 Thanks for joining us on the 1960s Columbia Preservation Bike Tour. This is a self-guided tour with directions between stops, allowing you to pause the video and ride at your own pace. Please keep in mind that you ride at your own risk, but bicycle safety tips are provided at the beginning of the video. Have a great ride! I'm Megan McFish, a preservation planner with the City of Columbia's Planning and Development Services. Thanks so much for joining us on our 1960s Columbia Bike ride. We hope that it will be informational and enjoyable for you. To get us started, our comprehensive planner, Leigh DeFort, is going to give us a little bit of information on bike safety and some tips to have you stay safe out there. Hey there, my name is Leigh DeFort and I'm the comprehensive planner for the City of Columbia and I'm here today with Megan to take our preservation bike ride virtual. So, before we get out for a ride, there are a couple things that you want to think about when it comes to safety and just being prepared. So, first thing in this important thing is checking your bike. Now, if you're riding a B-Bike, we still might want to check some of these things to make sure the tires are filled with air, that sort of thing, but this is my bike, so I'm pretty comfortable with it, but the things I'm going to check, because I often put it in my car, are that my brakes are connected up here, that my tires have enough air in them. The gears look okay, nothing's wrong here. I have pedals on my bike, sometimes your roadbikers might disconnect your pedals for other reasons and might need to connect them back. The seats at the right height, so the way you can tell, the seats with the right height, this would go for your B-Bike as well, is when you're sitting on your seat, your leg is almost straight, just a little bend in it when the pedals stop. So, that should give you the right height on your bike and still, you notice I can still put my toe down to make sure I go safe. So, that's how you make sure your bike is ready up and you can check your brakes also by doing this, making sure they're close. So, we've checked our bike, but there is still something to want to make sure we've got ready for a ride today. So, first and foremost, shoes. These are pretty gross looking, they're either my old running shoes, but the important thing is I've got them tied correctly, they're not going to fall off my feet and they're close to the last thing you want to do, just slide your toes in between your ear or your headset. It's not a real comfortable feeling, it might end up with some issues there. So, got good shoes, I've got the right clothes, I've got some comfortable shorts because it's warmer outside today than it was when we did our last bike ride. It's a really bright shirt. I mean, not everyone has shirts as bright in their closet. I feel pretty lucky about that. So, if I don't have my bright shirt, or even if I do, I'm going to want this, because it's reflective. So, if I'm riding in lower light conditions or I don't have bright clothing, this helps drivers look out for me and make sure that I'm safe. So, I've got this, wonderful safety vest, and the next thing I want to make sure I have is my helmet, because let's be honest, helmets, we all know helmets are important. It's like wearing sequels, right? So, put your helmet on, buckle it, just because you see us while filming, not buckling your helmet does not mean we're not riding with a buckle. It's sunny, so I've got sunglasses, and I've got a water bottle. You can put anything in your water bottle if you want a grade or something like that, but I've got water in mine today, and we had our snacks earlier, but packing some snacks is never a bad idea either. So, now you should be ready to go and enjoy your ride. All right, so the next thing we want to talk about is the rules of the road. So, here in Columbia, there are a couple things you need to be aware of specific to being in Columbia, and then also being in the state of South Carolina. That might be different from where you're used to riding or the last time you looked at your driver's ed book or took a bicycle education class. So, first and foremost in the city, we don't ride our bikes on the sidewalks in a very specific area. That area is between Assembly and Sumter and Jervay and Elwood. We have that core of the center city to make sure that we've got enough space on the sidewalks for all of our more vulnerable users, and we have just higher pedestrian traffic, so it makes it a more safe situation for everyone. And of course, we do have sharers on Main Street in a good portion of that area, so that provides you with a lower speed, safer option within the streetscape as well. So, if you're in those areas, please make sure to either walk your bike on the sidewalk if you're uncomfortable riding in the road or ride your bike in the roadway and follow all traffic laws as a result. The thing that you need to know specifically to state of South Carolina laws is tied to bike lanes. So, depending on when you do this ride, you may encounter a number of different bike lanes because we've got some bike lanes in the works as well. But the bike lane and I know you'll encounter is on Lincoln Street, kind of down near the Inavista down by the Arnold School of Public Health and that sort of thing. So, when