Recent Preservation-Related News Stories

Just a brief post this morning. I'm working on a couple of other things, including a post about additional upcoming conferences and our first ever blog interview, but in the meantime, these articles were in recent editions of the New York Times:

• National Perspectives: A Portland [Maine] Community Forges a New Identity (Keith Schneider, 3/4/07), which describes redevelopment in Portland's downtown Bayside neighborhood, where the population is becoming highly diverse and a wide range of mixed-income housing has been created.
  

• Another Building By a Noted Modernist Comes Under Threat, This Time in Boston (David Hay, 3/7/07) which talks about the potential demolition of Paul Rudolph's 1960 Blue Cross/Blue Shield building at 133 Federal Street in the city's Financial District. The proposed demolition would make way for a new 80-story office tower designed by another noted architect, Renzo Piano. A modern house designed by Rudolph was recently demolished in Westport, Connecticut.
  

• Square Feet: A Waterfront That Has Left Its Wasteland Days Behind (Wendy Knight, 3/7/07) which describes Burlington, Vermont's nearly 20-year efforts to redevelop its formerly industrial and underutilized Lake Champlain waterfront.
  

Blog Additions - NYS Preservation Organizations and "Reading Room" Resources

As promised in previous posts, I've continued to add new links to the sidebar, most notably, to the "Historic Preservation Organizations - New York State" and "Reading Room" sections.

Additions to the "Historic Preservation Organizations - New York State" section include links to the:

-- Historic House Trust, a not-for-profit organization that operates in tandem with the NYC Department of Parks and Recreation to "provide essential support for houses of architectural and historic significance spanning 350 years of New York City life." The houses are located in city parks and are open to the public.

-- Sunnyside Gardens Preservation Alliance, a web site for and about the historic Sunnyside Gardens neighborhood in western Queens, NYC that is "recognized internationally as a model of urban planning."

-- Preservation Association of the Southern Tier, a private, not-for-profit membership and preservation advocacy organization serving Greater Binghamton, Broome, and Tioga Counties in New York State's southern tier.

Additions to the "Reading Room" section include links to many of the publications on the National Park Service's preservation planning site, such as the Cultural Resources Partnership Notes:

-- Issues Paper: Conservation Districts, which encompasses "two short essays by Robert E. Stipe and by Carole Zellie (1993; revised 1998)."

-- Local Preservation Reference Shelf, an "annotated historic preservation bibliography by the National Alliance of Preservation Commissions (1999)."

-- Subdivision Regulations and Historic Preservation, an article by Stephen A. Morris (1992; revised 1998).

-- Zoning and Historic Preservation, an article by Stephen A. Morris (1989; revised 1998).

I've also added links to other publications posted, and in some cases prepared by, the National Park Service:

-- Preservation Planning: Ensuring a Future for Our Past, a thematic issue of the National Park Service publication CRM.

-- History on the Line: Testimony in the Cause of Preservation, which presents selected "testimony delivered before the Historic Preservation Review Board and other public officials in the District of Columbia between 1986 and 1996. The book can easily serve as a guide and model for preparing testimony on significance issues before government review boards throughout the country. 114 pages [.pdf]. 1998."

-- Guidelines for Local Surveys: A Basis for Preservation Planning (formerly National Register Bulletin 24); offers "guidance for communities, organizations, federal and state agencies, and individuals undertaking surveys of historic resources and incorporating survey results into planning. 112 pages. 1985."

-- Strategies for Protecting Archeological Sites on Private Lands, an online update of the earlier print publication Protecting Archeological Sites on Private Lands, written by Susan L. Henry, with Geoffrey M. Gyrisco, Thomas H. Veech, Stephen A. Morris, Patricia L. Parker, and Jonathan P. Rak. Both publications include "useful information on strategies for protecting archeological sites that can be used in local communities when there is no federal involvement in a project. Targeted to professional and avocational archeologists, local preservation commissions, planners, and developers. 133 pages. 1993."

I will write more about these resources in future posts.

Historic Preservation Enhances Quality of Life, Produces Economic Benefits

The University of Florida's Levin College of Law, Department of Urban and Regional Planning, and Bureau of Economic & Business Research (and other UF programs) recently completed a collaborative study that confirmed historic preservation enhances quality of life for Floridians. The report, entitled Contributions of Historic Preservation to the Quality of Life in Florida, includes models and tools available to further historic preservation in Florida and to measure the impact of historical structures, events and related activities on the enhancement of the quality of life in Florida. As noted in a UF press release, examples of model communities and projects are sprinkled throughout the report: DeFuniak Springs and Fernandina Beach are described as communities whose historic roots lure tourists and improve the economies of their regions. The St. Augustine Lighthouse and Museum; the Fort Christmas Historical Park in Central Florida, and the Riley House museum near Tallahassee are provided as case studies of how how history museums can be important community resources. The report also describes conservation districts in Tampa, Sarasota, and Zephyrhills that offer ways for local governments to balance historic preservation through protection, rehabilitation and revitalization, all contributing to a neighborhood's culture. Those interested can download .pdfs of both the Research Report Executive Summary (40 pages) and Research Report - Technical information.

