Historic Preservation on MySpace and YouTube

The Building Conservation program is in session today and tomorrow; we will post an update about this weekend's classes on Sunday or Monday. In the meantime, with the weekend upon us, we thought we would call attention to the growing and creative use of the MySpace social networking site and YouTube video sharing service for preservation education, awareness, and advocacy.

One of our favorite blogs, MyHometownOhio, the online magazine for Ohio's preservation and revitalization community, recently noted that an increasing number of non-profit organizations are using social networking sites to expand the reach of their message, including Ohio groups such as the Ohio Historical Society and Preservation Ohio (the links will take you to the corresponding MySpace pages).

MyHometownOhio also introduced us to preservation videos on YouTube and beyond, including yesterday's post highlighting TurnHere, a private, for-profit video production company specializing in producing Internet-ready short films, by independent filmmakers, that showcase cities and neighborhoods across the world. MyHometownOhio's post includes links to several videos highlighting places in Ohio, but TurnHere's web site features many videos from our region, most prominently New York City, but also Lee, Massachusetts, and Poughkeepsie, New York.

Historic Districts Council Newsstand, another of our favorite blogs, has also linked to preservation-related videos, such as this flash video about New York City's endangered buildings.

A quick search of "historic preservation" on YouTube showed other examples of how preservationists are using videos for advocacy, education, and promotion. Here are a few examples (to conserve bandwidth, we've given URL links throughout this post instead of embedding the videos):

-- A video highlighting Springfield, Ohio's downtown Christmas celebration.

-- Six videos from Houston, Texas' Old Sixth Ward, in which neighborhood residents talk about their houses, historic preservation, and the need to save the neighborhood from development pressures. The series' first video is here; to find others search for "historic preservation" at YouTube. A news video about the residents' efforts to preserve their neighborhood has also been posted on YouTube.

-- A series of "Robie House Geek's Tour" videos such as this one about steel and structure; additional Robie House tour videos are also posted on YouTube.

-- A how-to video about using steam to remove heavy paint build up from wood surfaces from John Leeke's Historic HomeWorks (other videos available on YouTube and Historic HomeWorks' web site).

-- A video about redevelopment of New York City's High Line elevated rail corridor into a linear park (from Friends of the High Line).

If you know about other videos or not-for-profit organization MySpace pages we might be interested in, please let us know.