Forum Blog - Preservation Leadership Forum - A Program of the National Trust for Historic Preservation

Plays Well with Others: Preservation Work Through Partnerships

By Ethiel Garlington posted 5 days ago

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Editor’s note: Preservation Month is coming up in May, and the National Trust for Historic Preservation encourages you to celebrate the important places in your community. Can collaborating with new and existing partners—as well as the other key concepts outlined in Preservation for People: A Vision for the Future —help you save the places that matter to you? Let us know what the future of preservation means to you: download the "This Place Matters" toolkit , and share your photos on social ...

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Addressing Deferred Maintenance Through Dedicated Funding and Public-Private Partnerships

By Pam Bowman posted 6 days ago

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Our national parks tell the stories of remarkable people and events in our nation’s history. The network of 417 parks and sites stewarded by the National Park Service (NPS) spans more than 84 million acres across all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and many U.S. territories. Unfortunately, after more than 100 years of operation and inconsistent public funding, the National Park System faces a deferred maintenance backlog estimated at $11.6 billion, of which approximately 47 percent is attributed ...

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The Significance of a Written Record: Interpreting the James Brice House

By Special Contributor posted 8 days ago

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By Willie Graham The Brice House and the accompanying record of James Brice’s accounts leave tantalizing clues about his bid to rise through the elite society of Annapolis, Maryland, late in the colonial era. Interior of the Brice House | Credit: Willie Graham James Brice’s father, John Brice Jr., was a wealthy Annapolitan who, despite being condemned for his Loyalist leanings by some of his contemporaries, twice won the mayorship of his hometown, was appointed to Maryland’s Provincial ...

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The Six-Decade Restoration of the Bowling Alley at Lyndhurst

By Special Contributor posted 13 days ago

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By Tom Richmond The 1894 Recreation Pavilion at Lyndhurst houses the two oldest regulation-sized bowling lanes in the world. Helen Gould, daughter of railroad magnate and former Lyndhurst owner Jay Gould, commissioned what we now refer to as the Bowling Alley two years after her father’s death. Built in shingle style and balloon framed, with miles and miles of shellacked Douglas fir beadboard on the interior, the structure had indoor plumbing, but no electricity (until the 1940s). Juxtaposed ...

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Latinos in Heritage Conservation Hosts Our Third National Gathering

By Special Contributor posted 14 days ago

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By Sarah Zenaida Gould and Moira Nadal Latinos in Heritage Conservation (LHC) was founded in 2014 by Laura Dominguez, Desiree Smith, and Sarah Zenaida Gould as a network of Latinx people engaged in historic preservation. LHC has since grown by leaps and bounds into a national organization of professionals, educators, and advocates dedicated to promoting historic preservation in Latinx communities throughout the United States, elevating Latinx historic places and stories as part of a more inclusive ...

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On the Hill: Tackling Deferred Maintenance in National Parks

By Pam Bowman posted 19 days ago

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The National Park System is one of our nation’s best ideas—a network of 417 parks and sites that protect spectacular historic, cultural, and natural resources and tell the stories of remarkable people and events in our country’s history. The National Park Service (NPS) is responsible for maintaining the system, which is composed of more than 84 million acres across all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and many U.S. territories. Credit: Architect of the Capitol The size and complexity ...

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Washington Hall: More Than a Restoration Project

By Special Contributor posted 21 days ago

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By Kji Kelly Editor's note: In November 2017, Washington Hall was presented with a Richard H. Driehaus Foundation National Preservation Award at PastForward in Chicago. As Seattle’s only citywide public development authority, Historic Seattle has worked since 1974 to foster a more livable environment through advocacy, education, and preservation of buildings and cultural landscapes. Our unique, three-pronged approach directly touches the lives of Seattle’s residents and visitors. We collaboratively ...

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Forum Webinar: Including Women in the Sequel: Re-Interpretation and Telling the Full History at Historic Sites

By Forum Online posted 23 days ago

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The latest Forum Webinar featured an in-depth discussion about including women’s history at historic sites. Kristen Laise, the executive director of Belle Grove Plantation ; Molly Jessup, the curator of education at the Oneida Community Mansion House ; and Barbara Lau from the Pauli Murray Center for History and Social Justice discussed their work interpreting women’s history—including identifying source materials, developing interpretive plans, and building narratives that deal with challenging ...

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Save America’s Treasures Funding Returns in New Omnibus Bill

By David J. Brown posted 26 days ago

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By David J. Brown Save America’s Treasures (SAT)—a preservation program first funded by Congress during the Clinton administration, maintained during the Bush administration, and defunded by the Obama administration—has now returned as a preservation tool, thanks to the efforts of congressional supporters and preservation advocates across the country. While SAT is principally funded by the National Park Service (NPS), the National Trust for Historic Preservation has been a key partner in the program ...

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Interior Space: Preserving the International Space Station through Photography

By Special Contributor posted 27 days ago

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By Roland Miller Editor's note: National Trust for Historic Preservation staff members Priya Chhaya and Carson Bear recorded the live interview with Roland Miller and astronaut Paolo Nespoli that is featured in the clips embedded in this post. The full playlist of clips from that interview is on the National Trust YouTube channel . When the 50th anniversary of Yuri Gagarin’s inaugural human space flight came in 2011, astronaut Cady Coleman was on the International Space Station ...

