

        19    problem as it is on St. Thomas.  I took a road to Carambola

        20    I've never been on before, and saw things in that journey.

        21    In St. Thomas, our access in and out of the district, we

        22    have to be careful with.  We have to deal with waterfront

        23    issues, bottlenecks in terms of transportation.  All of

        24    these things affect the revitalization of our historic

        25    towns.  What happens is it forces people to miss an

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         1    opportunity because they're so fed up that they don't come

         2    to our towns.

         3                   We have a new attraction, a restoration

         4    project on Government Hill.  The Hotel 1829 created a series

         5    of museum buildings sponsored by the local St. Thomas

         6    Historical Trust.  We worked on restoring one building in

         7    which they thought should be converted into a

         8    fine dining experience, and one of our past presidents

         9    convinced the owners that, You know, this is an opportunity

        10    to do what St. Croix did with Whim and create a small house

        11    museum.  In six years it has grown into a major tourism

        12    attraction.  I was director of the property for three years,

        13    and I realized that people always said, at the end of the

        14    tour, which ends downtown on our main street, that they saw

        15    a different side of St. Thomas; that they didn't realize

        16    that we had all of this.  And this is just about a

        17    ten-minute walk uphill from one of the busiest shopping

        18    meccas, a former busy shopping mecca, because we're losing

        19    some of our town.  It's shrinking.

        20                   We realize the tourists want this experience,

        21    and locals want this experience, as well.  They drive

        22    through the neighborhood.  We start at the top of the hill

        23    where we have our storybook fort, Skysborg Tower.  We snake

        24    down through scenic paths with green trees, wonderful lawn

        25    areas, sculptures, fountains; all the things that you would

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         1    want in your town.  So by the time you get to the busy main

         2    street area, you're desensitized to the hawking of taxi drivers saying

         3    back to the ship, wrestling for jewelry.  We always tease

         4    and say, These are the same drivers that dropped you off and

         5    you haven't even made it a block down the street, and

         6    they're ready to take you back to the ship.  And we realize

         7    our taxis are really the first line of introduction to our

         8    historic towns, so they have to start the scene and set the

         9    tone for what's going to happen in our visitor experience.

        10                   We looked at all of this, and realized that

        11    our product is really, really good.  We sold it onboard

        12    cruise ships, but more importantly, we had to sell it to

        13    ourselves.  I feel that your house has to be in order for

        14    you before you can invite other people to it.  In doing so,

        15    I came up with three points in terms of how I would prefer

        16    that our government spend its public monies, the task force

        17    develop a new image for our historic towns.

        18                   I looked at a concept called Green Charlotte

        19    Amalie.  Basically it would just address public spaces

        20    within our historic districts, looking at just what we have,

        21    what we can improve on, and new areas we can develop.

        22                   St. Thomas is fortunate; as St. Croix has a

        23    national park in the middle of its harbor, we have Hassel

        24    Island.  Once again, the St. Thomas Historical Trust has

        25    made an initiative with the Park System to be a catalyst for

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         1    change on that island.  Now, how many other towns do you

         2    know that can boast a national park in its natural pristine

         3    harbor?  And we're fortunate to have them.  I don't look at

         4    the things St. Thomas has, versus St. Croix.  All of us have

         5    this natural harbor.  We're residents of the all same three

         6    islands.

         7                   We move from there, and we look at civic

         8    Charlotte Amalie; public properties owned by the government.

         9    The fort, the legislature building, the connects between

        10    these two properties; Government Hill, and other buildings

        11    surrounding the historic district.

        12                   Then we look at residential Charlotte Amalie,

        13    basically where people live and react.  The stories are

        14    really there.  What happens in downtown Charlotte Amalie is

        15    most people move out of the main street.  They move out of

        16    the back street, Wimmelskafts Gade, and the whole scene

        17    downtown.  We don't encourage people to look at our historic

        18    districts as vital, very chic, posh enclaves.  We look at

        19    it as a place filled with crime, vagrants and other issues

        20    like that.  We don't make it accessible to live there.  We

        21    think about the parking issues, and one of the requirements

        22    for living downtown for some people is the ability to come

        23    home at any time during the day and park.  We need to think

        24    about residential parking within our historic districts and

        25    things like that to encourage people to move back in to

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         1    them.  No one today can build a finer house than some of

         2    these old properties.  The things that they offer, the

         3    wooden floors, the high ceilings, the Danes and the English

         4    solved a lot of our living problems.  The houses are

         5    absolutely wonderful.

         6                   But we have to be sensitive to what they

         7    offer, as well.  In residential Charlotte Amalie, we take a

         8    look at that, connecting neighborhoods together.  People

         9    that lived on Long Path, Garden Street, Savan, are no

        10    different from the streets over here in Watergut and those

        11    areas.  They have a value and a connection to those

        12    neighborhoods that they don't want to leave, necessarily,

        13    but we don't make it conducive for them to live in those

        14    areas anymore.

        15                   We're fortunate to have, on these islands,

        16    the Enterprise Zones, which are encouraging growth in those

        17    areas.  My favorite preservation tool is a book called

        18    Jamaica's Heritage:  An Untapped Resource.  It took the

        19    towns of Falmouth and Portsmouth in Jamaica, which were

        20    small towns in our neighborhoods similar to Savan.  They

        21    looked at small cottage buildings, and they implement new

        22    designs for them, without changing their original fabric or

        23    structure.

        24                   We're quick to always build a large building,

        25    or tear down an old one to make way for it, but we never

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         1    stop to think that the restoration cost for a two-room

         2    building or a small vernacular cottage is significantly less

         3    than what it would take to knock it down and build this

         4    modern structure.

         5                   Our banking system has to be, also, and

         6    insurance industries, brought to task on this.  They don't

         7    provide the loans or insurance coverage for these smaller

         8    buildings.  These are the things that adversely affect

         9    preservation movements.

        10                   One of the things this book did was it looked

        11    at these small towns, and the architecture within it, and

        12    introduced new businesses into this area.  There's a dry

        13    cleaner, a coffee shop, a nail salon, a lawyer's office; all

        14    of these things that a community needs for its

        15    revitalization.  It's not just, like in St. Thomas, our

        16    business district has given way to a jewelry box that closes

        17    at five o'clock.  Nobody goes downtown.  The only things

        18    that are really happening to revitalize our historic

        19    district are bars, and do we really want that scene, and all

        20    the things, the problems it brings?  Enforcement would take

        21    care of a lot of these things.

        22                   Gerville, I can chat forever.  Is it time for

        23    me?  With me, you have to control.  I tease you and tell you

        24    at my Rotary speech, which was fifteen minutes, I spoke for

        25    two hours, and I saw George Blackhall doing all these funny

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         1    things, and I couldn't understand.  I thought he was having

         2    a seizure.

