In his latest public effort to commemorate the region's past, Xavier encourages readers to reclaim their memories of a city that's changing so quickly, we forget what was in place even a few years back, let alone a few decades ago.
Some now-disappeared places had highly personal meanings, as pictures submitted to The Miami Herald by readers show. And that, in turn, got me thinking about my own youth and how much of the structural environment has vanished. How so many of the buildings that I loved are gone. And how efforts could have -- should have -- been made to save them before they existed only in our memories.
My view is that historic buildings are like the African sages of yore -- that is, they're like the elderly villagers who passed the story of their people down through the generations. An old building's style can reveal much about a time and place; for instance, its building materials, and whether it has such details as an open porch to cool off the house, tell us how its occupants lived.
As we continue to lose our older buildings, we lose more of our collective historical memory, our sense of place, our awareness of the rich past of our community. And we lose a vital source of enrichment in our lives.
