national register nomination for boulevard park historic

historic. This creates a hegemonic hierarchy of building types that discounts the functions
and occupants of historic buildings outside of a defined period of significance.
Schwartzer argues that the field of historic preservation should move beyond these myths
in order to catch up with the progress made in other fields of historical study. He also
suggests that historic preservation has become part of urban history, and is a field worthy
of study in its own right.
Historian David Hamer took up this suggestion in History in Urban Places: The
Historic Districts of the United States. 33
It is a work of urban history focusing its
attention on historic districts instead of urban redevelopment. Hamer argues that historic
districts celebrate only a selective interpretation of the past. This selective interpretation
functions as yet another illusion, with its own type of destructive results.
Like other urban historians, Hamer describes the effects of urban renewal on
central cities. As mentioned in works on historic preservation, the response to urban
renewal is identified as a significant driver of change for American historic preservation.
This response encouraged legislation at local, state and federal levels and spurred public
reaction to protect historic sites. After the passage of the National Historic Preservation
Act of 1966, thousands of historic districts were created throughout the United States.
Initially, many of these districts were surviving fragments of central city areas
overlooked or ignored by the bulldozers of urban renewal.
33
Hamer, David, History in Urban Places: The Historic Districts of the United States. Columbus: Ohio
State University Press, 1998.
25