         3                   But there are hard decisions to make, and the

         4    thing with preservation, always enforcement.

         5                   I looked at the presentation today, and I

         6    realized that kids were the future of all of this.  We have

         7    to take our message into our schools.  It's funny, when I

         8    was in high school, Myron came to our classroom,

         9    Mrs. Torres, and sold the idea of historic preservation.  I

        10    was fascinated.  I had no clue about a lot of the things

        11    that he did with -- he's looking at me.  This is high

        12    school.  I'm giving his age away -- but you think about

        13    things like that.  I worked with Stennett Dariah on Spray

        14    Paint/Rejuvenate.  It's been the most rewarding experience

        15    I've had in my entire tenure of being a preservationist,

        16    because I actually saw a visible change.  I ask everyone to

        17    always lobby your senator, the governor, about this program,

        18    because it works.  Stennett, I used to call her, she would

        19    always advise me, tell me I get too personal with the

        20    applicants.  I say, "But, Stennett, you're drawn into their

        21    world and what causes the issues concerning the

        22    preservation."  And she would always advise me and encourage

        23    me to move forward.

        24                   Then she came to St. Thomas and she saw the

        25    challenges we were faced with.  I think at times people hear

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         1    about the shopping districts in St. Thomas, and the streets

         2    are paved with gold, and we don't have derelict

         3    neighborhoods.  But when you look at the whole, when you

         4    look at the bigger picture, these are the same issues that

         5    any town facing revitalization issues need to address.

         6                   I got my time signal.  I'll address any

         7    questions at the end.

         8                   Thank you so much for your time.

         9                   MR. LARSON:  Thank you very much, Felipe.

        10                   Now we have Dean Reeder of the National Park

        11    Service.

        12                   MR. REEDER:  Thank you, Felipe, for that

        13    great setup, and for an opportunity to provide a little

        14    contrast, because, being based in Washington, with regrets,

        15    somewhat, I'll probably bring a national perspective to this

        16    discussion; one, though, that we can draw from and hone from

        17    for our current experience in the Virgin Islands.

        18                   The National Park Service, just for

        19    introduction and context, is likely the largest in a nation

        20    of organizations that curate and interpret and provide

        21    stewardship for cultural historic places.

        22                   That doesn't mean that bigger is better, but

        23    it does give us a place at the table for this discussion.

        24    We appreciate being able to be here, and be involved in this

        25    conference.  And it gives us an opportunity to bring some

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         1    experience and some empathy, a tremendous amount, I'm going

         2    to submit; and also, most importantly, a recognized brand;

         3    and, even more importantly, authenticity.

         4                   I've just bent the topic just enough to fit

         5    the area of experience that I bring to this topic by calling

         6    it, The current situation in historic preservation:

         7    Reviewing the cultural heritage product in a market context.

         8    And I want to emphasize the market context, for reasons, I

         9    think, will be evident in a few moments.

        10                   My presentation premise is that the market

        11    should have a seat at the table.  Market considerations

        12    should not get extra weight in cultural heritage and

        13    resource conservation decisions.  Okay?  The market is not

        14    the big dog.  But it needs to make a contribution, it wants

        15    to make a contribution, it can make a contribution, and even

        16    though many of us feel like it's the devil, and at the

        17    extremes it's really what we worry about, and I understand

        18    and share that concern.  But there's also an opportunity to

        19    contribute to conservation in having the market available at

        20    the table.  It should be part of the discussion; it should

        21    get a vote.

        22                   With it comes a connection to partnership

        23    capacity -- and that's going to be a core theme I'm going to

        24    say over and over, and I'm going to say it in every

        25    presentation that I do -- partnership capacity and

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         1    resources.  That's some of what we can get by having the

         2    market at the table.  And also measurement metrics:  Market

         3    equals relevance.

         4                   Now, one way to bring market consideration to

         5    the table is through a marketing plan process, and that's a

         6    topic for another workshop here, so I won't go into it,

         7    other than by my interpretation is, we're going to consider

         8    today, and I'm presenting today, on one element of a market

         9    planning process, which is situation analysis.  What is our

        10    situation here today with historic preservation in a market

        11    context?

        12                   Other elements, situation, site situation

        13    analysis, we'll look at competitive analysis, SWOT analysis,

        14    identification and confirmation of our common goals and

        15    objectives, segmentation analysis to define and prioritize

        16    our targets.  And, again, that's sort of an overriding

        17    question, and it's going to be a rhetorical question, but

        18    I'd like to have it be in our minds throughout this

        19    conference.  If this market is so great, if there are so

        20    many people, as Dawn has told us, and I'm going to tell you

        21    also, interested in culture and historic stories, how do we

        22    target them?  Are they targetable?  That's my rhetorical

        23    question, and of course, outcome measurements.

        24                   Now, put simply, tourism marketing is telling

        25    interesting stories about a day in the life.  That's a

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              HISTORIC PRESERVATION -- SEPTEMBER 14, 2007

         1    short, pithy statement.  You're going to say, Well, yeah,

         2    okay.  So what?  I mean, of course that's true.  But,

         3    actually, there's a lot that's packed in that.  In the

         4    National Park Service, we know a lot about telling stories.

         5    Our interpretive function is renown, and people from similar

         6    functions from around the world come and spend time with us

         7    to understand how we interpret these stories.  So I think we

         8    are in some position to talk about that.

         9                   But also, a day in the life.  Think about it.

        10    In the parks, for example, even though I said we're a

        11    recognized brand, we have similar challenges to a lot of

        12    folks in this room, in that there are public stereotypes

        13    that frankly aren't really accurate; that we might know how

        14    important a player the Park Service is to this day in the

        15    life, but most people think of us in stereotypical way of,

        16    you know, a handful of parks that everybody can name, they

        17    start with a Y, and they're out west.  But the awareness

        18    gets really, really, thin, when they understand the depth

        19    and the breadth of the stories we tell and the experiences

        20    we offer.

        21                   That brings me back to the need for partners;

        22    the need to leverage our resources; the need for us all to

        23    work together on this common interest that we have in

        24    telling our stories to these people in a market sense, in a

        25    market context.

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         1                   In general, I just want to say I

         2    guess a general statement and a caution about where this

         3    whole razzmatazz that you hear from people like me, and

         4    people like Dawn Drew, about, you know, what a great market

         5    this is.  In general, it's true that cultural and heritage

         6    tourism has been showing significant growth over the past

         7    ten years.  While accurate, though, I think it has been

         8    over-promoted, though, by enthusiastic, well-meaning,

         9    tourism marketers, people like me, to the extent that I

        10    think that we've done maybe a poor job of setting

        11    expectations higher than we can deliver, and having delivery

        12    times be shorter than I think it's going to take.  So I just

        13    want to throw that out as a cautionary comment.

