Historic preservation can be, and needs to be, legislated on the hometown level. River Forest, over a long number of years, was dragged kicking and screaming into passing still-pretty-mild preservation ordinances.
Perhaps this has proved so challenging because the very idea of preserving local architectural beauty, history and community has not been baked into the DNA of River Forest. From its more conservative political roots, a property-rights attitude long dominated the conversation.
Leading the way in changing that discussion and also crafting a preservation law has been Laurel McMahon, the leading and for a time seemingly only person in town who understood the great value of a single special house, but more importantly the place of that home among those on a block or neighborhood in building a vital community.
Now Ms. McMahon, and her equally estimable husband Dennis, long of the village’s Development Review Board, are moving to neighboring Elmwood Park in a downsizing effort. Bittersweet for them, we are certain, but also for the whole village.
It is not often that a single person can fairly be recognized for leading a gradual but profound change in the thinking of a community. Laurel McMahon created a movement that has altered the sense of River Forest as a community that is not nearly stuck in time but connected honorably and enthusiastically to its past.