you're on a street and you're riding in the street, if there is a bike lane in the state of South Carolina, you need to be in that bike lane. Or, if it's legal, you can be on the sidewalk. So, if you're, again, if you're not in that two-block wide area between Assembly and Sumter Gervais and Elmwood, you can ride on the sidewalk if you're more comfortable on the sidewalk. But, please, if you're in the road and there's a bike lane available, please be sure to use that bike lane. The other thing is this is not specifically South Carolina, but when you're in the road, you want to think about where vehicles are. So, we're going to be turning what you need to look out for. But also, if there's parking on the side of the road, you want to make sure that you're not riding so close to the cars that there is a potential to be doored. So, that means the driver or the passenger is opening their door into the traffic and may actually open their door into you as you walk by. And that can result in some pretty bad injuries depending on what speed you're going. So, we want to make sure that you're staying outside of what we call the dooring zone, kind of right where that door would open. The other thing that we want to think about when we ride is making sure that we're signaling our movements, right? So, when we signal our movements, there are a couple ways you can do that. You can point. So, when you're turning right, you want to point to your right, which on the video is not going to look like that, but it's my right, point to your left. You can also use your hand at a 90 degree angle to signal turns to your left or right. And you can also you want to make sure that when you do that you're holding your hands out. So, you're not just doing this, right? You want to hold, make sure the drivers can see you. You can pull your hand back down and hold on your handlebars, but right before you turn, you want to point again. And then the other thing is on this route we're going to run into a lot of step signs and also some stop lights. So, when you do and you're approaching an area where you're going to stop to signal to other riders and to drivers that you're going to stop, you can take either hand and put it down at a 90 degree angle and that will just indicate that you're slowing and coming to a stop. So, again you want to do that for two to three seconds with plenty of advanced notice of what you're going to do that. You don't want to stop and then do that, right? It's kind of like how we wish everyone used their turn signals with cars. So, anyway, those are kind of your helpful tips for being safe and just make sure that what you're doing today on this ride you're comfortable with. If you're not comfortable we want to encourage you to walk your bike or ride your bike on the sidewalk if it's allowed in that area and just make sure that you're proceeding in a manner in which you feel safe. Between each stop, a map of the route to the next stop will appear followed by written directions. You can pause the video at either point to help you navigate to the next location. Thanks again for joining us on the 1960s Columbia Virtual Bike Tour. You might be wondering why we selected the 1960s as the area of focus for this virtual tour. But, it was one of the most tumultuous and divisive decades in American history. Marked by the Civil Rights Movement, the Vietnam War and anti-war protests, and political assassinations. Culturally, there was also a great deal of tension. Between frustrations with the status quo that led activists to use increasingly militant tactics but, conversely, the hippie counter culture where many young people dropped out of the political and social mainstreams. On the national level, several events laid the groundwork for changes that we'll be talking about at this stop and at those to come. First was the 1961 inauguration of John F. Kennedy and his assassination in 1963. After which, he was succeeded by Lyndon B. Johnson who was re-elected in 1964. As the 36th president, Johnson spearheaded reform programs he dubbed the Great Society. The idea was to give poor people, quote, a hand up, not a hand out. These programs included the war on poverty which included urban renewal, a topic we'll discuss at our next stop. As well as support for arts and humanities through the national endowment for the humanities and the national endowment for the arts. As well as environmental initiatives including the Water Act in 1965 and the Motor Vehicle Air Pollution Control Act that set the first vehicle emission standards. While there are a number of issues in the 1960s that we could discuss in the city of Columbia, it was the struggle for civil rights that defined the 1960s. While our discussion of civil rights will be focused on the 1960s it's important to acknowledge that the fight for equal rights started well before that decade. Between the founding of the NAACP in the early 20th century, committees and organizations dedicated to pursuing voting rights and fights for equal pay and integration of schools. There were several events in the decades leading up to the 1960s that played an integral role in the civil rights movement here in South Carolina as well as across the nation. One of these events was a 1947 voting rights case called Elmore v. Rice which challenged the white only