        14                   The good news is that new market entry will

        15    be welcomed by a more balanced, realistic set of

        16    expectations; what I call the marketing equipment of patient

        17    capital.  You know what patient capital is?  In Wall Street

        18    they talk about quarterly reports and what kind of net

        19    income can we show, what profit can we show, in ninety days,

        20    for heaven's sake.  Patient capital looks at the long-term,

        21    and sees a long-term return.  I don't have to talk about

        22    patient capital with folks on this panel that know about

        23    buildings, and preservation of those buildings.  But that's

        24    what it requires, in my opinion, in a marketing sense, as

        25    well.

                                                                    21

              HISTORIC PRESERVATION -- SEPTEMBER 14, 2007

         1                   Now, like everybody, I've got a study, and

         2    I'm just going to go over it very quickly, but I want you to

         3    be aware that there is some backup from what I'm proposing

         4    and what I'm saying, and it's the same source, a different

         5    look, but the same source that Ms. Drew spoke about; that

         6    is, TIA, Travel Industry Association of America, did a

         7    national park travelers study in 2005, and I think the

         8    information is still relevant.  And I'm only going to pick

         9    out what I think the most relevant pieces.  I've got copies

        10    of this abstract if you all want to see these, and, of

        11    course, as she said, TIA.org is where you can go and get the

        12    study, or send me an e-mail, and I'll provide it for you.

        13                   A lot of this is just confirming what you've

        14    heard, and what you already know, but I think it's relevant.

        15    The life stage profile of the national park leisure

        16    traveler -- oh, by the way, I guess I need to have you

        17    understand that, from a panel of 550 households of

        18    Americans, 225,000 -- this is a monthly panel that is always

        19    asked question, and that panel are all travelers.  So

        20    250,000 households were selected as what they determined to

        21    be national park travelers.  So among that panel, among

        22    national park travelers, the life stage profile of the

        23    national park leisure traveler market reflects the market

        24    dominance of Baby Boomers.  Okay.   A no brainer.

        25                   There are two things there, though.  One, the

                                                                    22

              HISTORIC PRESERVATION -- SEPTEMBER 14, 2007

         1    good news is that these are the spenders and stayers, and

         2    it's a good market for all of us.  The caution we feel, in

         3    the National Park Service, is that we're very concerned

         4    about being relevant to the next generation, because we are

         5    also, you know, like patient capital, we're entrusted by the

         6    Congress to ensure the long-term stability and stewardship

         7    for future generations.  So we're concerned about those

         8    future generations, and we're not seeing as many of them as

         9    we'd like to see in our national parks.  So it's a good

        10    news/bad news thing.

        11                   Continuing, just to tick off these bullets,

        12    Households taking national park leisure trips are well

        13    educated.  Fifty-five percent of them are headed by someone

        14    with a college degree or more.  A third of them are

        15    households of annual household incomes of $80,000 or more a

        16    year.  The majority of national park leisure trips are taken

        17    by households, this is sixty-seven percent, that live in

        18    major metropolitan areas.

        19                   National park traveling households are

        20    technologically savvy.  Eighty-five percent own a personal

        21    computer.  Compared to U.S. leisure travelers as a whole,

        22    national park travelers are much more likely to name

        23    visiting historical places and museums as preferred

        24    additional trip activities.  That's thirty-eight percent to

        25    fifteen percent.  So all leisure travelers in America, say,

                                                                    23

              HISTORIC PRESERVATION -- SEPTEMBER 14, 2007

         1    fifteen percent say, Well, yeah, I'd like to see historic

         2    places and museums as an additional activity.  In the

         3    national park group, it's thirty-eight percent.  That's the

         4    good news.

         5                   The cautionary news is that we're talking

         6    about additional trip activities; we're not talking about

         7    the central core reason for the trip.  Again, that's only

         8    with our big Y parks out west.  We are still scrambling with

         9    partners to be relevant to this market.  And our scramble is

        10    in challenges of awareness.

        11                   National park travelers who arrive by

        12    plane -- I pulled this one out because I thought it was

        13    significant for an island population -- by plane are far

        14    more likely to prefer visiting historic places than those

        15    who travel by automobile.  Fifty-two percent to

        16    thirty-five percent.  Again, a no brainer.  Maybe.

        17                   Then I don't know if you're aware with

        18    indexing, I just pulled the index of the national leisure

        19    travel sample is 100. when you look at anything above 100,

        20    that's a good thing.  So what do they do, what do they look

        21    for -- and, again, this is for the core reason for the

        22    trip -- beaches, 167.  Okay.  It's a good index.  But

        23    compared to that, national park leisure trips, 192.  So

        24    we're beating beaches.  Hey.  But here's the kicker:

        25    Historical places and museums, 253.  As an index, that's a

                                                                    24

              HISTORIC PRESERVATION -- SEPTEMBER 14, 2007

         1    whopper.  That really is.  Again, the question, is it

         2    targetable?

         3                   So again, just in summary, to tick off, I

         4    think, some other interesting trends and related

         5    considerations, you've heard a lot of it already, you will

         6    hear more:  Voluntourism, I wrote this down word for word

         7    from Dawn Drew's remarks this morning:  They want to be put

         8    to work.  Voluntourism is real, and in the National Park

         9    Service, we're starting to get very interested in that

        10    topic.  Culinary tourism events, in general, have not lost

        11    their pulling power.  Cultural sites, hosting wedding

        12    parties, affinity group outings and reunions, and

        13    geotourism, which I don't need to spend any more time on,

        14    because you've already heard the subject.

        15                   In the abstract, which I think will be

        16    published, and I brought copies, I've got four internet

        17    citations for really good resources for more information and

        18    for assistance:

        19    Http://www.nationalgeographic.com/travel/sustainable/

        20    about_geotourism.html

        21    http://www.nps.gov/history/heritageareas/

        22    http://www.nps.gov/history/places.html

        23    http://www.nps.gov/csi/

        24                   And so, with that, I'll conclude.

        25                   MR. LARSON:  Thank you very much, Mr. Reeder.

                                                                    25

              HISTORIC PRESERVATION -- SEPTEMBER 14, 2007

         1                   We'll follow right into William Taylor, who's

         2    a historic preservation architect.

         3                   And Bill?

         4                   MR. TAYLOR:  Thank you, and good morning.

         5    It's a pleasure to be here, and to see this great

         6    attendance.

         7                   I'm going to follow the format suggested,

         8    since I believe in rules:  The present state of affairs.

         9                   Present preservation picture has gotten

        10    brighter, but not nearly bright enough in the brighter

        11    sense.  In the decades that I've been here, there's been a

        12    shift in local public acceptance in the value and symbolism

        13    of historic preservation.  That's not to say there wasn't an

        14    unspoken appreciation of the town's historic structure, but

        15    some buildings were thought to be more important than

        16    others; for example, churches, Government House, the Durant

        17    Castle and forts.  New buildings, more often than not,

        18    didn't reflect the architecture of the past, or in some

        19    cases doing so poorly, like the Christiansted library.

