Virtual Tour - Circa 2006 Pleasant Street

Technology is great!  We now have the power to virtually travel through any neighborhood in any city from our laptop computers or even our smart phones.  And from the bird's-eye-view mode, we can view an entire neighborhood block to study the historic and architectural setting of our important landmarks.  One of those powerful virtual tools is Bing Maps.  From Bing Maps, you can view the 300 block of North Pleasant Street in the Truman National Historic Landmark District and you get quite a shock.  You see a pile of burned rubble where the Victoria home used to sit at 306 North Pleasant Street.  The arson fire occurred there back in 2006, but the image of its aftermath has continued to be burned in our memory in cyberspace for over 5 years and potentially many more years to come.  This image actually gives you a very interesting perspective of the view shed surrounding the Truman Home National Historic Site and the Truman Neighborhood.  You can most definitely see the results of our poor planning and our obsession for convenient parking.  Each of the buildings in the Truman Neighborhood is not so valuable by themselves but, as a whole, represent a priceless collection and setting for the one of the most important landmarks in the country.  And with President Truman's leadership in the world regarding the rebuilding of post-war Europe, the establishment of the United Nations, the early recognition and support of the State of Israel, and his containment of Communism, one could argue that the Truman National Heritage sites & districts deserve to be listed as a "World Heritage Site" (another US presidential site already is).  Unfortunately, local folks tend to have difficulty thinking beyond our city limits or past the next debt payment from our retail investments.  And folks at the national level do not always look beyond our national borders.  Because we as a community forget about this important history, we, at best, take it for granted and, at worst, disrespect it, and even worst, hand out awards to folks who disrespect it.  As our nation tries to carefully and meticulously reconstruct the vintage buildings and neighborhood surrounding Abraham Lincoln's home in Springfield, Illinois, we carelessly bulldoze homes, wait for a neglected church structure to collapse under its own weight, and say "good riddance" to an abandon Victorian structure on Pleasant Street that disappeared overnight because of a criminal arson.  Even in the small rural community of Lamar, the State of Missouri has been acquiring property around the Truman birthplace home to protect its setting, even though he had lived there only 11 months as an infant.  Will future generations try to put back the missing pieces of the Truman Neighborhood?  And if they do, will they speak kindly of our efforts in community stewardship?  A generation from now, will City Hall still be pumping water down the fake waterfall at Crackerneck Creek?