primary system in South Carolina. A second event occurred in the following decade. In June of 1954, Sarah May Fleming, a young African-American domestic worker was ejected from the bus near where we're standing at the corner of Maine and Washington streets. The litigation involved in Fleming's case helped lay the groundwork for Rosa Parks actions in 1955 and the ensuing Montgomery bus boycott. The first civil rights action of the 1960s in Columbia began with a sit-in at a lunch counter. This was inspired by a similar nonviolent protest in Greensboro, North Carolina where four college students had refused to leave a white only lunch counter at a Woolworths without being served. Here in Columbia, students from Allen University and Benedict College began their own sit-ins at Woolworths, Crests and Eiffords. While all of the sit-ins here in Columbia were nonviolent protests, they still led to many arrests for criminal trespassing and legal cases for the students involved. However, by 1962, Columbia began to desegregate its lunch counters showing an early success for the students and their nonviolent protesting. This early success was juxtaposed by a vote from the state legislators to raise the Confederate battle flag atop the state house, an opposition to integration. While these early actions and successes were heartening for those involved with the Civil Rights Movement, 1963 was a watershed year here in Columbia and across the nation. In 1963, the University of South Carolina began to consider desegregation. This spurred a protest by white students in May of 1963. Over 1,000 University of South Carolina students marched to the state house, chanting quote, we don't want to integrate. However, by July of 1963, the University of South Carolina's Board of Trustees announced that it would comply with orders to desegregate the University. On September 11th, 1963, the first three African-American students, Henry Monty, James Solomon, and Robert Anderson enrolled at the University of South Carolina, becoming the first African-American students since reconstruction. The desegregation of public schools, both high school and elementary, began in 1964, but wasn't complete until the early 1970s. Also in 1963, the South Carolina State Park System was ordered to desegregate. Instead of honoring the order to desegregate, the South Carolina Forestry Commission closed all of the state's parks, and didn't fully integrate facilities until 1966. However, 1963 brought more local successes. On August 12th of 1963, leading Columbia merchants announced that they removed all segregation signs from water fountains, restrooms, and dressing rooms, and agreed to adopt non-racial employment policies. This announcement came immediately before the August 28th, March on Washington. The March on Washington included approximately 250,000 people, gathering in solidarity for jobs and freedom. It was at this event that the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. gave his famous I Have a Dream speech. Sadly, less than a month later, on September 15th of 1963, a bomb exploded at the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, killing four young girls and injuring several other people prior to Sunday service. The events of 1963 paved the way for further legislation on civil rights. In 1964, President Lyndon V. Johnson pushed a civil rights act through Congress, preventing employment discrimination due to race, color, sex, religion, or national origin. The following year, in 1965, the Voting Rights Act was adopted, eliminating poll taxes, literacy requirements, and other tools that Southern whites had traditionally used to keep blacks from voting. In April of 1968, President Johnson signed a Second Civil Rights Act into effect, also known as the Fair Housing Act, providing equal housing opportunity regardless of race, religion, or national origin, and was intended to follow up on the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The Civil Rights Act of 1968 was, however, contentiously debated in the Senate, but was quickly passed by the House of Representatives in the days after the assassination of Civil Rights Leader Martin Luther King, Jr. The Fair Housing Act stands as the final great legislative achievement of the Civil Rights Era. At our next stop, we'll discuss other mid-century policies that had a devastating effect on African-American communities, both locally and nationally, and also had a lasting effect on the built environment of Columbia that has shaped the way our city looks today. As we talked about at our last stop, the 1960s were a time of great upheaval in the United States, both on a political level and culturally. Some policies that arose during the 1960s had a significant impact on the built environment, and particularly on poor and black communities. One of these national policies was the 1956 Highway Act, which displaced communities to make way for the construction of urban highways. This act reflected not only the car-centric ideology of the mid-century, created by increased access to motor vehicles, but also the realization of Cold War ideology, through the ability to evacuate large cities and to move troops and large-scale weapons not suitable for airplane travel across the country. But perhaps the most influential of these programs were the Housing Act, beginning