What would kids miss the most?
Landmarks of Nantucket instills preservation sense among Nantucket youth
BY PANOS KAKAVIATOS CONTRIBUTING WRITER
Through November 12, the Nantucket Whaling Museum displays a unique exhibit of Nantucket landmarks - as photographed by over 30 schoolchildren from the Cyrus Peirce Middle School who were asked, "Which island landmark would you miss the most?"

"CRABBING POND" BY BRIANNA BEAUMONT

Nantucket Historical Association Executive Director Bill Tramposch broached the idea this past spring, recalling a painful childhood memory of razed landmarks from his native home in Monroe, Connecticut.

"When I was a junior high schooler, I grew up on a town common, replete with churches, maple trees and the feel of a big natural room surrounded by great buildings, one of them being my home," he told The Nantucket Independent. "One day, when I came home from school, I noticed three of the 12 buildings - all on one side of the common - being destroyed. I couldn't believe the difference it made to my feeling of home. Here on Nantucket, where the whole island is a National Historic Landmark, I wondered what its children believe they would miss most if it disappeared. Thus, the Landmarks program."

With a $10,000 grant from the Nantucket Golf Club Foundation, 33 middle school students were selected from the 60 who applied in the spring to take photos of landmarks they would miss most from the island. Other Nantucket organizations eagerly joined the NHA to make the exhibit a reality, with co-sponsorship from the Nantucket Preservation Trust and Sustainable Nantucket.

"The sponsors didn't just stick checks in the mail and then show up at the grand opening to nibble cheese doodles and have their pictures taken," said Steve Sortevik, a teacher at Cyrus Peirce involved in the project. "Real, live human beings from these organizations assisted with the preparation of all phases, and they attended the sessions with the kids, participating in the instruction, discussions, and assistance," he told The Independent.

"One of, if not the most, rewarding and enjoyable aspects of this project for me was seeing the myriad of positive affects it had on a broad spectrum of stu- dents," Sortevik said. "Not just those whose names consistently appear on the honor roll or who have previously exhibited artistic talents. The talents and interests of all of these students were allowed to bloom in ways that we are not always able to support and encourage in school nowadays with the pressures of MCAS testing and school finances," he explained.

Unveiled in May and also viewable online at the Cyrus Peirce Web site, the exhibit increased student appreciation of Nantucket landmarks, according to Sortevik: "Not only is this seen in the perhaps expected number of lighthouses and cobblestones, but especially in such photos as those of scallop shells on a crumbling dock - in black and white, no less, of cranberry bogs coming to life in early spring, of the reflection of a tree in Squam Swamp, of the silhouette of the Old Mill at dusk."

Tramposch said some participants "might have discovered a special talent they have for identifying and capturing such landmarks on film." Indeed, the 32 students who completed the project got to keep their digital cameras.

"I am proud of them, all of them," the NHA executive director emphasized.

While Sortevik places Sankaty Light on his "list of finalists" of landmarks he would most miss, Tramposch would miss the Whaling Museum most. "Not only because it is a fine museum amidst a galaxy of fine sites owned and operated by the Nantucket Historical Association, but also because I would be out of a job and would have to leave Nantucket," he mused.

Underneath the photos' surface lurks the concern about how development may affect historic landmark preservation - and life on island.

"The inherent tension between development and preservation is probably as acute as it has ever been, at least in the 25 years or so that I have been visiting and living here," said Sortevik. "But given that somewhere around 50 percent of the island is now under some sort of restriction, and since I didn't bring a million dollars with me when I became a town employee and moved here about 15 years ago, I am perhaps overly sensitive to the issue of the needs and difficulties of everyday working people (who are, of course, most of us) insofar as housing is concerned."

"If we want our kids, and their teachers, and police officers, and fire fighters, and shopkeepers, and all those other trades and professions and occupations which I should add here, to be able to afford to live, work and serve here in the future," he continued, "we have to find ways not just to preserve the heritage which our kids learned to better appreciate during the Landmarks Project, but also ways to maintain or increase the affordability, a term which I know I am using very loosely here, of our housing."

Tramposch feels that "the island is threatened not necessarily by development but more so by an ignorance about the potential effects of development."

"We must understand and feel deeply the special significance of this island in American and international history before we can say with confidence that we are proceeding along the most considered courses," he explained. "And, well - what do you know - that leads us right back to the importance of being involved in the Nantucket Historical Association and the many other marvelous not-for-profits that regularly

interpret this island's uniqueness." I