        20                   In fact, all historic structures are

        21    important, even the modest cottage.  And if I combine the

        22    subject, cultural heritage and natural resources, into

        23    cultural resources, even the ruins are resources; as much as

        24    climate and the sea, worthy of support, explication and

        25    restoration.

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              HISTORIC PRESERVATION -- SEPTEMBER 14, 2007

         1                   The Virgin Islands Government’s  tourism

         2    promotion for St. Croix highlights its historic resources,

         3    as it should, to distinguish us from other locales, and to

         4    ensure a healthy economic tourism contribution.  Other

         5    islands, like Barbados, Jamaica and Puerto Rico, have long

         6    ago dealt with the painful Colonial past that produced their

         7    landmarks and townscapes, and fully embraced these resources

         8    as a vital part of their present.

         9                   Historic preservation is a cultural legacy,

        10    and source of local pride.  The earliest investors in

        11    historic preservation were the municipal governments for

        12    maintenance, and the federal government, with the Navy at

        13    first at Government House, and the National Park Service at

        14    the Christiansted National Historic Site, and ultimately,

        15    Government House.

        16                   On St. Croix, public acceptance for historic

        17    preservation has grown and is even pushing for more, as

        18    witnessed by the OTF banquet a few months ago in

        19    Frederiksted.  Private investors in the St. Croix Landmark

        20    Society have been enormously helpful in raising awareness

        21    and restoring key buildings.  Private ownership took the

        22    restoration lead in the eighties and nineties, but the owner

        23    of the largest number of historic structures, by far, is the

        24    Virgin Islands Government.  They have begun to step up their

        25    principal role.  Since I can see all historic artifacts as

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              HISTORIC PRESERVATION -- SEPTEMBER 14, 2007

         1    cultural resources, these government-owned resources should

         2    be stabilized and restored, regardless of immediate use.

         3    This way they can be mothballed without loss for future

         4    generations.  There is a story for each, and a contribution

         5    while they still exist.

         6                   The Danish School in Frederiksted was

         7    declared a ruin by the Danish team of Thorkel Dahl and de

         8    Fine Litch, untouched since its destruction by Hurricane

         9    Hugo, but with the support of Governor Turnbull and Governor

        10    deJongh and the Public Finance Authority, I'm happy to say

        11    it's nearing a successful November completion, in time for

        12    the Christmas holidays.

        13                   But its value isn't merely as an

        14    architectural jewel.  Perhaps a dozen Crucians, including

        15    two members of the Historic Preservation Commission, have

        16    told me of their school day memories there.  And on a

        17    national level, these Von Scholten schools were the first to

        18    provide free and compulsory education for the children of

        19    the enslaved in the New World.

        20                   The Historic Preservation Commission Plaque

        21    Program has been very successful in not only identifying

        22    historic structures, but linking them with the local

        23    notables and events.  The federally-funded,

        24    locally-administered Christiansted Bypass will be of

        25    enormous benefit to the growth of Christiansted, and its

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              HISTORIC PRESERVATION -- SEPTEMBER 14, 2007

         1    preservation.  It opens up the southern side to new,

         2    sustainable, hopefully, growth, is part of the town's

         3    improved drainage, and will eliminate the shock of huge

         4    trucks and equipment rumbling through town and shaking the

         5    foundations.

         6                   It is worth noting that this effect was

         7    simply achieved -- that is, the closing down of huge trucks

         8    through town -- was simply achieved during the construction

         9    of the Sunday Market, by fiat, and a few signs.  Personally,

        10    the signage that was meant to keep these large trucks from

        11    passing through town is only represented by a single sign on

        12    the King Street entrance, and therefore has not been

        13    enforced by the local police department.

        14                   This may seem like a simple matter, but

        15    obviously the local government has the most responsibility,

        16    not just the most buildings.  And in not, at least, issuing

        17    fines and putting up notices, the trucks that are going to

        18    eventually take the Christiansted Bypass now still rumble

        19    through town.  That could be fixed overnight.  Just a month

        20    ago, a very large vehicle came through and knocked down

        21    another one of these light fixtures, and the light fixtures

        22    are about ten thousand dollars.  The truck that hit it was

        23    longer than the twenty-five feet.  That was the official

        24    length.  So there's no reason not to do something that's

        25    already at hand, and they have been in hand for more than a

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              HISTORIC PRESERVATION -- SEPTEMBER 14, 2007

         1    year:  Un-erected signs.

         2                   The Virgin Islands government still lags

         3    behind the federal government in designating the whole town

         4    of Christiansted as an historic control district.  Sunday

         5    Market Square is within the federal, but outside the local

         6    district lines.  It was only by special designation and

         7    potential local register eligibility that DPNR could grant

         8    oversight over this important project.

         9                   It is time all of Christiansted, as all of

        10    Frederiksted already has been for the last decade, time that

        11    it's protected locally.  All of Christiansted qualifies for

        12    both local and federal rehabilitation tax credits of twenty

        13    and twenty-five percent combinable into a single project

        14    that meets local and Secretary of Interior standards, which

        15    I'll talk a little bit about later.

        16                   Structures outside the district on the

        17    national register, and eligible for local registry, are

        18    officially protected, but, in some cases, slide through

        19    permits without meeting either the Virgin Islands Government

        20    guidelines, or Secretary of Interior standards.

        21                   The second part is initiatives.  Many tools

        22    are at hand, but due to manpower gaps, incomplete

        23    registries, inspection neglect, and other pressures to

        24    improve, many landmarks are being neglected and mistreated.

        25    Private ownership should not convey special treatment,

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              HISTORIC PRESERVATION -- SEPTEMBER 14, 2007

         1    since, in some cases, a landmark may be irreversibly damaged

         2    by a current owner, who, over two hundred and fifty years,

         3    may be one of among fifty owners.

         4                   How do these inappropriate changes and

         5    additions affect the integrity of a structure?  Questions of

         6    appropriateness should be resolved with a keen eye to the

         7    past and the future needs, not just the present needs of the

         8    present owner.

         9                   What should be preserved?  Objects of

        10    preservation should not be limited to important structures,

        11    materials and details, but also the sidewalks and paving,

        12    cemeteries, town walls, historic landscapes, streetscapes,

        13    such as Sunday Market Square and the vegetable market.