with the 1949 Housing Act and the concept of urban redevelopment. This term was later changed under the 1954 Housing Act to the more familiar Urban Renewal. Under the Housing Act, the federal government gave cities the power and money to condemn slum neighborhoods, clear them through eminent domain, and then turn them over to private land developers at cheap rates for projects that included higher-end housing, hospitals, hotels, shopping centers, and college expansions. These acts were intended to wipe clean, poor, deteriorating neighborhoods, stimulating private investment, and luring middle-class residents back to cities. The federal policy was intended to compensate displaced people, aid in their relocation, or place them in public housing. However, this assistance was often late and never materialized. As cities used federal money to raise entire areas, people lost their homes. But more importantly, they lost their communities. Because urban renewal was fundamentally targeted at clearing slums, poor people and people of color were often disproportionately impacted. While the Act did not mandate that public housing be associated with a renewal project, it stipulated that renewal sites must be predominantly residential, either before or following redevelopment. However, 1959 Amendments to the Housing Act changed some things. Universities were authorized to receive renewal funds without having to include housing. Starting in the 1950s, Columbia sought to eliminate flight from the city through a county-wide fight-light campaign. This was intended to unify downtown, and through this PR campaign, it essentially equated flight and slums to cancel. With the 1959 Amendments to the Housing Act, the University of South Carolina began to expand into the residential areas of University Hill and Port One. In 1965, during the height of urban renewal, Baker House was demolished. It had fallen into less interesting condition and was locked in with other homes on that block that were seen as blighted. Lyles-Bissette, Carlisle, and Wolfe, or LBC and W, built the Rutledge Office Building, and the American Institute of Architects later presented the project with an award of excellence in the year that it opened. Port One, where we're standing now, was a local voting district that officially became designated as a blighted area by the Columbia Housing Authority. It was a historic community of African American businesses, schools, churches, banks, and homes. This tight-knit community lived in what was seen by city government to be blighted conditions, and they bordered on storm-like areas. As a result, the University of South Carolina acquired 22 acres of land along Blossom Street, and according to a survey conducted by the City of Columbia, there were 222 dwellings located in this area. Of those 222 dwellings, 213 failed to meet the city's minimum housing requirements. Between 1964 and 1974, the Columbia Housing Authority and the University of South Carolina displaced the Ward 1 community in order to expand state government and university. Where homes, schools, churches, and businesses once stood, now we have the Strom Thurman Wellness and Fitness Center, Koger Center, the Carolina Coliseum, and several other University of South Carolina buildings. The Ward 1 community continues to live on in stories shared by former residents and ongoing efforts of people who remember a time when they called the Ward 1 home. Although most of the structures that people identified with 50 years ago are now gone, the memories of the Ward 1 community live on as former residents tell their stories and reconstruct the narrative of Columbia's history. It is our responsibility to listen and share these stories to document the true, full historical context in which we live. Founded in 1991, the Ward 1 organization maintains the spiritual sense of community shared among former Ward 1 residents. The goal of the organization are to renew acquaintances, foster awareness of their history, and memorialize the legacies of descendants and their contributions. The Ward 1 project is a collaboration between University of South Carolina faculty and students and former Ward 1 residents to preserve the memories of the Ward 1 community and a mobile application. Oral histories from former Ward 1 residents and accumulated extensive collections of primary materials of art in Ward 1 and its history are available on this application. Since 2012, the critical interactive class has combined students from computer science and the humanities to document and share the stories of Ward 1. The class will continue to develop software that generates an interactive experience for visitors, parents, students, and the Columbia community at large. Once finished, the Ward 1 mobile application will be available for download in the app store. And right now, we're standing in front of the last remaining residents in Ward 1. It's not a whole lot to look at, but it's the last remnant of this once thriving community. The other building that's associated with Ward 1 is the Palmetto Compress, which is just across the street. These are the last remaining messages of, again, a once thriving community. As we discussed at our previous stop, there were a number of federal policies with local applications that devastated communities in Columbia. Influenced