In 2023, the League received a grant from the Northern NY Community Foundation to hire a summer intern to research the history of the Thomas Memorial AME Zion Church in Watertown. From May until August, Barb Tucker, an Empire State University Public History student and volunteer at the Jefferson County Historical Society, worked to conduct oral history interviews and compile documents relating to the social history of Thomas Memorial.
Read MoreThanks to a Capacity & Regrowth grant from the New York State Council on the Arts, we were able to commission artists to design a creative intervention for each of the Seven to Save in an effort to draw community attention to these endangered places. In thinking about how to use artwork to celebrate and draw attention to Genesee Valley Park, it seemed only fitting to invite someone connected to the University of Rochester to be involved. Associate Professor of Art Heather Layton answered the call and crafted a multidisciplinary, student-led project. Working closely with our colleagues at the Rochester Olmsted Parks Alliance, 11 current students created work inspired by the Park.
Read MoreWith the official public announcement of the 2024 Preserving Black Churches Grants on January 15, the Friends of Thomas Memorial are proud to share that Thomas Memorial AME Zion Church has received $100,000 in funding from the African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund, a program from the National Trust for Historic Preservation.
Read MoreThis photo essay has been cross-posted and lightly condensed from our colleagues at RethinkPennStationNYC. The League has been collaborating with local advocates to speak out against redevelopment plans that include widespread demolition of buildings surrounding Penn Station since including the Penn Neighborhood on the 2022-2023 Seven to Save list. ReThinkPennStationNYC is proud to be a founding member of the Empire Station Coalition, which is a collection of more than 15 neighborhood and block associations, think tanks and civic organizations advocating for real and equitable solutions at Penn Station. The Empire Station Coalition shares these same values and is doing much to keep this debate open and before the public.
Read MoreAs part of our Seven to Save artist interventions, the League commissioned photographer Dylan Chandler to document some of the incredible architecture you will find in the neighborhood South of Union Square. This project was commissioned by the Preservation League of NYS in partnership with Village Preservation thanks to a Capacity & Regrowth grant from the New York State Council on the Arts. Through that grant, the League is using art to draw attention to its 2022-2023 Seven to Save endangered historic sites across the state.
Read MoreIn the early morning hours of Friday, September 22, plant-like humanoid creatures appeared in the vicinity of Penn Station, drawing attention to proposed demolitions haunting the neighborhood. The Keepers, part of a performance art intervention created by Ed Woodham, have shown up in various gentrifying locations over the past decade. The Keepers appear when life is out of balance with nature. Their presence is a response to the gentrification and rapid mass development of urban areas where the importance of mixed-use districts, the area’s history, and the natural environment has been ignored.
Read MorePart of the League’s 2023 Seven to Save artist commissions, this pair of carvings by Fitzhugh Karol was inspired by the roofline of James Brooks’ studio. Together, these two carved cedars, cut from the forest in Springs, are representative of the collaborative creative life of James Brooks and Charlotte Park.
Read Morehe Keepers’ presence here brings attention to the blatant demolition of the Penn Station neighborhood’s historic buildings, the environmental impact of that demolition, and the human cost of displacing longtime residents and business owners.
Read MoreHistoric preservation can serve as an economic life raft for upstate cities like Oneonta, but the public perception of preservation can be a challenge. As a way to celebrate the historic district, the League commissioned local artist Emily Falco to create a site-specific sidewalk mural strategically located in front of the Greater Oneonta Historical Society.
Read MoreThe Preservation League of New York State, the National Trust for Historic Preservation, and the New York Landmarks Conservancy filed an amicus brief on Tuesday, February 21, 2023, supporting a lawsuit challenging New York State’s proposed demolition of several blocks around Penn Station.
Read MoreHave former asylum properties, built in the late 19th century to house people with mental illness, outlived their usefulness? Or can they once again contribute to modern society? In selecting the former Willard Asylum property for the 2022-2023 Seven to Save list, the League chose optimism. We’ve now researched a number of other asylum reuse projects in which properties very similar to Willard have charted a path toward productive and beneficial reuse, and have begun sharing this information with community members and decision-makers.
