We’re all familiar with Walden Pond, the historic landmark 25 miles west of Boston where Henry David Thoreau re-invented American solitude as self-discovery through nature worship. Back then the 65-acre lake was mainly Frederic Tudor’s ice factory until Thoreau made it his own Marcus Aurelian spa for a couple of years, leaving us with one of the great classics of American literature.
It was not the mythical place he made it out to be. The Fitchburg Railroad “touches the pond about a hundred rods south of where I dwell,” he wrote. “The whistle of the locomotive penetrates my woods summer and winter, sounding like the scream of a hawk sailing over some farmer’s yard.” He would “hear the iron horse make the hills echo with his snort like thunder, shaking the earth with his feet, and breathing fire and smoke from his nostrils.” Thoreau himself was not the hermit of Walden so much as its occasional tenant as he ambled into Concord whenever he needed to pick up mail, have company, disobediently spend the odd day in jail.
Still, the mythology he created of nature as mirror to our better angels endures even as the more material, less lofty needs for space and comforts keep intruding (the very needs Thoreau hectored in Walden even as he regularly sought them out in Concord). Walden became a pilgrimage stop for Thoreau enthusiasts and a recurring battleground between preservationists and developers.
An amusement park operated for a few years at the edge of the pond until it thankfully burned down in 1902. In 1922 the land was deeded to the Middlesex County Commission and soon after that a public beach was dug out. In 1957 the commissioners bulldozed more acreage to enlarge the beach and build an access road. That drew a lawsuit from the Thoreau Society of Concord. It took four years, and it was only a partial victory. The damage was irreversible. But the judge ruled there could be no further desecration.
In the 1990s environmentalists successfully fought an office park that was to go up 700 yards from what by then was a state reservation. But the pond is such a popular swimming spot that it is now one of the most polluted inland bodies of water in the country by urine density. These days you don’t hear the sounds of the iron horse, but you can hear the rumbles of Boston-pistoned traffic along Routes 2 and 126.
What happened at Walden Pond is a warning and a model of what could happen to Old Brick Road west of U.S. 1, as Palm Coast and Rayonier, the land owner, team up to build 22,000 homes in what they call the “western expansion,” to almost double the city’s population by 2056.
By some measures it’s an awful project that, no matter how much they euphemize it as a cluster of quaint little villages and town centers, will ravage another huge chunk of this county’s natural state. On the other hand, and except for planning details, it’s no different than ITT’s leveling and draining of 92,000 acres in the late 1960s to build Palm Coast. If we live in Palm Coast–as I do, as you do–we have no business objecting to another developer doing the same west of U.S. 1, and probably doing it better than ITT did. (A Florida government planner told the New York Times in 1974 that ITT’s Palm Coast plans were a “dinosaur” that was “10 years out of date as far as enlightened development goes.”)
The question is: can we preserve a few natural and historic treasures along the way? Old Brick Road is a national treasure. It is the last remnant of the Dixie Highway built in 1915 between Detroit and Miami. It is almost literally Flagler County’s equivalent of the Appian Way in Italy, the last remnant of a Roman road that, thanks to Roman engineering, endures to this day. Old Brick Road wasn’t built as well. Not even our interstates are built as well as Roman roads were. But close enough. It is being demolished by logging trucks, and the westward expansion risks reducing it to an enclave, starting with a planned highway that would parallel it way too closely and too many planned crossings of the road itself.
The developers, the city and the county all say they want to preserve Old Brick Road as a pedestrian park and destination. But so far, judging by a proposed joint agreement, which the county rejected, only the county is living up to that pledge.
Flagler County commissioners took an impressive stand this week, declaring that they would rather forbid any at-grade crossings on the road than let it become a footnote to a nearby highway. They have that power. It’s a county road, and if the county wants to forbid crossings, it may. It’s a good starting point for negotiations as they demand proper buffers and minimal intrusions on the road, so it doesn’t become another pond of piss and highway noises, as Walden Pond is today.
That planned highway that would connect I-95 near Jacksonville to Orlando is of particular concern. In current drawings, Raydient–the developer arm of Rayonier–has the highway hugging Old Brick Road along most of its 8 miles in Flagler County. At last Wednesday’s vaguely informational meeting on the expansion I asked one of the contracted engineers why they’re wanting this proximity. His explanation: we must build the new road close to the old road so the old road isn’t isolated. So it isn’t “ostracized.” That’s the word he used. The developer has inverted the purpose of preservation to a self-serving logic: Old Brick Road would not be validated–it would not exist, it would not be preserved–but for the proximity of the new road and, by extension, the new development.
That’s absurd. Historic and natural treasures are neither better preserved nor justified by intrusive infrastructure or development. They are only compromised and, at worst, corroded and demolished. Public access is one of those compromises. It would be pointless to entirely segregate treasures from public enjoyment, within reason (think of the value of eliminating cars from certain national parks, for example). But it would be mad to assume that intrusions on Old Brick Road like a nearby road, adjacent development and numerous crossings would be its salvation.
The commissioners have it right. Wide buffers all along the road must be a priority. The buffers should be wide enough to smother noise and sightlines of rooftops or any other infrastructure. There doesn’t have to be any at-grade crossings. It’s more expensive to build bridges. So be it. That should be the developer’s problem–and expense. Private development should not be subsidized at the expense of public treasures, though heaven knows this one has already been subsidized to the tune of $126 million so far (that state money Paul Renner’s generous cronyism appropriated on behalf of his friends at Rayonier for the “loop road” from Matanzas Woods Parkway to Palm Coast Parkway).
Let’s hope the commissioners stick to their resolve. If they don’t, the 8 miles of Old Brick Road will be reduced to a few hundred yards of brick-shaped tombstones.
Pierre Tristam is the editor of FlaglerLive. A version of this piece airs on WNZF.
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