by national trends, planning efforts contributed to or in some cases were the mechanism for this devastation. During the middle of the 20th century, urban planning was characterized by a top-down approach that idolized efficiency and engineering, often prioritizing automotive travel over other modes. Concurrently, an increase in funding became available for urban highways in the post-war era, with the goal to provide access to growing suburbs. Planners and engineers worked to implement sweeping changes in order to wipe the slate clean and remake cities using mid-century ideals. Using this framework, pedestrians and vehicles would be separated with no space for bikes and commercial and residential uses would remain in separate spheres as well. This top-down approach of planning largely excluded the public, especially working-class communities and communities of color. This planning model was challenged in 1961 by Jane Jacobs with the publication of The Death and Life of Great American Cities. As a journalist, Jacobs spent much of her time on the streets of New York City and she studied the interaction of people on the street, examining what gave the city life. In her work, she argued the planning efforts at this time did not respect the needs of citizens and instead oversimplified and gutted communities. Jacobs believed that there were four keys to a vibrant city. Lively streets, interconnected streets, mixed-use development including parks and public buildings and neighborhood identity. The construction of urban highways destroyed the interconnection of street networks and in turn isolated communities reducing their vitality. Likewise, the separation of land uses limited street and public space usage to certain times of the day. So if everyone works in one area and lives in another, after 5 o'clock, the business district would be empty and goods and services would be disconnected from neighborhoods. Columbia's own mid-century planning efforts resulted in the 1969 Central City Columbia SC master plan, often referred to as the Doxiatus Plan. Produced by Doxiatus and Associates, Wilbur Smith and Associates and Lyles Basette, Carlisle and Wolff. The plan promoted a freeway system that would follow the boundaries of the original city grid with larger arterial streets throughout, elevated and underground people movers, a clean slate on Main Street with a raised walkway, separate residential and commercial sectors and development of the riverfront. All of these recommendations were developed without the input of the many communities the recommendations would affect. As much of the Doxiatus plan wasn't realized, hundreds of historic buildings, including many on Main Street and in the Vista were saved from demolition. While preservationists and urban planners today recoil at some of the ideas put forward in the plan, we can't ignore the Doxiatus plan as a relic of a bygone era in planning. It is both a cautionary lesson to carefully consider the historic value of a building before it is lost, and a reminder that public input is a critical component in the planning process. The Doxiatus plan, however, also saw the opportunity in the open space on the riverfront. In feedback received during the Columbia Compass planning process, it was clear many citizens continued to see the riverfront as Columbia's greatest under-utilized asset. Although the rendering in the Doxiatus plan might not be what these commenters had in mind. With its focus on efficiency of movement, the Doxiatus plan also recommended strengthening public transit networks. Another goal we continue to work towards today. Looking at the Doxiatus plan with a critical eye and understanding its lessons and its flaws can help us consider our city in a new light. As we head to our next stop where we'll talk about a movement that changed the course of our city, consider how the needs of Columbia citizens might be similar or different from what they were in the 1960s. Urban renewal devastated large swaths of Columbia. But as it reached its peak in the 1960s, Columbia's nascent historic preservation movement was born. Here behind us is a Columbia cottage that was one of the first properties on the list of protected properties in Columbia, the historic and cultural buildings plan. Compiled in the early 1960s as widespread demolition, both through urban renewal and private efforts underscored the need for preservation here in Columbia. Mabel Payne, a housing inspector with the City of Columbia's urban rehabilitation department, was instrumental in developing a list of significant structures and advocating for their preservation. Though not an architectural historian by training, Mabel Payne became Columbia's historic preservation pioneer. The desire for preservation came from Payne's firsthand knowledge of the devastation of urban renewal. She saw some of the City's oldest and most dilapidated buildings be targeted, but could also see their rich architectural heritage. She began to identify and record structures before their demolition, and she started this work in the late 1950s. Among the buildings Payne identified was this Columbia cottage, which she first photographed in 1959. Although it was identified for its architectural significance, the structure was also among a small number of landmarks that were not only significant