Our Heart Belongs to History

Have you heard of the preservation term, “heartbombing”? Reinvigorated recently by young preservation groups across the country, heartbombing is the simple act of declaring your love for at-risk historic properties with a valentine of their own. Did you know that the heartbomb may have been invented in Rockville, Maryland in the 1990s? In 1993, when a likely buyer of the ca. 1895 Wire Hardware building had plans to gut the interior, Peerless Rockville, a regional preservation non-profit, brought a lawsuit to defend its right-of first-refusal to purchase the building—ensuring its preservation. Soon after, the organization publicly kickstarted an Emergency Repair Fund with a gigantic heart in the storefront window, declaring “Our Hearts Belong to Wire.”