        14                   These two public open spaces were two of the

        15    three public open spaces that were originally designed by

        16    the Danish government, and it pains me to say that the third

        17    one is the Christiansted wharf, which, unlike the other two

        18    historic landscapes, reflect the ethos and details of the

        19    1830s.  I think, in the case of the Christiansted wharf, and

        20    you've heard this before from me, that the Park Service had

        21    agreed with the Virgin Islands Government, as part of the

        22    condition for the establishment of the national site, that

        23    this open space would be restored to its 1830s appearance;

        24    and, in so doing, it pledged to maintain all the traditional

        25    uses of this public space.  And now, driving down King

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              HISTORIC PRESERVATION -- SEPTEMBER 14, 2007

         1    Street, a visitor or a local is greeted with down swinging

         2    signs with octagonal stop plaques mounted on them, which

         3    doesn't convey, to me, an invitation to use or to even

         4    request use of perhaps the most important open space in

         5    Christiansted.

         6                   Regarding streetscapes, the Virgin Islands

         7    Government needs to restore the town's proper drainage by

         8    lowering the street elevations from Sunday Market Square, to

         9    the Historic Control District.

        10                   The Park Service has agreed to lower the

        11    public streets within the site, in conjunction with the

        12    Virgin Islands government's general street lowering, but

        13    this has never come to pass.  The impeding of street

        14    drainage, just as the rumbling of heavy vehicles, is leading

        15    to first floor, in this case, flooding, and undermining of

        16    the buildings' footings.  In designing the Sunday Market

        17    Square, the street levels were lowered in anticipation of

        18    the general lowering, which I'm sure is an underappreciated

        19    benefit of the work at Sunday Market.  But this effort needs

        20    to continue all the way down to the sea.

        21                   And, you know, there's a middle gap that's

        22    just outside the local control district, where these

        23    buildings, some of them are attorneys' offices, they

        24    routinely flood every time it rains, and the elevation of

        25    the streets there are perhaps two feet higher than they were

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              HISTORIC PRESERVATION -- SEPTEMBER 14, 2007

         1    originally.  Since it shouldn't be the obligation of the

         2    property lower to raise his first floor two feet, the

         3    government has to come back and lower these streets.

         4                   The Sunday Market project also lead the way

         5    in putting all the utilities underground, including data

         6    fiber optics, phone cable, water, electrical, etcetera, a

         7    model for the rest of the towns, that includes Charlotte

         8    Amalie.

         9                   Another area that will soon need to be

        10    addressed is the assembly for, and progression through, the

        11    towns for parades, since the wharf is no longer currently

        12    available.  There is still some space east of the parade

        13    grounds, but the west open space at Bassin Triangle is

        14    privately owned, and could become unavailable overnight.

        15    The parade function for fun, holidays, good causes,

        16    tradition, is very important to the sense of community here.

        17    It's future should be anticipated.

        18                   Although the local State Historic

        19    Preservation Office and Historical Planning Commission are

        20    people with fine and hard-working folks, the staff are often

        21    undermined and overworked.  The grant support and education

        22    seminars were indispensable in imparting resolve and

        23    expertise.  They should be reinstated.  The guidelines are

        24    available and thorough, yet we see pre-engineered steel

        25    buildings, rehabilitation by demolition, and often different

                                                                    33

              HISTORIC PRESERVATION -- SEPTEMBER 14, 2007

         1    standards for government agencies.  The local control

         2    districts require all work, whether private, local

         3    government, or federal government, and that includes DPW,

         4    WAPA, the Coast Guard, National Park Service, the Post

         5    Office, Army recruiting stations, to seek and obtain prior

         6    approval before the permits are issued or work commenced.

         7    This applies to sidewalks, steps, paving roadways, and

         8    utilities.

         9                   And needless to say, I think some of the

        10    changes that have occurred at the national site would not

        11    have been approved by a local control district, since they

        12    don't conform to the historic standards of the 1830s.

        13                   The rules for historic preservation districts

        14    are not meant to serve the occasional needs of visitors,

        15    although this is a vital and future use.  And I'm sure more

        16    will be said by Don Rypkema about the economic benefits of

        17    tourism later, which he knows everything about.

        18                   Hundreds of local communities have found this

        19    beneficial, but the national, and our own registry, is meant

        20    to protect individual structures in historic context, tying

        21    them to events and people.  Within the last decade, a

        22    perfectly sound Company Street house was the only remaining

        23    residence of Alexander Hamilton, and it was torn down with

        24    no fanfare, and replaced with a gated, inaccessible

        25    devotional garden, an unfortunate gap in that streetscape

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              HISTORIC PRESERVATION -- SEPTEMBER 14, 2007

         1    that its nonprofit owner is not likely to correct.

         2                   Hamilton's house, distinct from the building

         3    on King Street across from the Government House, which had

         4    no connection to Hamilton, just a commercial appropriation

         5    of his name -- Hamilton's house could have been a resource

         6    for future generations.

         7                   In New York City, the federal government is

         8    spending about six million dollars to restore and move

         9    Hamilton's grange in Washington Heights.  Hamilton is still

        10    revered there, because he became an archetypal New Yorker;

        11    transplanted, gruff, impatient, self-motivated, and a

        12    genius.  But he was, before that, a Crucian; road donkey,

        13    ate conch, and spoke Crucian.  Think of that.

        14                   We should treat our sons and daughters, our

        15    history, and all our culture, with the care and reference it

        16    deserves.

        17                   Thank you.

        18                   MR. LARSON:  Thank you, Bill, for that very

        19    informative speech.

        20                   Now we have Myron Jackson, who is the

        21    Director of Archeology and Historic Preservation with the

        22    Department of Planning and Natural Resources.  Thank you.

        23                   MR. JACKSON:  Morning, everyone.  It's a real

        24    pleasure to be here, and I'm really encouraged -- I think

        25    all of us are -- from your participation.

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              HISTORIC PRESERVATION -- SEPTEMBER 14, 2007

         1                   I'm going to try to juggle two things here.

         2    One, the images; I'm going to ask your

         3    indulgence, because we're going to have to turn off the

         4    light for the image, and the screen, so you can see those.

         5    If somebody could turn the light switch off, which should be

         6    at the entrance of the doorway here.  Okay.

         7                   I think this morning's session was just

         8    awesome in really giving us focus for cultural heritage

         9    tourism.  For those of you that may not be aware, one of my

        10    colleagues, Mr. Ayala, told you I went to his high school,

        11    so you know how long I been in promoting cultural heritage

        12    preservation, and Edith Woods was my art teacher in high

        13    school that planted the seeds in terms of giving us a

        14    greater appreciation for our own cultural resources.

        15                   The question I would like to ask you, in

        16    addressing what is the present state of affairs of cultural

        17    heritage and natural resources, and what initiatives need to

        18    be implemented to improve our cultural heritage product, is

        19    to ask you several questions.  Is tourism right for your

        20    community, yes or no?  I tell you, raise your hand, yes or

        21    no?  Okay.  Seems like it's the majority.  And what do you

        22    want from tourism?  Okay.

