Rebuilding Connection

Do old buildings hold the keys to reviving community? Carol Quillen, president and CEO of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, champions the untapped power of place in linking us to one another.

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UNEVEN, SOMETIMES TREACHEROUS brick sidewalks. Quirky floor plans, each one different. Squeaky pine floors, huge windows, carved woodwork, no air conditioning, and far more fireplaces than toilets.

These features defined the houses in New Castle, Delaware, where I grew up. They made where I lived different from other neighborhoods I'd visited. And these distinctions sparked questions: Why were these houses different? Who built them and when? Who lived here before me? What happened here? Historic houses set a powerful stage for a child's imagination.

Their odd spaces, repurposed rooms, and layered stories inspire curiosity and a desire to understand people who lived and worked centuries ago, under circumstances quite unlike our own. And I believe that from this desire to know other human beings in all their differences-empathy is born.