PETA Offers Assistance to the Edgar Allan Poe House and Museum
Debi Moore
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As we told you a few days ago, the Edgar Allan Poe House and Museum in Baltimore is in danger of being shut down due to budget cuts by the city’s Commission for Historical and Architectural Preservation. Stepping in to offer assistance is animal rights group PETA.
PETA explains its motivations on its website as follows: Baltimore’s Edgar Allan Poe House and Museum is in danger of being nevermore because of budget cuts. PETA is offering to help fund the museum in exchange for displaying an ad educating people about the other “Red Death”: meat. PETA wants to show visitors that they can prevent a premature burial by going vegan and reducing their risk of heart disease, cancer, diabetes, and other deadly diseases. What better way to prevent the fall of the house of Poe than by keeping it and its visitors up and running for a long time to come?
You can see the ad in question below, and while you’d think the Poe House/Museum would jump at the chance to receive additional funding, according to the Baltimore Sun, city budget officials, however, said PETA’s proposal was not in character with the historic nature of the house and is not likely to be approved.
“CHAP design standards do not allow the display of advertisements on the building for particular products or causes,” said Thomas J. Stosur, director of the city Department of Planning. “It is also inappropriate within the tiny house, where display space is already very limited. The exhibits are devoted to Poe.”
Hopefully they can come to some sort of agreement as it would be a shame to see the place shut down. The Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore has, on its website, a page dedicated to saving the Poe House and Museum with contact numbers for Baltimore’s mayor and online petitions for signing. Take a moment to head over to eapoe.org to find out how you can help save this important piece of horror and literary history.
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