# What's It Like Living Next To History? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [April 15, 2015, 12:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-it-like-living-next-to-history/717704 "2015-04-15T00:55:28Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![Spoke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@Spoke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoke)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2015, 9:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-it-like-living-next-to-history/717704/101 "2015-04-21T21:42:50Z")
> [@ralph124c](#): > > Interesting thread…although sometimes, I think too much of the past is a problem. Take old houses-New England is loaded with them, from all eras. The other thing is places of minor interest (like presidential birth homes)-what is the big deal? I know that JFK bas born in a house in Brookline, MA-but really, what is so significant about that? > here also, every house that Mary Baker Eddy (founder of the Christian Science Church) is now a museum-I guess i don’t understand the importance. > I like places like Surbridge Village, and Williamsburg VA-you get a sense of history by seeing the whole community as it once existed. But houses? not so much. You will be happy to know that absolutely nothing gets preserved in Atlanta. That hill behind my house I mentioned, which was part of Atlanta’s line of fortification? It is presently being graded down flat to make way for a mixed-use development. . ---
**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2015, 9:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-it-like-living-next-to-history/717704/102 "2015-04-21T21:49:34Z")
> [@Spoke](#): > > You will be happy to know that absolutely nothing gets preserved in Atlanta. That hill behind my house I mentioned, which was part of Atlanta’s line of fortification? It is presently being graded down flat to make way for a mixed-use development. > > . Didn’t General Sherman burn down Atlanta? ---
**Author:** ![chacoguy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/50afbb/32.png) [@chacoguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chacoguy)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2015, 10:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-it-like-living-next-to-history/717704/103 "2015-04-21T22:24:14Z")
> [@ralph124c](#): > > Didn’t General Sherman burn down Atlanta? That could be its own thread. ---
**Author:** ![Spoke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@Spoke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoke)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2015, 10:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-it-like-living-next-to-history/717704/104 "2015-04-21T22:48:21Z")
> [@chacoguy](#): > > That could be its own thread. And has been, on several occasions. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Peter\_Morris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peter_morris/32/359_2.png) [@Peter\_Morris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peter_Morris)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2015, 10:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-it-like-living-next-to-history/717704/105 "2015-04-21T22:53:00Z")
Okay, I don’t know much about American history. What’s the issue there? ---
**Author:** ![SciFiSam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/47e85d/32.png) [@SciFiSam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SciFiSam)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2015, 11:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-it-like-living-next-to-history/717704/106 "2015-04-22T11:18:31Z")
> [@Baron\_Greenback](#): > > Looking at a Scottish journey of just over 100 (road) miles that I do a couple of times a year, from the northern ramparts of the central belt to Fort William. It’s 2.5 - 3 hours by car depending on traffic/weather, and looking at the Traveline Scotland website it’s about 5 hours on public transport. Those times for that 100 miles would make it quite a long way even in the US, I suspect. It’s the roads that are the problem. If your satnav says 3 hours then plan for six unless almost all of the journey is on a motorway (which isn’t terribly likely unless your start and finishing points are directly on a motorway), in which case plan for four and a half. We have a lot of small, winding country roads where you can’t reach the speed limit even when you’re not stuck behind a tractor. 100 miles is nearly always quicker to drive in America than in the UK. ---
**Author:** ![kiz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/7feea3/32.png) [@kiz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kiz)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2015, 11:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-it-like-living-next-to-history/717704/107 "2015-04-22T11:43:25Z")
> [@Telemark](#): > > I grew up around Revolutionary War sites near Boston, and I run and bike past all sorts of them now. Frankly, I just get annoyed at the tourists getting in my way these days. 🙂 LOL, the tourists crack me up, especially down in the North End or the Faneuil Hall area. They’re all wide-eyed and gape-mouthed over EVERYTHING and I’m like, eh. Then again I grew up here so nothing fazes me historic-wise. ---
