Avuncular American

Save America's Treasured Legation

Does TALIM pass the SAT* test?

*SAT stands for Save America's Treasures, a US National Park Service program which, according to the NPS, "is one of the largest and most successful grant programs for the protection of our nation’s endangered and irreplaceable cultural heritage."

TALIM Board members, Fellows, Friends of the Legation, interested citizens, and motivated readers are requested to read the SAT definition of "national significance" (below, in italics), with my accompanying comments (in red).  I would ask that those interested in safeguarding our treasure here in Tangier - but who live in the US, maybe even in Washington D.C. - might approach the NPS with a view to TALIM getting needed assistance in the quest to preserve this "nationally significant" historical landmark.

The only one, we never cease to repeat, located outside the United States.

I eagerly await your feedback.

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The quality of national significance is ascribed to collections and historic properties that possess exceptional value or quality in illustrating or interpreting the intellectual and cultural heritage and the built environment of the United States, that possess a high degree of integrity and that:

• Are associated with events that have made a significant contribution to, and are identified with, or that outstandingly represent the broad patterns of United States history and culture and from which an understanding and appreciation of those patterns may be gained;

[Events: First recognition of the United States of America by a foreign ruler, oldest continuously-occupied diplomatic property, Barbary wars and their aftermath, site of international negotiations (Cap Spartel Treaty, considered a precursor to League of Nations and United Nations), scene of earliest acitivities of OSS prior to Operation Torch in World War II, etc., etc.] or,

• Are associated importantly with the lives of persons nationally significant in the United States history or culture;

[Persons: George Washington's correspondence with Moroccan Sultan establishing one of America's oldest treaties still in force, announcement of the assasination of Abraham Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt's gunboat diplomacy to free kidnapped American, Dwight Eisenhower's visit to newly-independent Morocco, etc., etc.] or,

• Represent great historic, cultural, artistic or scholarly ideas or ideals of the American people;

[Cultural: Tangier, home of American writer Paul Bowles for over a half century, with TALIM the repository of his newly-digitized Library of Congress recordings of Moroccan folk music.  Artistic: the Legation Museum, with its collection of American, Moroccan, and European art and historic maps.  Scholarship: TALIM, American Institute of Maghrib Studies (AIMS) research center for Morocco, with its renowned library and facilities for exchange scholars.  Etc., etc.] or,

• Embody the distinguishing characteristics of a resource type that:

   • Is exceptionally valuable for the study of a period or theme of United States history or culture;

[Period, theme: The American relationship with Morocco from the first days of American independence, with Tangier the focus for almost two centuries.  The sole remaining example of a diplomatic presence in an Arab medina.  American diplomats as co-adminstrators of the Tangier International Zone.  Etc., etc.] or

    • Represents a significant, distinctive and exceptional entity whose components may lack individual distinction but that collectively form an entity of exceptional historical, artistic or cultural significance (e.g., an historic district with national significance),

[Exceptional entity: TALIM's partnership with Moroccan cultural preservation organizations to enhance life in the historic medina.  Projects in urban renewal, literacy program in Arabic for medina women.  Etc., etc.] or

    • Outstandingly commemorates or illustrates a way of life or culture;

[Way of life: American diplomacy in the midst of the population of a walled Arab city or medina.  The oldest of the Department of State's "Culturally Significant Properties."  Tangier as magnet for polyglot multicultural expatriates.  Etc., etc.] or,

    • Have yielded or may yield information of major importance by revealing or by shedding light upon periods or themes of United States history or culture.

[Yielding information: Wartime Legation Chargé d'Affaires lauded for saving European Jews from concentration camps.  Documentation on Moroccan efforts on behalf of Muslim slaves in pre-Civil War America.  Etc., etc.]

Historic Property Projects
The historic property will be considered to be nationally significant according to the definition of "National Significance" listed above if it meets one of the following criteria:

• Designated as a National Historic Landmark or located within and contributing to a historic district that is designated as a National Historic Landmark District.

[The Tangier American Legation is the only US National Historic Landmark located outside the United States.]

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There.  Now it's up to you.  I'm here in Tangier, with my small staff of dedicated Moroccans, who are trying their utmost to maintain this corner of American heritage that certainly is a treasure worth saving.  Take this information and run with it.  Write to the National Park Service, write to your members of Congress and Senators.  Make sure that this unique institution does not suffer the fate of other worthy landmarks.

And get us some of that SAT grant funding.

