Building Conservation Program Weekend Update

It was another busy school weekend. Beginning last Thursday night, several faculty members and five students conducted an informal meeting with residents of the Mt. Ida neighborhood at the fantastic Minissale's Wine Cellar Cafe (One 14th Street, Troy). It was a cold, snowy night, but it was a tremendously useful meeting, enabling students to hear about resident concerns and discuss some of their own observations and ideas.

The Friday afternoon class was Professional Practice. Guest presenters included Roberta Lane from the National Trust for Historic Preservation and Jay DiLorenzo of the Preservation League of New York State.

In Friday evening's Preservation Design Studio class, guest speaker Norman "Dr. Downtown" Mintz presented an excellent Main Street Revitalization "before and after" slide show, then worked with the students to identify appropriate facade improvements for several Congress Street storefronts and talked about his experiences in Corning, New York and elsewhere working with building owners to make improvements.

Preservation Design Studio met again Saturday morning. Students presented their findings and progress regarding existing conditions in the Congress Street corridor, shared their impressions from the Thursday night neighborhood meeting, and begin planning for a March 9th neighborhood meeting, final presentations in May, and final products resulting from the studio.

On Saturday afternoon, the students had their first Preservation Law class with Dorothy Miner. Students were divided into small 2-3 person teams and assigned specific preservation law cases to brief and present to the whole class at its next meeting in two weeks.