Regarding the story on the Fransico’s building portico (Herald, Feb. 21), I am in complete agreement with Jackson Clark (Letters, Herald, Feb. 26) and others who feel that this building should be left alone and the Spanish-style awning kept intact, as the owners desire. It should be the city planner’s job to interfere with grandfathered-in private property only if it negatively affects the public good or presents safety issues, or if owners are trying to destroy a historic structure. Ironically, in this case, the very people that should be helping to preserve Fransicos are trying to tear it down.
Also, as many have pointed out, this portico does indeed provide a public good by shielding people from weather and sun.
The Planning Department seems to think that every building should look the same in some sort of generic interpretation of Victorian storefronts. But let’s face it, none of the modern architecture comes close to ultimately recreating the look or feel of Victorian Durango, and we end up looking just like every other modern day town.
As someone who has travelled to over 500 ghost towns in the western United States, Canada and Alaska, let me say unequivocally that the Planning Department’s interpretation of Victorian design is a far cry from what I have seen. What made the look of these boom towns great was the diversity of their architecture, not their conformity! They all started as tent cities, and when the people made a little money, they slapped up a clapboard storefront. When they made a little more money, they started using brick. Look at historic Durango photographs – 90 percent of the structures you see would not make the Planning Department’s criteria.
I would wager that for over 90 percent of the people who live here, Fransisco’s portico has been a part of our Durango experience for the entire time we have been here. So, now they want to remove it to satisfy the ghosts of Durango’s past at the expense of Durango’s present? Those ghosts are probably rolling in their graves at this notion.
Peter Eaton
Durango
