The squabble over the future of the distinctively roofed former Denny's seems to boil down to two issues, plain economics and whose taste in old buildings we want to agree with.

When the Landmark Preservation Boad agreed to stay the wrecking ball, it made a decision that not everything 40 or 50 years old should be cleared away and another square-box, cash-producing condominium erected. There will be a fight by property owners, Benaroya Properties, and developer Rhapsody Partners that may end up in the courts.

But architect and author Alan Hess tells Reporter Rebekah Schilperoort (Page One) that the fact the building is unusual or even ordinary should not stop it being preserved.

" ... more and more, it is being recognized that the buildings which tell us about how the average person lived are just as important as the buildings where rich, famous and powerful people lived. It is all part of telling who we are as a people. If we erase the past - especially such an important era as the post-World War II decades - then we are committing self-inflicted amnesia," said Hess. "We are erasing a part of who we were, which made us who we are. That can't be healthy."

We agree.

The building may be odd, and it is even odder now that it is closed and boarded up. It is no doubt true that the building has some structural problems and that it has been altered over the 40 or so years it has been at 15th and Market.

We wrote before that it could have several uses, again becoming a Denny's is one that even the Denny's franchiser seemed to like. Or it could be a flea market or an artist loft.

But that brings up the second and perhaps more serious problem: money. Who will pay to develop the structure and does it make economic sense? Could it be saved as an integral part of the condominium that seems destined to have a bank or a drug store on the street level?

Can the building be moved and recreated elsewhere - is that physically and fiscally possible?

Developers found a way to preserve the First United Methodist Church, circa 1910, downtown. Is something like that possible here or do we only go to such lengths if it is a 98-year-old church?

We totally agree with many Ballarites that not every structure with character should be torn down and replaced with what we think could become the urban slums later this century.

- Jack Mayne