These doors date back to 1890 and were imported from Old San Juan in Puerto Rico. Gregory Rec/Staff Photographer
The case involving the entrance to Papi, a new Puerto Rican restaurant on Exchange Street in Portland, had all the right ingredients for public outcry.
The installation by the restaurant of a pair of 132-year-old mahogany doors, shipped from San Juan, fell foul of the City of Portland’s historic preservation office, which found them out of step with the “standards for alterations in a historic district” and ordered them to be removed by Labor Day.
The consternation arising from the decision pulled the very concept of historic preservation into an unforgiving spotlight – and eventually led the city to put a stay on the order to remove the doors while it “reevaluates” the decision.
Members of the public viewed the removal order as an over-the-top exertion of administrative control, as a vexatious example of bureaucracy that punished a business for daring to exercise some entrepreneurial creativity and, perhaps above all, as a misuse of city time generally.
Allegations of racism and the rote perpetuation of colonial narratives swirled. Residents also took the opportunity to bemoan historic preservation’s role as a stubborn obstacle to energy efficiency, environmental upgrades, even lead paint removal.
The conversation started by the doors has the potential to be a constructive and restorative conversation for Portland, which should take this opportunity to reappraise antiquated rules relating to historic preservation and determine how to bring a spirit of compromise and common sense into the equation.
Anybody who has done business in any of Portland’s 12 historic districts or who follows the ins and outs of historic preservation knows that buildings in these districts are subject to onerous historic preservation ordinances.
“They’re much more ornate and have a different shape than the doors that would have originally been on that building,” Evan Schueckler, manager of the city’s historic preservation program, told this newspaper, explaining why the doors didn’t originally make the cut. “They’re sort of creating what we would call a false sense of history, where they’re trying to represent a design and historic character for that building that isn’t authentic to it.”
The doors that preceded Papi’s selection were plain wooden doors – the style of door that complies with city standards, which are based on federal rules, by creating no sense at all.
Mechanical application of the rules as they exist now can make things very dull, sure, but also – when it comes to the incompatibility of solar panels or heat pumps, for example, or disputes about window panes – very awkward.
The argument here should be less about the city following the ordinance, which it is supposed to do. (The seeming u-turn on the Papi decision would be an example of disappointing inconsistency but that the city has referenced “other compliance issues” with the restaurant that have yet to be resolved.)
Instead the argument needs to remain focused on the rules themselves. We need to gain a clear understanding of just how inflexible and outdated they may be and what precise drawbacks they carry socially, culturally and economically.
The question mark hanging over the fate of the doors themselves, visually charming by most standards and apparently very popular with city residents already, is less important than the broader question of what it means to uphold city history; whether, in 2023, it’s appropriate to uphold in full; and precisely how historic preservation ordinances should be interpreted and implemented.
It seems to us there’s a balance possible here, one that can be informed by present-day realities and will have dynamic benefits once it can be struck.
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