Gerald Loftus

An Historic Structure: Report Eagerly Awaited

It was a year ago, January 2010, that a team from the U.S. measured, photographed, profiled, and documented the multitudinous problems that haunt our historic structure.  Visible to the layman are problems of water absorption and saturation, cracking, settlement, mold.  To the experts who came to Tangier one year ago, these problems - and more - are measurable.  They even produced some, to my mind, art quality building cross sections, showing a view of our interconnected medina buildings impossible to see with the naked eye. Some of the other cross sections (I don't have the electrons yet to be able to show you) even portray some of the major cracks developing in our venerable walls.

While all of this is interesting, here's the rub: as of this month, we are entering the second year of report preparation.  Like a download progress meter on your computer monitor, sometimes it seems interminably stuck at the 50% stage.  And while we await the report and the informed decision-making it will then facilitate, our historic structure continues to deteriorate.

And what should be minor improvements are held in abeyance.  Case in point: rotten shutters.

To Americans used to shutters as ornamental objects, the utility of shutters to keep rain out may be a concept that went out with the 19th century.  In the States, as far back as I can remember, shutters were things that didn't open, didn't close, and were in fact permanently attached to either side of a window as decoration.  In a place as rainy as Tangier, they are essential protection against the elements.

The shutters at right, rotten to the point of falling apart, should perform a vital role in keeping rain out of windows (here, on our staircase; ever try to negotiate 4 flights of rain-slippery stairs?).  The windows themselves are not watertight, so any help from the shutters is welcome.

What does this have to do with Historic Preservation?  Well you might ask.

Our request to have shutters like this replaced with identical new ones, repecting style, color, etc., has been languishing because of the pending Historic Structure Report.

I am a firm believer in respecting the historic integrity of buildings (which is why I want to remove from public view an anachronistic air conditioning compressor in a 19th century courtyard).  But imagine what our historically-rotten shutters will look like when this and other facades are refinished and painted, hopefully in the next few months?

Gerald Loftus 

December Diary: The Enchantment Is Elusive

Note to readers: December is a time when many people suffer from S.A.D., Seasonal Affective Disorder, or the winter blues.  I may have identified a variant, peculiar to this corner of North Africa, called L.E.D. or Legation Enchantment Disorder.  It's not quite disenchantment, but it is a bummer.  This "December Report" is in the format of notes from a diary.

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Post-Thanksgiving weekend: Return to Tangier from conferences in the U.S., where my enthusiastic PowerPoint presentations on new directions for TALIM were well received.

Tangier is under one of its winter rainstorms, and streets show minor flooding.  We are met at the door of the Legation by the contractor sent by the US Embassy to waterproof some of the worst affected roofs.  He informs us that he's suspending operations and heading back to sunnier climes in Rabat.

We discover that while we were away, the Legation's digital camera has disappeared.  No one owns up (what did I expect?).  Two groups of contractors were working in the building.  What are we supposed to do, suspend operations when we're gone?  Escort everyone - and while they're escorting, what about our employees' own work?

I'll just have to take pictures with my little camera.  Like this is being typed on my own little computer.  Self-help project.

December 1: Due to downpours (inside our Pavilion building), we remove precious exhibits from the walls.  A few days later, fearing rotting historic ceiling parts falling on visitors, we put up crime scene tape and close off one of our Pavilion rooms.

December 5: Making exceptions for student groups, we open on a Sunday for ACCESS Tetouan (funded by the US Embassy RELO, Rabat Regional English Language Office) and Global LAB (Learning Across Borders, facilitating international experiences for American gap year students). A good deed.

December 8-10: Two OBO (State Department Overseas Building Operations) visits, which helps bring our roofing contractor back to take advantage of a sunny break in the weather.

OBO-contracted entomologist tells us that humidity is the root of all insect infestation (read termite) problems.  Just like other OBO building experts have told us that heating our voluminous space helps preserve people's health and the precious objects in our museum.  We are part of the same choir.

On an inspection tour of the Legation buildings, our visitor uncovers the "Cistern Chapel" of Peace Corps lore.  Another good deed: we are to inherit a moisture meter, the kind that our entomologist uses.  The needle pops off the scale on most of our walls, but at least it's another data point.

December 12: While chatting with the night guard, I witness a drug deal outside our door, thanks to our "security" camera.  Too bad I can't share the picture with you - we have no recording function.  A couple of nights later, someone is sprawled out in front of our entrance, perhaps an overdose of glue or paint thinner, the preferred substances in our neighborhood.  Our maid is held up at knifepoint in broad daylight on her way to work.  Embassy security and local authorities are aware of our concerns...

