The 2024 Excellence Awards Event Recap

On Friday, November 15, the League gathered with friends and supporters in NYC to celebrate our 2024 Excellence in Historic Preservation Awardees.

The 2024 Award winners represent how historic preservation addresses critical issues, including providing affordable housing, boosting economic development, and uplifting underrepresented histories. Each Award winner has had a tremendous impact on their local community, but their work is relevant far beyond that.

Our winners represent examples of… Meticulous craftsmanship – restorations include an Art Deco masterpiece in Queens and a James Renwick-designed Lighthouse on Roosevelt Island. Community building efforts from our colleagues at the Saratoga Springs Preservation Foundation and Little Caribbean in Brooklyn. The power of preservation in small towns and rural communities thanks to a documentary about Wells Barns and a restored Opera House – both building types that the League has identified as at-risk through past Seven to Save listings. And the important role preservation can play in creating affordable housing. Four of our 10 award winners fall into this category, representing a total of over 350 units of housing that did not exist before these buildings were brought back to life.

Now in its 40th year, the League's annual Excellence Awards program allows us to shine a light on the people who are using historic preservation to make all our lives better —through exemplary restoration projects, indispensable publications, individual action, and organizational distinction. In 2024 we celebrated:

• Reynold's Way, Elmira, Chemung County

• Little Caribbean, Brooklyn, Kings County

• Town of Avon Opera Hall Rehabilitation, Livingston County

• Canal Commons, Rochester, Monroe County

• Still Standing: The Barns of J.T. Wells and Sons, Monroe County

• Roosevelt Island Lighthouse Restoration, New York County

• Moyer Carriage Lofts, Syracuse, Onondaga County

• Newburgh East End II, Orange County

• Most Precious Blood Roman Catholic Church, Astoria, Queens County

• Revive 65 Phila, Saratoga Springs, Saratoga County

If you missed the event (or just want to relive it), scroll through these photos to catch a glimpse of the festivities!

Many thanks to the Arthur F. and Alice E. Adams Charitable Foundation for their generosity in underwriting this year’s Awards. Thanks as well to the sponsors who supported the event by placing program ads: Carmina Wood Design; The Excelsior Society of the Preservation League of NYS; Green-Wood Cemetery; Jablonski Building Conservation, Inc.; Johnson-Schmidt Associates, Architects; MM Development Advisors; RUPCO; Thomas A. Fenniman Architect.

All photos by Anna Rathkopf.