for their architecture, but also their association with African American history. Originally addressed as 718 Lumber Street, it was home to driver William Pinkney. His family members lived on the adjacent blocks of Blanding Street in the Arsenal Hill neighborhood. Arsenal Hill was historically home to both white and black residents, but these residents were not only divided by race, but also by geography. African Americans lived in the western half of the neighborhood, while whites lived to the east. By the 1920s and 30s, the divide was visible, but the white half of the neighborhood featuring paved roads and sidewalks. This division deepened during the Jim Harrow era, as white inhabitants began to associate areas with concentrated African American populations with life. A former resident of Arsenal Hill, James Carter, remembered the neighborhood he grew up in, not as a blighted area, but something else entirely. Carter recalled Arsenal Hill was a microcosm of America, in that there were people there who made a way to live very comfortable and had their own society, their own middle class, and provide for their families, educate their kids, and they lived very comfortably. But like Board 1, this part of Arsenal Hill quickly became a target for urban renewal in the 1950s. Urban renewal, however, was not the only threat that older neighborhoods faced in the 1950s and 60s. There was a desire for development in the downtown area of Columbia. The structures that once stood around this one were demolished to make way for office buildings, leaving it as the most vibrant on this block of Alhoun Street. Although it was originally protected for its architecture, historians and preservationists alike have begun to recognize the importance of protecting structures that can tell us more about the experiences of individuals throughout history. Although we don't have lengthening this diary or a whole lot of information about the man himself, a great deal can be learned from the home that he lived in and the neighborhood that once stood in our midst. At our next stop we're going to talk a little bit more about how the preservation movement began in Columbia and how the inclusion of this Columbia cottage for its architecture was a huge step forward from preservation. At our last stop, we talked about the impact that urban renewal had on large areas of Columbia. And although the Robert Mills House is now a treasured building here in our city, it was not immune to the growing pains of the 1960s. From the completion of the home in the 1820s to the late 1950s, the buildings on this site served as a religious education institution versus a dormitory for Chikora College and then eventually for the Columbia Bible College. By the 1960s, the Columbia Bible College, today Columbia International University had outgrown the campus surrounding the structure. After Columbia Bible College vacated the property, the building sat vacant and was soon slated for demolition. Outspoken citizens of Columbia came together in October of 1961 to form the Historic Columbia Foundation whose first goal was to save the Robert Mills House. It's important to understand that in the early 1960s, there was very little national legislation to support the preservation movement. Preservation was largely considered a private effort, but the federal government only getting involved in very small number of instances. The Antiquities Act of 1906 allowed the president to create national monuments, which after 1916 were administered by the National Park Service. Later, the Historic Sites Act of 1935 created the Historic American Building Survey, known as HABS, which at the time of its creation provided jobs for architects, engineers, and surveyors who were out of work during the Great Depression. This was one of the many efforts by the Roosevelt administration to assist with economic recovery in the wake of the stock market crash. In the meantime, this historic structure was still threatened by demolition. Legend has it that Mabel Payne, a member of the city's Urban Development Office, we discussed at our last stop, sat on the front porch of the house in 1961 with a shotgun to defend its demolition. While the story might not be true, Mabel Payne was among the guiding members of Historic Columbia and other preservation groups in their early days. She served on the first preservation planning committee as their chair, and eventually Historic Columbia was able to raise the funds to purchase and restore the property. After extensive renovations, the home opened as a museum in April of 1967. Today, Historic Columbia continues to care for this property, among others, and the Robert Mills House is just one of five National Historic Landmarks in Columbia. While homes like this were among the first to garner the attention of the preservation movement, over time, historians and preservationists have begun to recognize the value of the homes of common people and the value that they give to preservation in our city. At our next stop, we're going to talk about how the protection of historic buildings in Columbia has evolved since the 1960s. At our last stop, we talked about the preservation of the Robert Mills House. This was primarily a private effort organized by the local citizens of Columbia. But, with the threat to other historic