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An Important Win for New Hampshire’s Scenic and Cultural Landscapes

By Special Contributor posted 28 days ago

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By Jennifer Goodman and Sharee Williamson For several years the New Hampshire Preservation Alliance and the National Trust for Historic Preservation have worked together to protect New Hampshire’s cultural landscapes from the proposed construction of an approximately 200-mile transmission line project called Northern Pass. This transmission line would stretch from Quebec, Canada, through the state of New Hampshire and include approximately 1,500 transmission towers. Many other conservation organizations ...

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On the Hill: Big Wins for Preservation in Long-Awaited Final FY18 Appropriations

By Special Contributor posted 03-23-2018

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By Tom Cassidy and Janelle DiLuccia A little more than a year ago, President Donald Trump sent his first budget request to Congress, outlining his administration’s priorities and proposing major cuts to historic preservation and many other domestic programs. After five stop-gap spending measures and two brief government shutdowns, Congress finally approved an omnibus appropriation bill this week setting funding levels for FY18 nearly six months into the fiscal year. The bill brings great news ...

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The Land and Water Conservation Fund: A Key Preservation Tool Set to Expire

By David J. Brown posted 03-23-2018

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For more than half a century, the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF) has been the principal funding mechanism for adding to our national parks, forests, and other public lands. But unless Congress acts to reauthorize the LWCF, this key tool will expire on September 30, 2018. The LWCF promotes outdoor recreation, from unlocking new areas for hunting, fishing, and hiking to helping states and local governments protect and develop parks and recreation facilities. Perhaps lesser known—but no ...

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2017 Pocantico Fellow Explores National Register and Cultural Landscapes

By Special Contributor posted 03-20-2018

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By Barbara Wyatt We are accepting applications for the 2018 Pocantico Fellowship (July 16–29) through March 30 . The Pocantico Fellowship afforded me an opportunity to write about the relationship between the National Register of Historic Places and cultural landscapes. As a federal government employee, I find it particularly difficult to find blocks of time for contemplative study, which is so essential for developing ideas and writing thoughtfully. Two weeks of absolute quiet ...

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Angelo Baca: Bears Ears and Working with Native Communities to Preserve Public Lands

By Priya Chhaya posted 03-15-2018

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In his proclamation establishing the Bears Ears National Monument , President Barack Obama included this moment of poetry: “From earth to sky, the region is unsurpassed in wonders. The star-filled nights and natural quiet of the Bears Ears area transport visitors to an earlier eon. Against an absolutely black night sky, our galaxy and others more distant leap into view. As one of the most intact and least roaded areas in the contiguous United States, Bears Ears has that rare and arresting quality ...

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2017 Revisions to the Land Trust Standards and Practices: An Introduction for Historic Preservation Organizations

By Special Contributor posted 03-14-2018

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By Raina Regan and Ross Bradford The Land Trust Standards and Practices are the “ethical and technical guidelines for the responsible operation of a land trust.” First developed by the Land Trust Alliance in 1989 and revised in subsequent decades, the Standards continue to evolve in response to changing practices in the land trust community. In 2008 the National Trust for Historic Preservation published “ Best Practices for Preservation Organizations Involved in Easement and Land Stewardship: ...

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Untapped Potential: Eight Top-Line Strategies for Promoting Building Reuse

By Carson Hartmann posted 03-08-2018

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With millions of buildings throughout the United States lying vacant and underused, cities need innovative strategies to incentivize the reuse of older buildings and discourage their demolition. This poster outlines eight top-line strategies for promoting building reuse in various urban contexts. Developed over the course of the five-year Partnership for Building Reuse between the National Trust for Historic Preservation and the Urban Land Institute, these strategies originally appeared in the ...

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Are You Connected? Join Forum Connect Today

By Rebecca Bice posted 03-07-2018

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With more than 2,400 users and close to 700 discussions to date, Preservation Leadership Forum’s online community, Forum Connect , is having a banner first year. Have you connected yet? Forum Connect is a free online networking tool that enables preservation professionals to create profiles (similar to those on LinkedIn), write discussion posts, send private messages to their contacts, and more. Let’s take a dive into some of the most popular posts on Forum Connect—examples of how you could ...

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The Road Ahead: Positioning the Historic Tax Credit for Positive Change

By Shaw Sprague posted 03-01-2018

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As the preservation community takes stock of the impressive victory we achieved in preserving the federal historic tax credit (HTC) during the tax reform process, let’s keep up our engagement and continue to build momentum to position the HTC for positive change down the road. Additional changes to the tax code are all but certain in the months and years ahead, and we must be ready to seize on these opportunities. View of the Capitol | Credit: Architect of the Capitol As our 2017 advocacy ...

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First & Main: Local Elected Officials Fight for Main Street

By Special Contributor posted 02-28-2018

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By John Robert Smith Local elected officials are uniquely positioned to tell federal decision-makers what their communities need to flourish, and scores of them are uniting behind a new blueprint for prosperity in these smaller and midsized communities. The nonpartisan First & Main initiative is a coalition of elected officials from small to mid-sized communities—that is, ones with populations of up to 150,000—across the country. Initiated by current and former elected officials, the ...

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