But Miami, incorporated in 1896 and one of the youngest cities in the United States, is at a crossroads. Issues such as this will shape the fortunes of future generations who will care or not care about this city, depending on the values we pass on.

If we don’t leave our children and grandchildren our history represented in buildings that tell our story — the Freedom Tower, the Lyric Theater, the Fontainebleau Hotel, The Miami Herald — what kind of citizens will they become?

Like grandparents, old buildings are repositories of lessons, identity and stories that reveal who we are and how we got to be here.

“If you think of all the places that make Miami interesting to visit, all of them required someone to stand up and say, ‘This is worth preserving or restoring,’ and almost everyone else thought it was a nutty idea at the time,” Roper Matkov says. “It just takes a little vision to see how important something from the past can be and how it can be translated into an important landmark for the future.”

The political and economic environment, however, may not be favorable to the historic designation. Necessary documents to supplement the case, such as the building’s original plans, Roper Matkov says, are “missing” or hard to come by. Genting is against the historic designation and is not cooperating with the sharing of deed documents that are now in their possession as the building’s new owners.

But predictable shenanigans like that shouldn’t be a factor. The city charter outlines the criteria for historic designation, which The Herald building clearly meets:

The building is “associated in a significant way with the life of a person important in the past.” The company’s late founders, brothers John S. and James L. Knight, were key players in Miami’s development and in hemispheric affairs, and perhaps more importantly, continue to contribute posthumously through a foundation in their name that every year funds multimillion dollar community projects in the fields of the arts, education and journalism.

Likewise, Alvah H. Chapman Jr., the former president and CEO of The Herald and chairman of the previous parent company, Knight Ridder, was a key player in community affairs, and his influence is well-documented. He was the strongest voice of all, ironically, against casino gambling in Florida.

Without question, The Herald has been the “site of a historic event with significant effect upon the community, city, state or nation,” from dignitaries worldwide coming to discuss international issues with the editorial board to the tragic suicide of Miami-Dade Commissioner Arthur E. Teele Jr., who shot himself to death in the newspaper’s lobby in 2005.

The newspaper’s work in defining issues like immigration, racial relations, and growth during the last 50 years fulfills the charter’s requirement that the building under consideration represent “the historical, cultural, political, economical, or social trends of the community.”

Whether one likes the style or not, it’s “an outstanding work of a prominent designer or builder,” architect Sigurd Naess, who designed the Sun-Times building in Chicago, and the structure contains “elements of design, detail, materials, craftsmanship of outstanding quality or which represent a significant innovation or adaptation to the South Florida environment [like the unique cascade of shutters for hurricanes]; or have yielded, or maybe likely to yield, information important in prehistory or history.” Those are the requirements for historic designation, which The Herald building, with its stately lobby of steel and marble, meets. It isn’t a judgment that comes from a sentiment of nostalgia for the past, but from documented history and architectural facts.

I am not without bias. On the front lines for the last 32 years, I’ve been part of the reporting and writing of stories that become the first draft of history, the extraordinary and the tragic, and the ordinary daily events that make up a community’s fabric. And as many other Miamians, I’ve witnessed the newspaper’s influence on South Florida, mostly for good, sometimes for worse, but that’s history, imperfect and educational.

These walls around me can talk and they have a heck of a story to tell — our history, Miami’s history.

Save them.