        23                   I would like to focus my presentation this

        24    morning in keeping traditions alive.  Cultural heritage.  A

        25    quote from a preservationist from the -- well, actually a

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              HISTORIC PRESERVATION -- SEPTEMBER 14, 2007

         1    tourism official from the tourism office in Louisiana, I'd

         2    like to quote:  The process appreciates -- and that's

         3    keeping tradition alive -- the process appreciates the past,

         4    but not through a nostalgic lens.  It makes it relevant to

         5    people, places, and life today, by showing living cultures.

         6                   We have sold sun, sand and sea for a long

         7    time, and we are attempting to address cultural heritage

         8    tourism on St. Croix is the greatest of, to me, of the --

         9    well, St. Croix and St. Thomas -- I mean St. John -- are the

        10    two examples, I think, that best represents cultural

        11    heritage tourism.

        12                   The state of affairs of cultural heritage

        13    tourism, or the preservation of our cultural resources, some

        14    would say good, some would say fair, some would say poor.  I

        15    think it's all three.  It depends on what categories that

        16    you're looking at.  I think we have a good tourism product.

        17    I think it's one of the better models, at least we've been

        18    in the lead in the Caribbean, but we're also losing ground

        19    on this, compared to other destinations.  And I think that

        20    was best represented this morning.

        21                   These series of slides, if we could, are from

        22    a series of publications and artists.  And I use art to tell

        23    stories, because I'm an artist, and that's the best way, I

        24    think, in communicating.  Sometimes we may have a subject

        25    matter, but, you know, if we see a picture, it may bring it

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              HISTORIC PRESERVATION -- SEPTEMBER 14, 2007

         1    home.  So I use these images in going into schools to

         2    educate our young people about the importance of their

         3    cultural heritage, and I had two experiences yesterday that

         4    I think best represent this discussion we're having today.

         5                   On the way from the seaplane, we entered into

         6    this zone, which is a sacred and special place.  If you

         7    don't feel that sense when you're entering from the Lawaetz

         8    Farm, that sign that brings you through that corridor, that

         9    Scenic Road that you pass through, when you see people

        10    walking doing their exercise in the afternoon, competing

        11    with the traffic, so obviously we haven't gotten it yet that

        12    we need to cut the grass on the sides so that residents and

        13    visitors who want to traverse, on a daily basis, through

        14    that Scenic Drive, shouldn't be hit by a car.  So I'm still

        15    trying to understand why we don't get that right yet.  And

        16    Mr. Davis, who's now heading the cultural education

        17    division, pointed out something, and that is he felt what I

        18    felt, and verbalized it:  This is a beautiful area.

        19                   The second experience that we had was when

        20    the bus boy was taking luggage to the room.  By the time I

        21    got to the car, Glen had engaged the young man, who's a

        22    graduate, a native Crucian, a native Virgin Islander, four

        23    generations, who just graduated from high school and is

        24    employed here.  Wonderful.  He wants to go -- he's thinking

        25    about going into culinary arts.

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              HISTORIC PRESERVATION -- SEPTEMBER 14, 2007

         1                   And the conversation was, Why are we here?

         2    And we told him, and Glenn had started the conversation, and

         3    he was saying that it's interesting, he was just having this

         4    discussion with his sister about cultural heritage, and what

         5    is the culture of the Virgin Islands, and it's a big

         6    question mark.  So here's a young man in the industry, who's

         7    working at this hotel, that doesn't know as much as he

         8    should know about his cultural heritage.  And I want you to

         9    keep those two thoughts in mind.

        10                   Salt River.  What have we done with it?  It's

        11    the site of the landing of Columbus, but it's also a site of

        12    over two thousand years of native inhabitants on these

        13    islands.  The Department of Planning and Natural Resources

        14    and National Park Service has a corporate agreement -- I

        15    would like to recognize Mr. Tutein this morning, who is our

        16    preservation partner from the federal end -- that has

        17    facilitated, I think, a wonderful opportunity to bring both

        18    federal and local government together with their resources,

        19    to partner with you, the community.  And we have challenges,

        20    like camping for Easter.  Native Crucians want to camp

        21    there, but also, it's on the site of the ballpark.  How do

        22    we manage these cultural resources?

        23                   The other area is, of course, my colleagues

        24    here have addressed:  That's historic preservation.  Our

        25    historic forts, dealing with - I started with the

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              HISTORIC PRESERVATION -- SEPTEMBER 14, 2007

         1    indigenous people – because we don't celebrate that history

         2    enough.  There's no, outside of the -- and I'd also like to

         3    recognize Mr. David Hayes.  That archeological society has

         4    created a small, unique museum, and that's cultural

         5    heritage.  You can go into it.  It's small enough.  But how

         6    much do we support small initiatives like that, that don't

         7    require a whole lot of money?  Where is it in the brochure

         8    when that visitor comes that will visit that site in

         9    Christiansted, and, as well, go to a shop, buy lunch, et

        10    cetera?

        11                   So we have all these beautiful forts,

        12    national historic landmarks, that are important in the

        13    cultural heritage of the place; that visitors would like to

        14    visit, a large percentage, and we've heard those statistics

        15    this morning.

        16                   The interpretation is another area that I

        17    want to talk about.  The National Park Service does a good

        18    job in talking about that.  They have rangers.  Likewise,

        19    the local government needs to step up to the plate.  We

        20    have, on paper, a territorial park system, with no rangers,

        21    with no interpreters, but we have the land.  And we talk

        22    about how do we protect, preserve and disseminate.

        23                   How do you take the Colonial history, package

        24    it?  You got to start with you.  Do you know your history?

        25    This is your history, your community, and I said, we got to

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              HISTORIC PRESERVATION -- SEPTEMBER 14, 2007

         1    start with us, before we talk about sharing it with others.

         2                   So we have the urban landscape, this unique,

         3    each town having its own characteristics; Frederiksted, with

         4    its gingerbread trim, unique to the period of the 1870s,

         5    with special unique streets that give you Old World.

         6    Charlotte Amalie, the oldest of the three towns, with small,

         7    narrow streets, with historic landmarks like the synagogue,

         8    the second oldest in the Western Hemisphere.  We have the

         9    oldest Moravian churches in the Western Hemisphere, the

        10    oldest system of public school system through the Von

        11    Scholten school system.  We have cemeteries that speak to

        12    our history that we don't take care of and protect and

        13    preserve.  In fact, we hardly go and visit our ancestors

        14    anymore.  We don't even want to paint the grave, much less

        15    put the marker on it.  But these tourists, that market that

        16    we're talking about today, would be interested in seeing,

        17    and investing in, putting their dollar.

