Jay Firsching
By Jay Firsching According to State Rep William Allen in 1887, “Eating ice cream on Sunday affects the morals of the people.” And not in a good way. Allen was arguing to include ice cream on the long list of immoral things to be banned as part of Texas’ “Blue Laws.” In response to Allen,…
Writing about historic preservation weekly puts me in touch with the best preservation experts in Dallas. It’s given me a lot of insight. Although I’m just the messenger, I regularly get emails from readers like this one: Dear Karen,I bought a beautiful historic home with the intention of remodeling and updating it. Now, my builder…
One of the most exciting aspects of historic preservation is adaptive reuse. It is the process of preserving a structure built for one purpose and using it for a new purpose. It’s smart, economically and environmentally sound. We are excited to have a guest post today from award-winning architect Alicia Quintans about the exciting new…
By Jay Firsching One of the major challenges of my job in historic preservation is avoiding the research rabbit hole. While digging into an archive, you stumble upon an intriguing factoid and before you know it, you’ve squandered most of your day chasing a captivating story that’s completely unrelated to your actual research agenda. The…
By Jay Firsching In case you weren’t aware, the Deep Ellum neighborhood in Dallas recently earned a place on the National Register, a federal catalog of significant historic locations. With this national recognition, it’s important to understand the implications, as well as the limitations, of this listing. For those who want to read about the…
