In her talk, Photographer Marisa Scheinfeld discusses the rise, fall, and impact of the Borscht Belt along with the deeper, more layered meaning she finds in her series, as well as her current work with the Borscht Belt Historical Marker Project.
Read MoreIn this post we take a look at one of the League’s major early victories. The campaign to save Great Camp Sagamore began in 1975 — just a year after the League was founded — with advocacy that saved the main camp complex, and continued in the early 1980s with a complicated legislative process that further protected the 11 historic outbuildings on the Sagamore campus.
Read MoreMay is National Preservation Month, and following the National Trust's lead, we'll also be celebrating "People Saving Places" to mark the occasion!
Read MoreWritten and narrated by Brendan Gill, this short film from 1980 was produced by the Preservation League of NYS to showcase the remarkably varied architecture found throughout the Empire State. We've brought it out of the archive and digitized the original film in honor of our 50th Anniversary in 2024.
Read MoreHappy Earth Day and a friendly reminder that historic preservation is climate action!
Read MoreThis year’s New York Statewide Preservation Conference was back in Rochester for the first time in several years. Rochester Mayor Malik Evans was on hand to welcome conference attendees — and we were honored that during his opening remarks he recognized the League’s 50th Anniversary by presenting League President Jay DiLorenzo with a City Proclamation.
Read MoreOn Wednesday, March 27, alongside our colleagues at Historic Albany Foundation (who are also celebrating their 50th Anniversary!) the League received a proclamation from Albany Mayor Kathy Sheehan. In addition to the Mayor, we were honored that both Congressman Paul D. Tonko and NYS Assemblymember John T. McDonald were on hand to show their support. Relationships with elected officials like Rep. Tonko and AM McDonald are essential to our statewide work and we are grateful for their continued support of historic preservation in NYS.
Read MoreFor more than a decade we’ve committed blood, sweat, and tears to preserving and celebrating the rich history and heritage of the City of Hudson’s waterfront through our work at Basilica Hudson and the River House Project. It is an honor to be recognized for our part in this effort. We take this opportunity to shine a light on these Hudson River Town architectural gems as beacons and creative havens for arts, culture, and people. This Pillar Award amplifies and echo’s our dreams we set out to make come true when our love affair with Hudson began in 2010. Our greatest hope is that our special attention to historic restoration matched with "green" renewable energy systems will inspire the next wave of preservationists. Thank you to the Preservation League of NYS for recognizing this work” – Melissa Auf der Maur
Read More“I'm honored to be named as a “Pillar of New York” by the Preservation League of New York State. It’s a recognition that my vision for Green-Wood is not mine alone; it’s one that is shared by like-minded individuals across the state. For over 35 years, it’s been my passion to tap into this potential at my favorite place in the world: Green-Wood. It has transformed the cemetery into a public art venue, a leader in historic preservation, a force for protecting the environment, and an important resource to our community. I am honored to have been at the helm through this journey.” - Richard J. Moylan
Read MoreThe Preservation League of NYS was thrilled to recognized Peggy King Jorde with a 2024 Pillar of New York Award! Peggy King Jorde is the Principal of KING JORDE Culturals, a consulting practice in cultural heritage, preservation, and design for marginalized communities. A Harvard Loeb Fellow, Peggy’s extraordinary activism and leadership realized our first National Monument and Interpretive Center honoring enslaved and free Africans in New York City. A global expert on the memorialization of African burial grounds, Peggy is a consulting producer for, and protagonist featured in, A Story of Bones, the celebrated British documentary from Tribeca Film Festival / PBS POV.
Read MoreOn Thursday, March 14, we hosted a festive evening in New York’s iconic Rainbow Room for our 50th anniversary Pillar of New York Awards. In addition to our wonderful honorees and their guests, the room was filled with League Trustees and members of the Trustees Council, historic preservation students and recent grads, and great friends and supporters of preservation.
Read MoreOne of the highlights from the recent Build Reuse conference was a presentation from fellow New Yorkers Andrew Roblee and Gretchen Worth, exploring the potential vacant school buildings have to take on new life as building material reuse centers.
Read MoreSince 2019, the League has been awarding cash scholarships to the best and brightest preservation students studying in NYS. The Zabar Family Scholarship Program was established by former League Trustee Lori Zabar and continues to award students in her memory. This year’s applicants were extremely strong, inspiring a lively discussion among our scholarship jury. The three students receiving scholarships this year truly rose to the top, and we are honored to support them. Get to know this year’s Zabar scholars: Lorraine Colbert (City College), Cecelia Halle (Columbia), and Siena Leone-Getten (Pratt Institute).
Read MoreWe are revisiting some of our past accomplishments this year as we celebrate our 50th Anniversary. In that spirit, let’s take a look at one of the League’s early advocacy campaigns: Advocating for sacred sites.
Read MoreSince we first began drawing attention to at-risk places with a Seven to Save designation, some places have been lost, some are still endangered, and others have gone on to be remarkable success stories. There are lessons to be learned in all three cases. For our anniversary year, we wanted to look at the program with a thematic retrospective – highlighting seven themes we’ve seen pop up in our listings over the past 25 years. Over the course of the year, we’ll be digging into our STS archive to highlight places across the state that help tell a broader story of preservation in New York. In this post we are teasing the themes we’re going to be looking at more deeply later in the year. We hope you’ll follow along!
Read MoreA lot has happened over the League’s 50-year history and we wanted to share some of the highlights that have led our organization to where it is today. This timeline gives you a broad overview of the League’s first 50 years, from our founding in 1974 to today. We’ll be digging into at least of few of these stories in more detail over the coming months as we continue to mark our 50th Anniversary. In the meantime, we hope you enjoy this infographic look at the League’s half century of preservation work in NYS!
Read MoreWith Black History Month coming to a close, we want to remind you that every month is a good time to learn about and celebrate Black history. If you are looking for some New York history field trips this year, here are just a few ideas to get you started.
Read MoreIn this guest blog post, Historic Ithaca’s Marketing Coordinator Bethany Parisi details how their Work Preserve program “has been making an impact on the lives of individuals with barriers to employment since its inception in 2010.”
Read MoreIn honor of the League’s 50th Anniversary this year, we’re looking back on past highlights and digging into our archives. One of the earliest pieces we found was the League’s very first printed newsletter, published for our members in the summer of 1975. Read on to see what was going on with preservation in NYS back then…
Read MoreIn 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.
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