        18                   So while in Charlotte Amalie, Virgin

        19    Islanders, St. Thomians, with the dignity of carrying on

        20    their traditions, compete with the tourism market, in that

        21    cultural heritage tourism is about the people telling their

        22    stories.  So when you have a dead, and you want to take them

        23    to the Western Cemetery, and you traverse through Main

        24    Street, the tradition was to close the doors, that every

        25    citizen of the place -- it was no different, you could be

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              HISTORIC PRESERVATION -- SEPTEMBER 14, 2007

         1    governor, you could be the street sweeper, you could be the

         2    drunk on the street, you close the door, just for a second,

         3    until the hearse pass.  We still don't get that right,

         4    because the individuals, the people in the industry that

         5    made these islands their home, that's supposed to buy into

         6    the culture and the traditions of the place, and celebrate

         7    them, don't participate.  So we have conflict.

         8                   Our house museums, St. Croix has, I think,

         9    the best examples in the Virgin Islands; the Lawaetz Museum,

        10    it's authentic.  It tells the history.  Mrs. Lawaetz comes,

        11    she tells the history of the family, of the people who

        12    worked, the families and so forth, and it could be expanded.

        13    So many families were affected as a result of the work and

        14    the industry that that represents here on St. Croix.

        15                   You have the Landmark Society, Whim, that

        16    also speaks to that, that is now attempting to address the

        17    African and slave population presence on the site.  Gerville

        18    talked about furniture.  Some of you go to the auction every

        19    year, you buy it, but a lot of this is leaving our

        20    territory.  Why?  You don't have a museum of interior

        21    design.  We don't encourage this in our young people, some

        22    of the craftsman, to use the mahogany in the place -- we

        23    talked about the Virgin Islands Danish Apprenticeship

        24    Program -- in passing those traditions on, so that our young

        25    people will be restoring the buildings.  That's how you make

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              HISTORIC PRESERVATION -- SEPTEMBER 14, 2007

         1    it work.

         2                   Now, festival arts, we do well.  We have some

         3    issues in organization and planning and so forth, but we

         4    have fifty years of experience in this area.  So compared to

         5    other destinations, we should do it well.  You know what

         6    some of those issues are.  So you got the Crucian Christmas

         7    Festival.  We call everything now a carnival.  We don't

         8    recognize that they're unique and different, so everything

         9    is a carnival.  From December till after Easter, all people

        10    do in the Virgin Islands is have carnival.  There's no

        11    Crucian Christmas Festival that celebrates the Three Kings,

        12    the Christmas, tying it in, the traditions and cultures of

        13    the people of St. Croix.

        14                   We go to carnival in St. Thomas, which is

        15    Virgin Islands Carnival, but it just becomes St. Thomas

        16    Carnival.  Then the Fourth of July Celebration that speaks

        17    about emancipation and freedom becomes another carnival.  So

        18    I don't think we get it right yet.

        19                   So, in celebrating these festival arts, our

        20    culinary arts, our young people, do they know, do they know

        21    how to prepare the dishes?  At the hotels on the menu, is

        22    the cuisine of the island on the hotel menu?  At least one

        23    dish every night?  One?  Or do we have Continental

        24    breakfast, and all kinds of Italian this, this.  Tourists

        25    ain't come here for that.  They coming for a unique

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              HISTORIC PRESERVATION -- SEPTEMBER 14, 2007

         1    experience.  Crucians boast about cuisine.  Make sure it get

         2    into the hotels.  Make sure it's part of the experience, and

         3    that we're teaching our young people to do it well.  Not

         4    just to make it, but to do it well.

         5                   The festival arts includes arts and culture,

         6    the music.  That's where the humanities come, so the Council

         7    on the Arts, the Virgin Islands Cultural Heritage Institute,

         8    these are institutions that need to work best in helping you

         9    to promote the product.  And we, Senator Malone would say, I

        10    also like to recognize him with the bill that created a bill

        11    for at least bringing some sense of pride to what is the

        12    identity of the place, through its art.  And that is quelbe

        13    music.  You saw a picture there of the bamboula dancers,

        14    that's all part of the national dance of the place.

        15                   Thousands of visitors come through these

        16    shores to hear our stories, not just to see the buildings.

        17    And the National Park Service does this well at Annaberg, a

        18    19th Century plantation, 19th and 18th Century.  These

        19    people are now deceased by the way, up on this slide.

        20    Ms. Dowdy showing him how to make dumb bread with a coal

        21    pot, with a tin sheet with coal on top.  Survival.  The day

        22    your oven goes down, can you bake a dumb bread?  Tourists

        23    love it, and the children love it as well.

        24                   Lito Valls, Ms. Danette, all deceased,

        25    telling the stories of their life in these islands, living

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              HISTORIC PRESERVATION -- SEPTEMBER 14, 2007

         1    history at the site, and showing the craft and industry of

         2    the place.  Ms. Felicia, also now deceased.  Who have

         3    replaced these storytellers?  Who tells our stories today?

         4                   St. John basket.  Is that industry alive and

         5    well?  Do our children, whether from elementary to twelfth

         6    grade, have any of them been introduced to the art of basket

         7    making through the industrial art?  Can they mathematically

         8    tell you how that basket is made, which requires geometry?

         9    Why isn't that incorporated into the system?

        10                   So, as we tell our stories and seek to

        11    preserve our cultural identity through folk art festivals,

        12    this is the Washington Mall.  We packaged it, took it to the

        13    Washington Mall, over a million people, and took our

        14    tradition bearers that gave the revival and restoration that

        15    Virgin Islands culture is alive and well.

        16                   Another area that we don't consider, the

        17    tourists is interested in history.  They wants to go to the

        18    cemetery looking for their genealogy.  Some ancestor came

        19    here a hundred years ago on a ship, two hundred years ago.

        20    Records, archival records, your libraries, that link you to

        21    whether it be Africa or Europe, and as Virgin Islanders are

        22    restoring their own sense of identity, then we have a better

        23    product.

        24                   So the question is, What kind of tourism do

        25    you want?  I would like to close with these images, because

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              HISTORIC PRESERVATION -- SEPTEMBER 14, 2007

         1    I think they best represent what I'm discussing this

         2    morning, or trying to portray.  And that is -- someone will

         3    have to help me, this is the gentleman that blows the ass

         4    pipe.

         5                   AN AUDIENCE MEMBER:  Mr. Rawlins.

         6

         7                   MR. JACKSON:  Mr. Rawlins.  This is his

         8    house.  Where does he live?  Grove Place, a unique community

         9    that tells a story of the struggle of Virgin Islanders.

        10    Wonderful place.  And Mr. Rawlins lives in this house that

        11    generations, his parents, grandparents, lived there.

        12                   MR. LAWAETZ:  Correction.  That is not the

        13    bottle house.  Mr. Rawlins owns the bottle house.