The UF quality of life study builds on The Economic Impact of Historic Preservation in Florida, a one-year research study previously completed by the Center for Governmental Responsibility and the Center for Urban Policy Research at Rutgers University. Available documents include the Research Report Executive Summary, News Release with key findings, and Research Report - Technical information.

As our students know, many other states, including Colorado, Georgia, Kentucky, Maryland, Michigan, Missouri, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Texas, Virginia, and West Virginia, have completed studies documenting the economic impacts of historic preservation. Links to many of these statewide studies and similar reports are available on the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation's web site.

Additional information and summaries of some of the reports to which I did not link are available as part of the National Trust for Historic Preservation's Dollars and Sense of Historic Preservation series (www.preservationbooks.org).

Blog Additions - Statewide Historic Preservation Planning

A Statewide Historic Preservation Plans (Northeast) section has just been added to the sidebar, below the Reading Room section. Included are links to the National Park Service's Preservation Plan Profile web page and online versions of all the statewide historic preservation plans we could locate. If your state is missing, refer to the Park Service's profiles or search the web; keep in mind we have only included links to eastern seaboard states between Maine and Washington, D.C. and not all states have posted electronic versions of their plans. These plans are a great way to become familiar with historic preservation in your state (and, obviously, other states) and to learn more about the range of historic resources, organizations involved, as well as available tools and incentives for protecting historic resources.

In accordance with the National Historic Preservation Act, statewide historic preservation plans are prepared on an approximately five-year planning cycle by all state historic preservation offices. The National Park Service's Historic Preservation Planning Program web site includes information on The Secretary of the Interior's Standards and Guidelines for Preservation Planning; an extensive list of Publications, including information on conducting local surveys of historic resources, public participation, planning and zoning tools, etc.; the Planning Companion, a "gateway for information about approaches, tools, techniques, guidance, and resources for historic preservation planning; and information about statewide historic preservation planning, including state plan titles and contacts and state plan profiles.

The state plan profiles provide useful overviews of each state's plan, typically including such information as the plan's title, number of pages, date the plan was approved by the National Park Service, planning cycle dates, contact information and link to an online version of the plan (if available), and summarized information from the plan, including mission/vision statement, public participation, issues, opportunities, and threats, goals and objectives, and implementation strategies.

We will be adding some of the Park Service's resource material to the sidebar's Reading Room section as time allows.

The World of Planning (and Preservation)

Another school weekend is upon us, and this one falls within the feverish intensity that is mid-term. Classes included Economics of Historic Preservation, in which final papers were due, Building Conservation, and Materials Testing, with the students again traveling by train early this morning to the offices of Building Conservation Associates in New York City.

For our Friday evening session, we traveled downtown to hear about the work of River Street Planning & Development from firm prinicipal John Holehan, who will also be among those teaching Preservation Design Studio this spring. This visit was both an extension of the Economics of Historic Preservation class, and a preparation for the spring studio. John spoke about the firm's creation and evolution, then described its main lines of work, including preparation of local waterfront revitalization plans, comprehensive plans, market and feasibility studies, and grant writing. Completed documents and successful grant applications for numerous funding sources were reviewed, and there was much discussion of the planning process, public involvement, and project management and costs.

There was also preliminary discussion of the spring studio, which will focus on a segment of Troy's Congress Street. This formerly thriving commercial and residential area is situated between a large former public housing site being collaboratively redeveloped by the City of Troy, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, the Troy Housing Authority, Rensselaer County, and private developers, and the 15th Street corridor, which is also in the midst of revitalization. The studio will be organized around the National Trust for Historic Preservation Main Street program's four principles of design, organization, promotion, and economic restructuring, and will involve neighborhood planning and interaction with neighborhood residents, businesses, and project developers. We will also be working with a fourth year School of Architecture studio which will focus on alley improvements.

The Building Conservation program includes two studios, one focused on preparation of historic structure reports, and one focused on planning and main street revitalization. Previous planning studios have taken us to the North Central neighborhood of Troy, the Village of Middleburgh in Schoharie County, and the Village of Waterford in Saratoga County. We will describe these studios in greater detail in future posts. We have been invited to do the Congress Street studio by Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute's office of Campus and Facilities Planning and are always on the lookout for future studio sites.

For those who may be interested in joining the Building Conservation program because of our reputation for the enjoyment of fine food, dinner was catered in by our favorite and frequent caterer, Linda Canty (Harvest Moon Catering). Featured were a delicious chicken curry, basmati rice, a green salad with grape tomatoes, cucumbers, red onion, and blueberries (a surprisingly nice addition), and seasonally festive chocolate chip-cranberry oatmeal cookies. As an army marches on its stomach, so does the Building Conservation program (we need to keep up our strength!).