Fire Versus Vandalism

When you think about threats to our buildings, threats to our town, threats to our history, fire gets all the attention.  When it erupts, fire threatens both our personal safety as well as that of our property.  The destruction is immediate, and so is the loss we feel as a community when we lose one of our precious treasures to fire's raging fury.  We literally mourn for the building as if it were a living, breathing, being.  The ugliness left in the aftermath is a constant reminder of our loss and we long to go back to "the way things were", because we know deep down that we can never get back what we've lost.  A rebuild can capture the aesthetic of what once was, but it's never going to be the same because it's in a word, new.  It's like comparing a DIY kit car with the real thing, there IS no comparison.  Once that classic is destroyed, it's gone forever. 

The physical damage to the building is immediate, and so is the economic impact. You literally "see" it everywhere and you "feel" it personally. You see it when you pay your insurance premiums, or when your policy is cancelled.  You see it when you read about your local tax dollars being spent on the remediation, restoration and rebuilding of the buildings.  And you feel it at a very personal level when your favorite stores are closed or your best friend no longer has a job.  It's a very visible economic loss and every citizen of Bisbee shares in the pain. 

Despite their similarities, whereas fire as a threat to our town's treasures gets all the attention, vandalism in Bisbee, particularly graffiti vandalism, gets none.  When one of our historical buildings or open spaces is defaced by a graffiti vandal, the town doesn't come together to mourn the loss of the architectural detail, the loss of the aesthetic of the time period, or the loss of that special "connection" to our past that we feel when we're in the presence of these architectural beauties.  And like fire, the damage to our economy is just as extensive but it's not an immediate loss, so it's not as easy to recognize or quantify.  As a result, it's easy to assume a "not my problem" attitude unless of course, you happen to be the property owner.  Especially disheartening is that, in Bisbee, attempts to publicly speak out against this threat or recommend solutions to mitigate the damage will immediately be met with resistance and mocking from a group we refer to as "the influencer crowd".  The influencer crowd will argue vehemently that these activities and the ugliness left behind should be retained and celebrated as  "artistic expression".  Keep in mind, most of these "influencers" don't live in Old Bisbee, even fewer own property here. 

To our knowledge, nobody in Bisbee has ever argued in favor of leaving a fire damaged structure untouched and intact because it was representative of nature's "artistic expression".  One thing, however, is undeniable.  The result of Bisbee's current epidemic of graffiti vandalism, if not controlled, will be far more damaging to our town's historic legacy and economy than any one single fire in our recent past.  And it will be far more insidious.