Read MoreThe Downtown Oneonta Historic District is included on the League’s 2022-2023 Seven to Save list. As part of our outreach, we contacted local nonprofit Springbrook to learn more about their current Historic Tax Credit project in the downtown district. In addition to graciously hosting us for a tour of the building, they also shared this guest blog post. Keep reading to learn more about the revitalization of the Ford Block building.
Read MoreOn Monday, August 15, the NYS Office of Parks, Recreation & Historic Preservation (OPRHP) issued an official determination that the former Willard State Hospital complex is eligible for the State and National Registers of Historic Places. The Finger Lakes campus, which straddles the town lines of Ovid and Romulus, is one of the League’s 2022-2023 Seven to Save sites.
Read MoreThe proposed Pennsylvania Station Civic and Land Use Project (the "Penn Area Plan") would demolish multiple blocks of historic buildings in New York City in the vicinity of Pennsylvania Station while displacing thousands of residents and businesses. The devastating plan put forward by New York State's Empire State Development Corporation is an eerie echo of the loss of the original Pennsylvania Station, coming as it does 60 years after the famous 1962 sidewalk picket by the Action Group for Better Architecture in New York (AGBANY), which included Jane Jacobs and a host of notable architects and preservationists fighting to prevent the demise of that great train station.
Read MoreExplore the artistic legacy of the neighborhood #SouthOfUnionSquare, including a building home to a series of leading Abstract Expressionist and Pop Artists; the residence and studio of a great Chinese American modernist avant-garde painter; the office of a groundbreaking labor organization that pioneered contraceptive coverage through health insurance; and dance studios run by important choreographers.
Read MoreMusic and the Village are synonymous, perhaps no place more so than where Greenwich Village and the East Village meet, south of Union Square. Today we’re taking a wonderful journey through this area to look at several notable musicians, music venues, and recording studios that found a home here, from jazz to punk, blues to folk. With the help of our new South of Union Square map and its music tour, we can explore some incredible spots where the course of music history was changed in this endangered area for which we are seeking landmark protections, and listen to some of the great sounds that emerged from this creative cauldron while we’re at it.
Read MoreThe neighborhood South of Union Square holds a unique place in the history of women’s rights and women’s suffrage movements. In the very same University Place building where a prominent 19th-century philanthropist donated to women’s causes, a famed lesbian bar attracted trailblazing women writers. In two buildings on Fifth Avenue, numerous progressive organizations were founded and blossomed: the first organization to insure contraception, the first African American magazine, and a chapter of the oldest women’s peace organization — the latter two under female leadership. On East 14th Street, the headquarters of the New York City Woman Suffrage League led the organizing effort for achieving women’s suffrage in New York State; and back on University Place the first woman doctor in America established her home and office.
Read MoreThe 2022-2023 inclusion of the Proposed South of Union Square Historic District on the League’s Seven to Save list marks the third time the League has worked with our colleagues at Village Preservation through the STS program. First in 2002 with the Gansevoort Market District and then in 2012 with South Village, the League’s support helped turn the tide for both in securing their much-deserved landmark designations.
Read MoreJames Renwick, Jr. (November 1, 1818 — June 23, 1895) was one of the 19th century’s most prolific and successful American architects. Renwick is best known for his mastery of the Gothic Revival and Romanesque styles, as evidenced in his masterworks Grace Church (1843-1858), St. Patrick’s Cathedral on Fifth Avenue (1859-1878), and the Smithsonian Institute on Washington D.C.’s Mall (1846). James Renwick, Jr.’s New York roots are in the area south of Union Square. Descended from the Brevoort family who held a great deal of land in the neighborhood, it is no surprise that Renwick left his mark on the built environment of this neighborhood.
Read MoreBeautifully detailed 1899 “Mail & Express” Broadway Streetscape Illustrations demonstrate the urgency of Village Preservation’s campaign to landmark the area #SouthOfUnionSquare.
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