Preservation director wants to spotlight city’s hidden stories
Murray Miller to lead new office
‘In terms of what can we do ... It’s being very mindful of how we design our policies and regulations.’ MURRAY MILLER, director of Office of Historic Preservation
A new city hire wants to provide residents with a different way to look at the role historic preservation can play in government services, as a way to not only document land records but to also better amplify Boston’s overlooked and forgotten stories.
Murray Miller was selected last year to head the city’s new Office of Historic Preservation, and his goal of transforming the traditional understanding of preserving history so that it better uplifts Boston’s residents comes at a pivotal time.
Amid a racial reckoning in the city and across the state, there are tangible efforts to tell a more complete, honest picture of Boston’s legacy in all aspects of government, and particularly in community and cultural spaces.
In June, for instance, a “Slavery in Boston” exhibit at Faneuil Hall highlighted the contributions of Black and Indigenous people to the city’s history in ways that other exhibits have been lacking, and the archeology department recently published a public database of enslaved people, who were identified through research of county records.
Miller wants to continue highlighting neglected narratives, from how communities of color were decimated by urban renewal policies to how the queer nightlife in Boston once defined Scollay Square.
The Globe spoke with Miller about his vision for the new office, how historic preservation can help provide insight into some of the city’s most pressing challenges, and what role it can play in helping the city and region confront a yawning racial wealth gap.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
What sparked your interest in historic preservation?
I don’t know if it was a spark or just an ember that wouldn’t burn out. [In architecture school], we had different streams ... and I chose heritage conservation. ... One of the projects that I had in the studio was an asylum that had been abandoned for probably a half-century. I was interested because it was in a large field where everyone used to go to pick strawberries. I would always see this structure and think, “Why don’t they use it for something?” I thought that would be an interesting way to bring it into the architecture studio. But the research was a lot more than just architecture. There was a lot of social aspects of how to use a structure that actually had such a horrific past for a contemporary use. So from there, it just went from one project to another.
Those kinds of explorations crystallized my interest in historic preservation. It was not so much looking at what it is, but the potential for what it could be, and how safeguarding those places could serve to tell the story, good or bad.
What is your vision for this new office?
Equity, inclusiveness, diversity, and acknowledging that our traditional practice of historic preservation is structurally and inherently inequitable. [We’re looking] at priorities that historic preservation hasn’t traditionally spent a lot of time in.
Another key theme of the vision is demonstrating that historic preservation is more than just protecting beautiful buildings that no one would question in certain parts of a community. If you look at cities across the country, there’s a pattern of a very Eurocentric view about what’s considered historic. ... The origins of historic preservation in Boston, for example, at that time in the mid-‘50s, there was a very deliberate focus on protecting a certain area of the city. When you look at the areas that we have invested our time and resources, you can see a clear distinction between those communities, and what we now refer to as underserved communities.
This might be a real good opportunity to think differently about historic preservation, and how we practice it.
How can your office play a role in addressing the region’s wide racial wealth gap?
[The racial wealth gap is] inherent in how [historic preservation] deals with properties. For example, the preserved communities are those that gain wealth over time. We have to be careful not to be doing such a fantastic job at historic preservation that we displace people from their communities. So in terms of what can we do ... It’s being very mindful of how we design our policies and regulations, any pilot projects, and how we aim to assist property owners in staying in place. It’s about understanding and ... being aware that historic preservation policies and practices actually contributed to displacement and gentrification.
We should have incentive programs so we can mitigate the effects of cost, especially in underserved communities. ... You often have property owners with million-dollar homes getting a tax exemption, yet, we do not have any incentives for property owners that own the $50,000 home, that can’t even afford to put in proper windows because they’re making sure they put food on the table. We have to invest in those communities, so that they can stay in place and build wealth.
Housed within this new office is another new entity, the Commemoration Commission. What is it?
The Commemoration Commission will obviously celebrate or look to elevate anniversaries that are known, but it’s really about elevating those that are lesser known. It’s about identifying those various events, places, and people that relate to the 250th anniversary [of America]. The Commission also has the responsibility for exploring what exhibits might be appropriate for the 250th, and the 400th anniversary of Boston. The other interesting thing about the Commemoration Commission is that it is deliberately diverse.