[MassHistPres] industrial museums

Sun Mar 11 20:01:59 EDT 2007

None iof these may be exactly on point, but they are exampels of preservion/interetation of our industrial heritge:

The mills & canal system of Lowell.

The Old Schwamb Mill in Arlington

The Burden Iron Works in Troy, New York

The Aquaduct Museum/Vistor Center in Croton, New York

J. Worden
Arlington HDC

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Date: Sun Mar 11 12:00:03 CDT 2007
To: masshistpres at cs.umb.edu
Subject: MassHistPres Digest, Vol 13, Issue 11

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Today's Topics:

   1. Metropolitan Water Works Museum? (Dennis De Witt)
   2. Re: Metropolitan Water Works Museum? (Aaron Marcavitch)

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Message: 1
Date: Sat, 10 Mar 2007 14:30:29 -0500
From: Dennis De Witt <djdewitt at rcn.com>
Subject: [MassHistPres] Metropolitan Water Works Museum?
To: MHC listserve <masshistpres at cs.umb.edu>
Message-ID: <9125ADBC-F5FD-4904-AF65-423310DFD30B at rcn.com>
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Many of you may be familiar with the wonderful Richardsonian "high  
service" Metropolitan Water Works pumping station that stands next to  
the Chestnut Hill Reservoir (and across the reservoir from from the  
Boston College Campus) -- just beyond the Cleveland Circle  
termination of Brookline's Beacon St. boulevard.

As you also may know, the site has been redeveloped with about 100  
DUs of housing in its four existing buildings and one new building,  
with the intent of supporting the preservation of the main engine  
room of the of the high service building, which contains three steam  
pumping engines, dating back to the 1890s.

Originally the entire interior of the high service building was to  
have contained a museum.  But, as economic realities set in, four  
ancillary spaces, such as the coal bunker, we designated to become  
large condo units.

Early in the process a museum pro forma was developed developed based  
on the larger model.  Given the now reduced space it doesn't credible  
in terms of visitations, budget, or operating model -- if, indeed, it  
ever was.

Can you think of a viable model or analogy, of any sort, in New  
England or elsewhere, for something like this situation -- i.e. a  
museum with three spectacular but static 100 year old steam  
leviathans in a wonderful building?

In some way the Larz Andrson auto museum might be an analogy in terms  
of architecture and location but everyone (OK, every male) to some  
extent can identify with cars.  Another analogy that comes to mind (a  
site I last visited 40 years ago, which says something) would be the  
Saugus iron works -- nothing much happened other than a water wheel  
turning, as I recall.

Is the "museum" model wrong?  Is a better analogy the house-museum  
(or maybe a fire house museum, of which there must be some, somewhere)?

Anyone got any suggestions of good analogies in New England or  
elsewhere?

Dennis De Witt

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Message: 2
Date: Sat, 10 Mar 2007 19:30:30 -0800 (PST)
From: Aaron Marcavitch <acornhp at yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: [MassHistPres] Metropolitan Water Works Museum?
To: MHC listserve <masshistpres at cs.umb.edu>
Message-ID: <538901.53775.qm at web36813.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1

Dennis, (and anyone else interested),

My mind immediately went to England.  (The Waterworks Museum in Hertford was one answer:
http://www.waterworksmuseum.org.uk/)  Europe has a better concept of dealing with industrial
archaeology.  

But I also think of the one in Baltimore that is a public works museum
(http://www.ci.baltimore.md.us/government/dpw/museum/) - maybe thinking broader than water works. 
Think about all the ways that Boston could be served by a specialized museum like this.  They
tried to do this with Heritage Harbor in Providence, RI - but it didn't work so well.  Slater
Mill, the Museum of Work and Culture in Woonsocket, or the American Precision Museum in Windsor,
VT are all good examples of museums with big mechanical equipment.  In Pittsburgh there are some
efforts to bring back a steel mill.  Bethlehem Steel Works (one of the largest in the world) is
slated to become the Museum of Industrial Heritage.

You could combine an art installation into this as well.  Art and industry sometimes make alot of
sense together.

But I don't think the museum concept is the worng way to think about it.  It will take
fundraising, finding the niche, and tapping the right audiences - but its all very viable in my
mind. I don't really see the difference between house museum and museum - I suppose you are
indicating the difference between a museum which focuses on the history and architecture of a
specific place than a museum which explores the history of a wider topic.  After about 10 minutes
of searching, I found several listings of waterworks museums in Europe or Austrialia.  I found
none in the US.  You could have the first one in the nation to explore the topic of water
processing.  (The Poland Springs building is a good example.) 

Sounds like fun.  
Aaron

> Can you think of a viable model or analogy, of any sort, in New  
> England or elsewhere, for something like this situation -- i.e. a  
> museum with three spectacular but static 100 year old steam  
> leviathans in a wonderful building?

> Is the "museum" model wrong?  Is a better analogy the house-museum  
> (or maybe a fire house museum, of which there must be some, somewhere)?
> 

--------
http://www.marcavitch.com

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