December 14: To make ourselves feel better, we shine the Legation's National Historic Landmark plaque.

December 15: 1,000 liters of mazout (fuel oil) is delivered for our boiler.  We pay roughly $1,000 for this.  Next day we turn the heater on, but only to a couple of the 34 radiators throughout the sprawling complex.

December 17: Having heated the conference room where people can sit comfortably for a couple of hours during a literary event, we check the fuel tank gauge.  It appears we have consumed 40% of the fuel we had delivered less than 48 hours previous.  Panicked, we turn the heat off, send a detailed report to our US Government landlords that engenders 14 email responses but no solution to our problem: at $1,000 a pop, how are going to afford refills?  Choose between heat and paying salaries?  We hunker down.

December 18: Deciding that 57 degree Fahrenheit interior temperatures are not conducive to productivity (when minimum recommended temps are closer to 70 F), we turn the heat back on.

Roofing contractor calls it quits a second time, returns to Rabat.

December 21: We wake up to the sound of drip, drip.  It's raining outside, but this is closer.  In fact, the water is streaming down the wall behind our bed.  Getting up early for our flight, we pull the bed away from the wall.

Checking email before getting into the taxi, I see that there is a request for monthly reports, some of our circle not being used to blogs, websites, and all that.  I'll try to remember that when I return.

December 21-28: Miraculously passing through Paris Charles de Gaulle between blizzards, we spend Christmas week with family in Brittany.  Central heating, check.  Sheets that feel dry, check.

December 28: People in France, hearing that we are heading back to Morocco, say enviously "To the sun, non?"  In our minimal-allowance low-cost carrier luggage is a precious souvenir: a hot water bottle, to lessen that damp feel on the sheets when you go to bed.

On this day in New York City, people mark "Good Riddance Day," where they are encouraged to shred (literally) their least favorite part of 2010.  Can I get rid of December?

December 29: We find that the de-humidifier in our bedroom brings the rate down from 100% to the eighties.  This, from Wikipedia's entry on the dew point: "Relative humidity of 100% indicates the dew point is equal to the current temperature and the air is maximally saturated with water."  It goes on to say that humidity levels of 65% and higher are "Severely high, even deadly for asthma related illnesses."

Oh yes, we already knew that mold was bad for us.  So guess what has reappeared, on our less-than-month-old paint?

Magically, the gauge on our boiler shows that we now have more fuel oil than since our last check.  I am not convinced.

In old cartoons, the characters often plug leaks with one finger while precipitating further leaks until they run out of fingers.  Reminds me of here.

December 29-30: Two Tunisian AIMS Scholars help remind us that December is not all doom and gloom.

December 31: Off tonight to the home of one of Tangier's notables to see out the old year.  For us, a major New Year's resolution: in 2011, Make the Legation livable.

Inshallah.

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Clip art image: Discovery Education puddle jumper.

Gerald Loftus

National Historic Landmark: Shining the Legation's Plaque

Number of US National Historic Landmarks: fewer than 2,500

Number located outside the United States: 1

Location: Tangier, Morocco

Name: American Legation (TALIM)

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We are proud of our designation as the only US National Historic Landmark located outside the United States.  So it was only natural that we restore the shine to the plaque that commemorates the Tangier American Legation's addition to the list in 1983.

For those readers unfamiliar with the NHL designation, I suggest a visit to the National Park Service (NPS) website, which provides a list.  As it explains, 

National Historic Landmarks are nationally significant historic places designated by the Secretary of the Interior because they possess exceptional value or quality in illustrating or interpreting the heritage of the United States.

The American Legation in Tangier is in a club with such instantly recognizable buildings as George Washington's Mount Vernon and Thomas Jefferson's Monticello.  See our website's historical sketch of how our building - the oldest continuously occupied American diplomatic property - was given to the United States by the Sultan of Morocco in 1821.

Since we're also sensitive to threats to historic landmarks, we were relieved to see that the USS Olympia, the only surviving ship from the Spanish-American War, is going to stay moored in Philadelphia, where it serves as a museum.  The historic ship was threatened with the scrapyard, but its fate became the focus of a coalition dedicated to its preservation.

Why do we care about the USS Olympia?  Well, because it sailed into Tangier, part of a "show of great naval force" in President Theodore Roosevelt's successful bid to free an American citizen, Ion Perdicaris, kidnapped in 1904 by the bandit Raisuli.  "Perdicaris alive or Raisuli dead!" became the battle cry, and the Great White Fleet with the Olympia changed course for Morocco.

