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I was shocked to learn today of the sudden and unexpected death over the weekend of , a 43-year-old columnist for The News Tribune. He was married and the father of three young children.

I was a fan of Driscoll鈥檚 work because he loved Tacoma and Pierce County history, and he often wrote about people, places, buildings, history and historic preservation. We never met in person, but I reached out to him in April to compare notes on some Pierce County stories, and the phone call we had turned into something of an interview (which he agreed to let me record for posterity’s sake 鈥� and which now I鈥檓 so glad he did).

Here are a few long quotes from Driscoll talking about historic preservation, history and his work 鈥� which really was all about community and a sense of belonging. He will be deeply missed.

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House of Tomorrow and tension of housing versus preservation

DRISCOLL: I definitely feel like there’s a tension that’s particularly pronounced right now, just because the political momentum, and understandably so, is so geared towards figuring out this housing crisis we’ve got. Like adding density, adding housing, which is kind of inherent to change, right? And I think a lot of what we’re seeing is this big push for change to address these very real crises. But, while that’s happening, I think some of the preservation efforts are feeling like they’re getting steamrolled a little bit, are maybe not being heard or like they’re being ignored.

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I think one of the reasons that the House of Tomorrow hit people the way it did was because of that underlying tension. Like (preservation groups) feel that the stakes are really high right now, and I think they feel like they’re kind of losing ground pretty rapidly.

Historic preservation versus urban renewal

DRISCOLL: I really do believe in preservation and believe in its importance, but I think a lot of times the way the sides get drawn, you can’t protect everything. And if publicly the stance is that it looks like you’re taking a stance of “no change, everything remains the same,” politically you’re going to lose that in this moment, right? And so you have to find a way to craft that preservation narrative and argument in a way that also acknowledges that we do have a housing crisis. And we have to navigate that thoughtfully. But yeah, it’s tricky.

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Work for The News Tribune

DRISCOLL: I’ve been here for nine years now. And my original thing, which is still what I do at the root, is as a columnist — I’m technically the metro news columnist — but I’m just the general assignment or general columnist. I cover a little bit of everything. If you followed The News Tribune for a while, it’s the old Pete Callaghan position. He did a lot more state government and politics. I have a lot of freedom with that. I get to write about basically whatever I want. So I do politics, government, but I also do a lot of sense of place stuff because I grew up here and that sort of deal.

These days, I’m also the Opinion Page editor, so I oversee stuff that’s on our opinion page. I kind of wrangle the editorial board and do endorsements and get our “letters to the editor” together and all that stuff, too. But at the end of the day, I’m still a columnist and reporter.

Local journalism and a sense of place

DRISCOLL: I find a lot of my historically-based columns just from folks talking. (History) allows for people to talk about things and to create connections with people and places that didn’t exist before. I think it’s good when you see people taking an interest in the building in their neighborhood and the history there or whatever it is. That’s a net positive, but certainly, it’s not enough. It doesn’t preserve anything. You have to go further than that.

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These stories give people and local communities a sense of place, and whether it’s nostalgia or something that’s kind of similar, there’s an appetite for that. It makes them feel grounded and it makes them feel connected and it brings back memories and it ties them to a place.

When we talk about preservation, that’s the kind of stuff we have to figure out a way to preserve. But it gets tricky. How do you apply that to ‘OK, this building is this and maybe this building’s not?’ But as part of this community, it’s a core part of what we do, because it connects us to this community. It’s something that makes people feel connected to this community.

A friend of the Driscoll family has set up to provide financial support to Mr. Driscoll’s widow and three children.

You can hear Feliks Banel every Wednesday and Friday morning on Seattle鈥檚 Morning News with Dave Ross and Colleen O鈥橞rien. Read more from Feliks here and subscribe to The Resident Historian Podcast here. If you have a story idea or a question about Northwest history, please email Feliks. You can also follow聽formerly known as Twitter.