buildings throughout the city, it became clear that municipal efforts would be necessary to preserve Columbia's architectural and cultural heritage. This realization resulted in the formation of the Historical and Cultural Buildings Commission. The commission was created on February 20, 1963 by City Council Resolution. Its purpose was to identify and protect buildings with historical significance and to identify those that may develop significance in the future. It was also tasked with reviewing applications for major exterior work and demolition, as well as controlling the use of historically significant properties. The commission quickly developed the first landmark list, known as the Historical and Cultural Buildings Plan, which was published by the commission. This list identified many architecturally significant properties throughout Columbia. The commission reviewed requests for major changes and demolition of these properties. In 1974, Columbia worked with Lyles Basette, Carlisle and Wolfe, as a private firm hired out to update their zoning ordinance. With the coming updates to the ordinance, which were to include urban design review, LBC and W recommended that the Historical and Cultural Buildings Commission be replaced with a new body that would have broader regulatory power over preservation and urban design matters. By the end of 1974, the Historical and Cultural Buildings Commission was disbanded to make way for the new Landmarks Commission. The Landmarks Commission held its first meeting shortly after the disbanding of the Historical and Cultural Buildings Commission with its new powers to review any construction, reconstruction, alteration, repair, demolition of any structure, erection or replacement of any sign, marquee, awning, or other exterior architectural feature or attachment to any landmark or structure within a designated district. With these new powers, the Landmarks Commission published its first landmark list in 1975, and the deficiencies of the purview of the previous Historical and Cultural Buildings Commission became apparent. For seven years, the Commission reviewed protected buildings. More than 40 of those identified on the list were demolished or removed, and later demolished at the owner's request. Half of the parcels where these demolished buildings once sat are either vacant, parking garages, or parking lots. One of the demolished structures was the William Glaze House, a Group 1 Landmark, which was an excellent example of the Italianate style. While the Italianate style is common in the Midwest, there are not many good examples in the southeast, and the Glaze House was one such example. The site of the house is now a parking lot, and these stories are repeated over and over for structures on the original landmark list, not to mention the significant number of structures lost before protections went into place. In 1999, when City Council adopted guidelines for the City Center Design Development District, a new commission was created to review historic preservation and urban design projects, known as the Design Development Review Commission. The creation of the DDRC phased out the existing Landmarks Commission, and the DDRC continues to hear these cases today, although the number of districts has vastly increased since its creation. Since the 1960s, the Historical and Cultural Buildings Commission, Landmarks Commission, and Design Development Review Commission have all ensured the protection of hundreds of historic resources, changing the face of our city. Without these commissions, the staff that supported them, and most importantly, the volunteers that sat on them, it's hard to imagine what our city would look like today. But it's important to remember that preservation is an ongoing process, one we continue to revisit and revise. Some of those buildings that replaced those demolished on the original landmark list have reached 50 years of age. Those mid-century modern structures that destroyed earlier ones have begun to become historically significant in their own right. As we move forward, we need to keep a critical eye on the historic fabric of our city. As buildings come up for demolition, will we one day lament their loss? Will a building type commonly found today be scarce in the next few years? These are questions we need to continue to ask as preservationists. But also as informed citizens of Columbia. Thanks so much for coming along with us in our 1960s Columbia bike ride. We hope you enjoyed it. It provided you with a little bit of information, a new way to look at your city. If you have ideas for other bike rides or things you'd like to hear more about, maybe you'd like us to dive into the Civil Rights History of Columbia or Women's History of Columbia. Let us know in the comments or shoot us an email at preservation at columbiasc.gov. We'd love to hear from you and thanks again. Stay safe out there. We hope you had a great time today and if you're taking this ride in May, we hope you're celebrating National Bike Month and National Historic Preservation Month in other ways as well. A great way to stay tuned and learn about future projects and efforts from the city's planning division is by following us on Facebook and Instagram at Cola Compass for more information. Thank you for joining us. We'll see you in the next video. Bye.