The Olympia's sailing days are over, unfortunately, so we can't expect a visit by this ship to help inaugurate Tangier's new harbor.  But maybe some nice donor will help us obtain the USS Olympia model for a display on Roosevelt and Perdicaris.  It's only $1,550...

Gerald Loftus

Disco Time at the Legation's Cistern Chapel

Sometimes, it takes an entomologist.

At right, that's Jay Nixon, Board Certified Entomologist with American Pest Management, Inc., sent to TALIM courtesy of the State Department's Overseas Building Operations (OBO).  Jay believes in the top to bottom approach in surveying our more than two century old building for insect problems.

Bottom means bottom.  In this case, checking out the subterranean former cistern, which, in Peace Corps days (the Legation was Peace Corps Morocco's training center in the early Seventies) was affectionately known as the "Cistern Chapel," and served as a disco.  You can just imagine the candlelit place, reverberating with the disco beat, probably with the illicit produce of Morocco's Rif wafting its aroma throughout the venerable building.

Happily, Jay found nothing worse than forty year old graffiti down in the disco.  Here are his pictures (click to enlarge).

I  hope that returned Peace Corps volunteers from that era will read this and supply us with some anecdotes.  This building is witness to History, including that period when the Peace Corps' use of the building staved off potential closure or worse.

Jay provided us plenty of expert advice, and spotted some trouble areas that will need our follow up.  As much as we appreciate his qualities as an entomologist, we give him full credit as an archeologist, providing a unique pictorial record of our own 70s Lascaux, the Cistern Chapel, passed over unknowingly by countless visitors to our Legation.  Now its story will be known.

Gerald Loftus

 

Incredible Shrinking Museum

Last week I told you that the crime scene tape was coming up: well, I didn't find the yellow variety, but red and white stripes will do just fine.

I don't want this to be a one-note blog, but these days of torrential rains and raw weather has put building concerns front and center.  Try heating a 45-room historic monument when your furnace consumes 4 gallons of fuel oil per hour.

The room at right, adjacent to Malcolm Forbes' collection of toy soldiers and his library of books on Morocco, has had to be closed off to museum visitors.  The water streaks on the walls are indicative of a larger problem: the ceiling is starting to fall down.

Now, this isn't just any ceiling, but is part of Diplomatic Agent Maxell Blake's Arab Pavilion from the 1930s.  This building, made of materials gathered from across the Maghrib, is emblematic of the American Legation.  And Blake did it with a $22,000 Congressional appropriation.

Quietly, visibly, sadly, it is falling apart.

When I arrived here in early July, I wrote about the rotting doors that local cats were in the habit of drilling holes into.  It's only a matter of time until they get to the Pavilion's "hand carved oak Hispano-Arabic door, probably of the 16th century," as the Foreign Service Journal in 1932 described the just-completed Pavilion entrance.

It pains me to see this place in such condition.  I'm waiting to see the "Historic Structures Report" that the State Department's OBO commissioned a year ago.  Will today's stewards of this historic building show the kind of imagination and fortitude that Maxwell Blake possessed when he arrived here a century ago?

Will I have the patience to wait while bureaucracy grinds away?

Gerald Loftus    

What Money Can Buy in Tangier: More Than a Dry Roof

I'm not in the habit of running real estate articles, but thanks to vigilant friends of TALIM, I was alerted to an article in today's New York Times.  In its "Great Homes and Destinations" series, the Times provides a tantalizing look at how some people (not us!) live in Tangier's medina. "In Tangier, a Traditional Riad," shows a beautifully restored traditional home in the walled city, just put on the market by its European owner.  Enjoy. Gerald Loftus

Wicked Leaks & TALIM: Our Own Liquidity Problem

While the US State Department deals with the Wikileaks crisis, we have our own brand of leaks.  The literal kind.  Leaks that seep in between the large, gaping spaces in window frames, through shutters that are rotten, or via walls that are cracked from foundering foundations.

Think I'm exaggerating? Well, look at the map (Bestcountryreports.com).  That's us in the darkest blue patch: Tangier, confluence of the Atlantic Ocean and the Strait of Gibraltar, with the Med just next door.  No wonder the place is Morocco's wettest.

So what does this mean? Well, for starters, it means repeating an annual rite: removing pictures from one of the Legation Museum's loveliest buildings.  That's Moustapha at right attempting to limit damage to some of our ancient prints and maps in the Arab Pavilion, which is suffering some of the worst damage.

