One of the points Miggy calls me to the mat on is my assertion that the Warehouse District is not "historic":
I would suggest that besides its industrial beginnings it also has a great history as Austin’s original red light district, Guytown (see also the April 1983 issue of Southwestern Historical Quarterly; “Prostitution and Public Policy in Austin, Texas, 1870-1915,” by David C. Humphrey). While most structures are not individually architecturally notable, and nor is warehousing as an activity culturally significant – the buildings as a cluster do represent a unique and authentic value that residents and visitors alike respond to and are attracted to in a city with sparingly few such touchstones – one of the reasons that this is the best case of adaptive re-use in the city today.
All old buildings were used for something once upon a time. Merely because something happened there does not mean anything significant or noteworthy happened there. For example (and upon information and belief), Austin has had a number of bordellos and red-light districts over the years. They might seem quaint in hindsight, but the citizenry probably had a different view at the time. I doubt the homeowners in the Lightsey area of South Congress in the 1990s thought the prostitution in their area was of historic significance -- although they might have thought the amount of prostitution historic.
The Warehouse District is something, though. We just don't have a good word for that something. We need a word that means "old, authentic, rooted, gritty, connected to the past, familiar and beloved." I'll throw the floor open to neologisms. Something better than "nostalgi-rrific."
By worrying about whether something is "historic," we lose sight of what really matters -- that an area is "old, authentic, rooted, gritty, connected to the past, familiar and beloved." The history of the area will always have some small influence on that judgment, except when the area is genuinely historic, but we shouldn't let it divert us from the things we care about. The term obfuscates more than it illuminates.
