Do you have all of your affairs in order? Whether you are 18 or 80, it’s important to have an up-to-date Will. Thankfully, this is not a lengthy or costly effort. Here are a few things to remember.
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Historic sites can struggle with modern accessibility requirements. But how can we push past compliance to build a truly equitable and accessible baseline for everyone who engages with historic buildings? This Zoom panel explored work being done around disability justice in the preservation field, to go beyond ADA access and look at a more holistic vision for accessibility in historic spaces.
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The 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.
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Members of Congress are generally in their home districts in October, so now is a great time to contact your Representative to invite them to tour a local Historic Tax Credit project! Visits to rehabilitated historic buildings – or projects in progress – are great opportunities for you to educate legislators about the benefits of historic preservation in your community. Congresspeople welcome the chance to visit exciting projects in their own hometowns and connect with constituents who are doing great work. They can see for themselves how rehabilitated historic buildings contribute to the vitality and vibrancy of local communities, and you can boost your connections with your lawmakers and their staff.
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Since including Opera Houses on the 2018-19 Seven to Save list, the League has worked to document and develop strategies for the preservation of this important building type. We define the term “opera house” fairly broadly to include buildings that historically provided commercial and/or civic space on the first floor with a multi-use performance / meeting space in the upper stories. This summer, our colleagues at Preservation Buffalo Niagara (PBN) and BAC/Architecture + Planning, PLLC completed a Building Investigation on one such building: Paramount Lodge No. 73. The League was able to provide funding for this report thanks to a generous grant from the Arthur F. & Alice E. Adams Charitable Foundation, which previously funded a statewide study identifying and documenting extant opera houses.
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There are several easy ways that you can support the League’s important work. In this post, I’ve provided easy guidance with links to more information. Take a look!
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Earlville Opera House (left) and Hubbard Hall (right) will each receive grants to fund capital improvement projects.
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We recently went to Rochester to visit the Seven to Save-listed Genesee Valley Park, but there are a lot of great excuses to visit.
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The man who revolutionized landscape design in the 19th Century left his mark on New York State. And we’re not just talking about Central Park.
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Would you consider making a larger contribution to the League if you could save on taxes?
Please consider a gift of publicly traded securities that you’ve held for more than one year. Appreciated stocks, bonds, exchange-traded funds (ETFs), and mutual funds all qualify - and it’s a great way to accomplish your charitable objectives and diversify those highly appreciated stocks in one step.
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In thinking about how to build a more sustainable future, the preservation of our historic buildings needs to be prioritized. But when buildings can't be saved, there is still room for preservation to play a role. Deconstruction and architectural salvage allows heritage building materials to be saved and repurposed, diverting material from the landfill and creating a circular economy in the process. As much as we might want to save all the old buildings, it is inevitable that we will lost some. The question is how those buildings will come down.
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On 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.
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Summer is here. And that means trips to the beach, picnics, and hikes. Summer is also a good time to plan your charitable giving for the rest of the year.
One tax-smart approach is to set up a Qualified Charitable Distribution (QCD) from your IRA. Because the money goes directly to charity – I hope you’ll consider the League – a QCD counts as a Required Minimum Distribution without adding to your adjusted gross income. You must be at least 70½ years old to make a QCD, which can be as much as $100,000 each year.
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At its 2022 meeting, an independent grant panel selected 22 applicants in 18 counties to receive support totaling $235,920.
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A public survey, open through July, seeks to understand workforce development challenges, barriers, opportunities, and successes in the Northeast region. The Northeast Regional Initiative for the Preservation Trades is a cooperative project between the Preservation League of New York State, Preservation Trust of Vermont, the New Hampshire Preservation Alliance, and Maine Preservation.
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The 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.
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The Parrott Hall Coalition, a working group that includes the Landmark Society of Western NY, Friends of Parrott Hall, City of Geneva, and the Preservation League of NYS, has been watching with excitement as Massa Construction nears completion of their masonry and roof stabilization project at Parrott Hall in Elmira. Work began in December 2021; after a winter hiatus, work resumed in May 2022 and has progressed quickly in the last several weeks.
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Explore 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.
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Music 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.
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Bringing contemporary artists into historic spaces drives dialogue and helps bring the past into the present. In this webinar, our panelists highlight how public art and preservation can work together, from public monuments to historic house museums.
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