Home | Contact Us | Search:  

Part 3: Building Cities: Tales of Many Cities

In the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001, people around the world have seen both the vulnerability and the resiliency of Americans and our cities. The damage inflicted on these centers of American economic and military power, the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, was both deeply symbolic and horrifyingly real. Images of that day are burned into our memories: the airliners crashing into the Trade Center towers in a ball of fire, the towers' collapse, the dust and smoke clouds, the fleeing people, and the exhausted yet tireless rescuers. In the end, as is always the case in such disasters, we remember the images and stories of people-those who perpetrated the horror, those who did not survive and those who loved them, and all those who reached out to help their co-workers, neighbors, and strangers. The urban archaeologists who tell their cities' stories in this chapter have always known that it is the stories of the people, in the past and in the present, that matter. Cities across North America have sponsored urban archaeology programs built on partnerships among archaeologists, preservationists, planners, and the public. The programs highlighted here have themselves made history. All thrive on innovation and cooperation among government agencies, museums, universities, corporations, and non-profit organizations to achieve what any one group never could alone.

Cities across North America have sponsored urban archaeology programs built on partnerships among archaeologists, preservationists, planners, and the public. The programs highlighted here have themselves made history. All thrive on innovation and cooperation among government agencies, museums, universities, corporations, and non-profit organizations to achieve what any one group never could alone. William Moss directs the city archaeology program in Quebec, Canada. The United Nations has honored the city's distinctive historical character by designating Quebec the only World Heritage City in North America.

In New York, archaeologists like Diana Wall and Nan Rothschild have devoted their careers to the archaeology of one of the world's largest, most dynamic, and most complex cities.

In the shadow of the United States capital, Alexandrians pioneered the concept of "community archaeology" in Virginia, where Pamela Cressey and her team have created a model citywide program. In South Carolina, The Charleston Museum houses the city archaeology program in this gem of the American South.

Martha Zierden writes of their efforts to leaven our image of southern elegance and gracious antebellum life with a heavy dose of the daily realities shaping southern urban living.

At the other end of the transcontinental railroad in California, Mary Praetzellis and the team at the Anthropological Studies Center at Sonoma State University met the challenge of a single archaeological project that encompassed forty-three city blocks in West Oakland!

Projects in the Book

(Click on bold link to view an excerpt)

• Quebec City, Canada - William Moss
• New York City - Diana diZerega Wall and Nan A. Rothschild
• Community Archaeology in Alexandria, Virginia - Pamela J. Cressey
• Urban Life in Colonial Charleston, South Carolina - Martha Zierden
• Sidebar 6: Archaeology of African Americans - Martha Zierden
• Sidebar 7: The Nathaniel Russell House Project - Martha Zierden
• “A Place to Start from”: West Oakland, California - Lu Ann De Cunzo and Mary Praetzellis