        14                   MR. JACKSON:  The what?

        15                   MR. LAWAETZ:  The bottle house.

        16                   That's it.

        17                   MR. JACKSON:  Okay.  This is all from

        18    Mr. Rawlins' yard.  I didn't go anyplace else.  These

        19    pictures are from Mr. Rawlins'.  That one there, I went

        20    through the gate, took the picture.  Second one, this is

        21    Mr. Rawlins' yard.

        22                   Now, I showed this image, because how many of

        23    you thinks Mr. Rawlins' story should be part of a historic

        24    tour of visitors that come?  Raise your hand.

        25                   Okay.  That's what we talking about.  When a

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              HISTORIC PRESERVATION -- SEPTEMBER 14, 2007

         1    truck pulls up, or a van with tourists in it, how much

         2    Mr. Rawlins, at the end of that tour, shouldn't Mr. Rawlins

         3    live well, as an artist?  His work is museum quality.

         4    Modern art at its best, recycled material.  That's the

         5    point I would like to make today.

         6                   So, as we want more, and we want to attract

         7    more visitors because we think more is better, let us also

         8    rethink the concept, Is it good for us?

         9                   Thank you.

        10                   MR. LARSON:  Thank you very much, Myron.

        11    That was a lot of food for thought.

        12                   And at this point in time, I think we can

        13    open the floor for about fifteen, twenty minutes of

        14    questions and answers.  If anyone has any concern or issue,

        15    or would like to articulate or understand a little more what

        16    was presented here today, just raise your hand and we'll

        17    call you.

        18                   A QUESTIONER:  Morning.  I was listening to

        19    Bill Taylor's speech about the Christiansted Bypass.  You

        20    had a publication of this Christiansted Bypass.  I have a

        21    few concerns about that.

        22                   MR. LARSON:  Can you come up to mic, because

        23    it's being recorded and documented.

        24                   A QUESTIONER:  Good morning.  As I listened

        25    to Bill Taylor's presentation about the Christiansted

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              HISTORIC PRESERVATION -- SEPTEMBER 14, 2007

         1    Bypass, the portion about that, you talked about how it's

         2    going to stop the rumbling in Christiansted, and the trucks

         3    and so forth and so on.

         4                   I have another concern, a flip side of that.

         5    The Bypass, which is -- when I went up that Peter's Farm

         6    Road and saw what a swath of property that that has just

         7    bulldozed down, I wondered about the different estates that

         8    that went through.  It cuts through Estate Contentment,

         9    which was a major cotton industry at the time; cuts through

        10    a portion of Freegut; it cuts through another portion of a

        11    free colored section; and the bulldozer was right in front

        12    of the door for Peter's Farm Hospital, the day that I went

        13    up there.

        14                   I am very, very concerned about, and this is

        15    probably a question for Myron, about the cultural resources

        16    that are underneath all of that ground.  What provisions

        17    were made for -- it's a federal project -- archeological

        18    diggings and excavations for possible cemeteries, for

        19    possible human resources, and so forth.

        20                   MR. TAYLOR:  Those are good questions, Betsy.

        21    The Federal Highway Administration has taken its time --

        22    some think too long, but I don't think so -- to sort of work

        23    out these conflicting issues.

        24                   As you know, this area where the Bypass is to

        25    be was not essentially populated, because it was beyond the

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              HISTORIC PRESERVATION -- SEPTEMBER 14, 2007

         1    southern limits of the town.  So, in one sense, it's well

         2    positioned to avoid cultural artifacts.

         3                   Where there was some conflict, there was a

         4    well involved near the Contentment Village, but they

         5    bypassed the village, the Contentment Village, and I did a

         6    study for the project to show how that could become a

         7    cultural resource.  And Myron's office was involved in that,

         8    and I hope it can still be.

         9                   But in terms of these issues, the Federal

        10    Highway Administration was very cautious about this.  The

        11    principal concern was whether it was going to increase

        12    runoff, and the swaths that you see, and the runoff issues,

        13    are all going to be replanted.  So in order to get grades

        14    that will accommodate the road, there was some cutting and

        15    filling.  But they had promised that, visually, when the

        16    regrowth occurs, it won't be a visual disturbance.  So I

        17    think, on the whole, it's good.

        18                   The fact that we can't really allow these

        19    heavy vehicles, which are three and four times bigger than

        20    the trucks that used to come there just ten years ago, these

        21    are heavy equipment vehicles.  We just can't not have an

        22    option for them, because they're knocking parts of the town

        23    down.

        24                   So, on the whole, it's really worth doing.

        25    There's going to be some mitigation where it occurs, and

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              HISTORIC PRESERVATION -- SEPTEMBER 14, 2007

         1    Myron can talk about that.

         2                   MR. JACKSON:  To answer the second part of

         3    your question about the cultural resources, unlike the

         4    Virgin Islands Government, under federal law, once federal

         5    funds are being used for a project, a cultural resource

         6    assessment has to be done in terms of impact to cultural

         7    resources.  And the Virgin Islands government would do good

         8    to mirror that, so any monies being used from territorial

         9    government that impact cultural resources, you have the same

        10    level of review.

        11                   So we find ourselves, in one case, where

        12    there's federal money, having greater protection of the

        13    cultural resources.  And when it comes for money

        14    appropriated by the legislature, it's not required, outside

        15    of us using the existing laws to, you know, to make those

        16    assessments.

        17                   So an assessment was done for the Contentment

        18    well, and as Mr. Taylor said, based on the sections that it

        19    came through, there was various levels of mitigation and/or

        20    study and mitigation.

        21                   The most recent concerns we've had, which

        22    we've addressed from the conception of the project, is that

        23    the cut was going to have a visual impact to Christiansted.

        24    And if you come in by seaplane, and you look up from the

        25    seaplane on the hill, you will see that cut, it's a visible

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              HISTORIC PRESERVATION -- SEPTEMBER 14, 2007

         1    cut, and to the impact of the visual quality of the

         2    Christiansted National Historic District.

         3                   However, we've insisted that the Department

         4    of Public Works, which I would encourage you, as Crucians,

         5    to demand, that that cut be greened and forested after they

         6    do all the construction, so that it's not a visual eyesore.

         7    That's one.  So I'm asking you to participate and to be

         8    proactive.

         9                   So the cultural resources are, for potential

        10    archeology and so forth, there was a study that was done,

        11    and out of that, we found an old estate that many older

        12    Crucians knew that was there.  If you've been through

        13    there, you will see an old plantation site that's in the gut

        14    area of Contentment.  And then, as you're passing out of

        15    Christiansted, there are a series of buildings, which was

        16    one of the first settlements for freed people, coming out of

        17    Christiansted, and really was the country district of

        18    Christiansted by the Moravian Church.  And that we have

        19    plans to rebuild, and to use it as a cultural heritage site.

        20                   We approached Landmark Society, we've talked

        21    to the St. Croix Foundation, and at that time they did not

        22    have the resources or the will to take over that site.  So

        23    we're looking for some preservation partners in that

        24    restoration.

        25                   DR. HENDRICKS:  Good morning, again.

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