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In a unanimous vote, the Rochester Preservation Board approved the George Eastman Museum’s proposal to remove the deteriorating fence along its University Avenue frontage, museum officials said this week.
Instead, the museum plans to build sections of fence on the north side, a nod to the barrier that existed during George Eastman’s ownership of the estate. Plans also include the planting of eight heirloom apple trees at the northwest corner, where Eastman’s apple orchard was located.
“The removal of most of the University Avenue fence is crucial to our institution’s initiative to be more welcoming to our diverse community and more integrated with the Neighborhood of the Arts,” says Bruce Barnes, Ron and Donna Fielding Director of the George Eastman Museum. “Our role in preserving George Eastman’s residence and interpreting it for the public is anchored on East Avenue, but our role as a world-class museum in the art and science of photography and cinema is more connected with institutions on University Avenue—including Writers & Books, the Memorial Art Gallery, and the School of the Arts.”
The goal behind these moves is to bring the community together and invite residents and visitors to experience the museum in new ways, notes Joe McElveney, president of the NOTA Neighborhood Association.
“NOTA neighbors have long shared the George Eastman Museum’s goal of creating a more open connection to University Avenue, so we are thrilled that the Preservation Board has approved the plan to remove and reimagine the existing fence,” he says.
The museum points to various investments in preservation–more than $6 million since 2012–including the main residence and its gardens. In the Rock Garden, the project to restore the grape arbor and improve accessibility is slated for completion in the spring, and work on the restoration of the West Garden loggia and accessibility improvements will begin in the fall. The museum will also undertake a major project to repair the mansion’s chimneys and parapets and replace the decorative railing on the mansion’s roof, officials say.
The museum will begin fundraising for the fence sections soon. The old structure is expected to be removed in April.
Smriti Jacob is Rochester Beacon managing editor.
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“Whenever you remove any fence, always pause long enough to ask why it was put there in the first place.” – G. K. Chesterton
The only thing worse than society-imposed Political Correctness is self-imposed PC.
Case in point. For years the Eastman House has allowed its fence along University Avenue to fall into disrepair, becoming a community eyesore. Now they finally decide to do something about it. The obvious solution would be to repair or replace it. Problem solved.
But no. Clambering onto the pyre of PC, the Powers That Be all but tear their hair and rend their garments for having built the fence in the first place by announcing that, “The removal of most of the University Avenue fence is crucial to our institution’s initiative to be more welcoming to our diverse community and more integrated with the Neighborhood of the Arts” !
Sorry folks, but that’s just hyperbole. And massive PC overkill. It’s just a decorative fence. It’s not the Berlin Wall. It’s not Trump’s border wall. It’s not Hadrian’s Wall. It’s just a typical fence that was built to mark a property line and to indicate the more subtle transitional boundary between a residential neighborhood and an industrial one. It doesn’t dominate the neighborhood. No one feels threatened by it. It presents no psychological barrier causing members of one group to cower before another. Indeed, the wide gate in the fence sits open and welcoming.
If those at the Eastman House truly believe that they are detached from a diverse community or are somehow isolated from the NOTA, then I suggest that their problems go far deeper than a few boards along University Avenue.