Only this time we're not going to put them back next spring.  I'm going to procure myself some yellow plastic "crime scene" DANGER - DO NOT ENTER tape and cordon off this travesty.  Maybe our visitors (journalists, writers, scholars - but also tourists, including some concerned American citizens) will be moved to write to their members of Congress to demand that the US Government take better care of its oldest diplomatic property overseas.

But cordon off I will.  Don't want any of our visitors to receive a chunk of historic ceiling on their heads.

Gerald Loftus

Reclaiming America's Legation: One Roof, One Room At a Time

Americans, when they hear the term "roofing," may think of flimsy shingles nailed into plywood.  A weekend project for do-it-yourself carpenters.

Not Tangier.

Think concrete.  Think layers.  Many layers, like those encountered by an archeologist digging down into a Middle Eastern tell.  Unearthing layers of valiant attempts to combat Tangier's notorious rains, which, as novelist Paul Bowles once wrote, fill interiors with water every winter.

The man in the photo with a jackhammer is uncovering our own rooftop tell.  Over a foot's worth of concrete and tiles, covered over with more concrete and tiles.  Enough to give a structural engineer a heart attack.  We are, after all, in a seismic zone, and this is a building that includes 18th century sections.  Like putting a brick on top of a toothpick castle.

But the noise, vibrations, and dust are worth the inconvenience.  America's only National Historic Landmark overseas needs conserving, and it starts at the top.  Roof by roof.

Illustration: American Legation cross-section, courtesy State Department Overseas Building Operations (OBO, our "landlord").

Under our many roofs are lots of rooms, 45 I am told.  If it sounds like a lot, think again.  What constitutes a room?  Is a walk-in closet, or a storeroom, a "room?"  We have had several of these forgotten spaces, filling up with the detritus of the years.

Reclaiming these spaces is vital to the work going on up top.  The roofs are getting waterproofed, and the ceilings and walls under them refurbished.  But where does our art collection go in the meantime, especially those works not on exhibit?  Into those reclaimed spaces, of course.  So I have declared every underutilized space a priority zone, to be cleaned and painted.

Roof by roof, room by room.  It's very slow going, and requires lots of coordination and patience.  Thankfully my kids have named me "Step by Step."  In the meantime, my ears reverberate to the rhythm of the jackhammers.

Gerald Loftus

Tangier's Plague of Black Mold

Once, in a doctor’s office, as he paged through a dermatology manual, I was in the uncomfortable position of discovering the incredible variety of freckles, moles, beauty spots, rashes, cancers, ulcers, and growths that can appear on the human body.  Luckily, whatever I had was in the benign category, but those pictures were indelibly seared into my memory.

That what it was like during the visit to TALIM by Pamela Strangman (foreground) and Patsy Knappett, sent from London by the State Department’s Overseas Buildings Operations (OBO) office of Culturally Significant Properties, of which the American Legation in Tangier is the oldest.

Patsy and Pamela revealed the ugly world of mold – the kind that attacks our collection of ancient maps and prints behind glass – and the varieties were extremely colorful.  Reds, yellows, browns, greens... and the dreaded black mold, whose spores, if inhaled, cause dire health consequences.  Hence Pamela’s facemask.

Our two English women came with their specialized high tech equipment: soft brushes, cotton swabs, Q-Tips®, Dettol®, and of course face masks.  And the Conservac®, a small vacuum cleaner which can be adjusted to minimal power to clean delicate areas, which they kindly left behind for our museum.

A friend of the Legation from the art world said that Tangier, with its constant extreme humidity (last week there was a 90% day) is the world’s worst place for paper.  Of course, TALIM has plenty of paper: hundreds of valuable maps, etchings, and prints in the museum, and thousands of books – many of which are rare – in our research library.

Hard as they worked, Pamela and Patsy would be the first to admit that they could only tackle the worst, the gallery of horrors that I wrote about when I arrived at TALIM a few months ago.  Gibraltar may no longer be shrouded in fungus, but the Redcoats must still struggle with the slime.

When priority roof and wall work commences, we will have to ensure that both workers and occupants are protected from the Black Mold, the nasty growth that you want to keep away from your lungs.  More than just facemasks, we’re going to have to deploy a series of filtering drapes to keep spores from wafting over the property.  Our neighbors too are just a few feet away.

Though the extent of our damage was daunting, we were nevertheless encouraged by the can-do approach of our English visitors.  They shared some of their expertise with Mustafa, Yhtimad, and Marie Hélène, who will be lovingly applying Dettol® and the Conservac® to our treasures.  Passing on The Knowledge: Patsy and Pamela’s greatest contribution.

Gerald Loftus