**Author:** ![HeyHomie](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/heyhomie/32/207_2.png) [@HeyHomie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HeyHomie)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2015, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-it-like-living-next-to-history/717704/108 "2015-04-22T16:10:01Z")
I lived in Springfield, Illinois (home of several important Abraham Lincoln sites) for decades. I drove past either his home, law office, cemetery, and/or Presidential Library multiple times per week. All kids who grow up in Springfield public schools are indoctrinated with what a great man Lincoln was from an early age. When you’re exposed to something on a daily basis, it becomes mundane. The tourists help support the local economy. Complaining about them is like biting the hand that feeds you, IMHO, and I always felt sorry for them rather than being annoyed at them (downtown Springfield is a maze of one-way streets). ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2015, 9:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-it-like-living-next-to-history/717704/109 "2015-04-23T09:09:59Z")
> [@MrAtoz](#): > > There was a bit of a stir a few months ago when Ray Bradbury’s former house in Los Angeles was torn down. A lot of his fans were upset about it, but in the end I do wonder just what was really lost? None of Bradbury’s possessions or papers were there anymore, and as houses go it was apparently nothing special. Some people suggested that it should be made into a museum or something, but really, what would there have been to see? Sure, Bradbury was in those rooms at one time, but does that alone somehow imbue them with history? I used to rent a floor in a house that [Raymond Chandler](http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/oct/07/raymond-chandler-blue-plaque-upper-norwood) had previously lived in. It was not a big deal. We moved out when the owner sold the place (which, to be fair, was crumbling and suffering from subsidence) to developers. They’re kept some of the house features (and it’s got a blue plaque as the article notes) but it’s all flats now. I mean, it’s not like Chandler was haunting the place or anything. ---
**Author:** ![amanset](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8dc957/32.png) [@amanset](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/amanset)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2015, 9:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-it-like-living-next-to-history/717704/110 "2015-04-23T09:44:45Z")
I grew up about a ten minute walk, if going slowly, from a ruined castle that the earliest part of dates back to around 1120. I used to deliver newspapers across the road from it. > **[Kenilworth Castle](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenilworth_Castle)** > > Kenilworth Castle is a castle in the town of Kenilworth in Warwickshire, England managed by English Heritage; much of it is still in ruins. The castle was founded during the Norman conquest of England; with development through to the Tudor period. It has been described by the architectural historian Anthony Emery as "the finest surviving example of a semi-royal palace of the later middle ages, significant for its scale, form and quality of workmanship". > Kenilworth played an important histor... To be honest, we never really thought about it. It was just there, we were used to it. We’d walk the dogs in the fields on the other side not because they were near the castle but because they were rather pleasant fields. Tourists were always welcome because why wouldn’t they be? They bring in money and I was brought up all proper and polite 😉 ---
**Author:** ![elbows](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b3f665/32.png) [@elbows](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elbows)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2015, 11:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-it-like-living-next-to-history/717704/111 "2015-04-23T11:31:31Z")
I am far more intrigued by the unknown history of the First Nations people’s who erected no monuments or left much trace of their lives, to be honest. The rest seem like interlopers to me. How did this valley look before Europeans came and began to carve it up? How did the first inhabitants interact in this place? What must that have looked like? Etc, etc. ---
**Author:** ![Scougs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scougs/32/3158_2.png) [@Scougs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scougs)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2015, 1:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-it-like-living-next-to-history/717704/112 "2015-04-23T13:10:15Z")
I live in the centre of Edinburgh. I can walk to Edinburgh’s main shopping street in 15 minutes. This means that while I’m popping in to a couple of department stores to pick up a couple of blouses for work (or whatever), on the other side of the road is this: [Edinburgh Castle from Princes Street.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edinburgh_Castle#/media/File:Edinburgh_Castle_from_the_North.JPG) Sometimes you forget it’s there. Sometimes you look and still say “wow” after fifty years. ---
**Author:** ![Spoke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@Spoke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoke)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2015, 5:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-it-like-living-next-to-history/717704/113 "2015-04-23T17:51:25Z")
> [@Peter\_Morris](#): > > Okay, I don’t know much about American history. What’s the issue there? [Who burned Atlanta?](http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/11/13/who-burned-atlanta/?_r=0) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-it-like-living-next-to-history/717704.md?page=5)