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Historic Leasing Opportunities in America’s Newest National Park—and Across the Country

By Christine Luthy posted 2 days ago
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Historic leasing plays an important part in protecting historic assets and increasing community engagement in America’s most recently designated national park. Indiana Dunes National Park —formerly Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore—manages multiple leases for a variety of purposes, including private residences, preschools, and youth camps. For the past several decades, historic leasing has enabled Indiana Dunes to provide for the long-term preservation of underused and underfunded structures, ...
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Imaging Labor History and Worker Spaces at Industrial Heritage Sites

By Sarah Rovang posted 4 days ago
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Preservation Leadership Forum is presenting a series of posts by Sarah Rovang , the 2017 recipient of the H. Allen Brooks Travelling Fellowship from the Society of Architectural Historians. The fellowship allows its recipients—recent graduates with advanced degrees or emerging scholars—to study by travel for one year, providing them with opportunities to see and experience architecture and landscapes firsthand; think about their profession deeply; and acquire knowledge that will be useful for ...
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Research & Policy Lab Insight: Building Age By Era of Construction

By Carson Hartmann posted 9 days ago
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The staff of the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s Research & Policy Lab will be sharing short insights that use the lab’s data analysis and visualization capabilities to demonstrate the power and potential of preservation. We hope you’ll find these insights engaging, dynamic, and fun.   We’ve made one of the static charts from the Atlas of ReUrbanism summary report interactive. The chart displays how much of the building stock in each city was constructed during certain ...
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Remembering Dawn Bohulano Mabalon

By Michelle Magalong posted 12 days ago
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It is my hope that the love, respect, and commitment we feel for our historic community runs deeper than anything that can divide us. Little Manila will always be in our hearts. —Dawn Bohulano Mabalon   Dr. Dawn Bohulano Mabalon, a passionate activist who dedicated her life to chronicling the rich Filipina/o-American history in California and the United States, died unexpectedly in August 2018. Mabalon was well known as the premiere historian focused on Filipina/o Americans of her generation and ...
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Maryland’s New Flood Mitigation Guide for Historic Buildings

By Anthony Veerkamp posted 16 days ago
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The devastation caused by this spring’s historic flooding is just the latest reminder of how vulnerable our communities are to extreme weather. As flooding, coastal storms, wildfires, and other climate-related disasters become more frequent and severe, none of the historic places we care about will be immune to climate impacts. Climate change is a threat multiplier that requires preservationists to work hard to protect our heritage and cultural traditions.  The U.S. response to climate change ...
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Macon: Revitalization Through Preservation

By Special Contributor posted 18 days ago
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By Oby Brown and Rachelle Wilson   Historic Macon Foundation (HMF) is the winner of the 2018 Trustees' Award for Organizational Excellence , which recognizes a nonprofit organization that has demonstrated sustained and superlative achievement in historic preservation. We asked HMF staff to share some thoughts about the organization’s role in Macon’s revival.   The middle Georgia city of Macon has long been known for its architecture, natural landmarks, and accessibility by rail and river. ...
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From Dilapidated to Delectable: How the Passion for Pie Created a District

By Special Contributor posted 23 days ago
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By Chris Aronson and Mary Gilliland On the morning before Halloween 2015, two architects from Vaught Frye Larson Aronson Architects (VFLA) stood in an abandoned building in Fort Collins, Colorado. Appropriate to the holiday, the cob-webbed interior was cold and musty; it smelled like decay and bird droppings. Whether this was a good day to start field measuring became a point of contention, though they nonetheless agreed that they were doing what they loved. This white brick building started ...
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Heritage Conservation for All Ages

By Sarah Marsom posted 25 days ago
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Sarah Marsom is the winner of the 2018 American Express Aspire Award, which recognizes an emerging leader who has made significant achievements in the preservation field. We asked Marsom to share some thoughts about her work—and the field overall. Fostering connections to the past and to place from an early age is imperative for the growth of individuals—and seeing those connections through to careers is vital for the future of historic preservation. Think about the moments that made you the ...
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Building Tomorrow’s Heritage: Lessons from Psychology and Health Sciences

By Special Contributor posted 04-25-2019
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By Michael W. Mehaffy and Nikos A. Salingaros This is the second post in a series about recent lessons from the sciences for historic preservation and compatible new development. The authors—a physicist and mathematician, and an urban researcher and philosopher—explore emerging scientific findings about historic structures and discuss lessons for generating more sustainable and resilient human environments. In our previous post , we noted that human heritage represents a kind of evolutionary ...
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Creating a Richer Visitor Experience at Drayton Hall

By Special Contributor posted 04-17-2019
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By Trish Lowe Smith and Sarah Stroud Clarke Preserve as is, never restore—that, in a nutshell, is the preservation philosophy at Drayton Hall , a historic site of the National Trust for Historic Preservation. Widely believed to be the first and best Palladian house in North America, Drayton Hall—which remained in the Drayton family for seven consecutive generations—is a remarkably intact 18th-century estate on the Ashley River in Charleston, South Carolina. Because of its architectural significance ...
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Forum Webinar: Managing Photography at Historic Sites

By Forum Online posted 04-10-2019
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On March 19 Preservation Leadership Forum and two of the National Trust’s Historic Sites joined forces to host the most recent Forum Webinar —a conversation about DIY photography at historic sites. Panelists Corey Heyward, Wexler Curatorial Fellow at Drayton Hall , and Christa Carr, director of communications at The Glass House , shared their expertise and answered questions from participants. They discussed everything from photographing collections, to capturing complex landscapes, to what makes ...
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Why I Created the Guide to Becoming a Historic Preservationist

By Jeremy Wells posted 04-09-2019
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In the early 1990s, when I was in my 20s, I contemplated a career change from computer systems administration. It was an avocation that had found me—I had never had a desire to keep doing the work long term. I had not yet finished my undergraduate degree and was rigorously investigating various universities and colleges.  This was right at the cusp of the popularization of the internet, and one day, I got the chance to use NCSA Mosaic, the world’s first web browser. I remember how excited I was ...
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Action Alert: Comment on Proposed Rule Changes to National Register of Historic Places Nominations

By Special Contributor posted 04-05-2019
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By Sharee Williamson and Elizabeth S. Merritt   Editor's Note:  Read the National Trust for Historic Preservation's formal comments .   The National Park Service (NPS) recently proposed making substantial, troubling changes to the rules that govern nominations to the National Register of Historic Places. The National Register is an important repository of information about the nation’s historic places that also serves significant regulatory purposes. Section 106 of the National Historic ...
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Forum Journal Seeking Articles About Enduring New Construction and Preservation Law

By Forum Online posted 03-28-2019
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Editor's Note: Deadline Extended to May 9.  The Preservation Leadership Forum is soliciting submissions for two forthcoming Forum Journal issues. By seeking articles from our preservation leader community, we hope to spotlight pioneering approaches and give new voices a platform in the Journal . Enduring New Construction One of the issues will examine what role preservationists should play in inspiring, encouraging, or regulating the design and construction of enduring new buildings. ...
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Major Cuts Proposed in President’s FY20 Budget

By Janelle DiLuccia posted 03-26-2019
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Last week President Donald Trump released the full details of his FY20 budget request, proposing drastic reductions in domestic discretionary spending—including cuts to key preservation programs that impact every state and congressional district in the country. These cuts would stand in sharp contrast to the funding provided in the FY19 Interior appropriations bill signed into law just more than a month ago. The bill provided a record $102.6 million for the Historic Preservation Fund (HPF) and strong ...
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Forum Webinar: Ensuring Perpetuity: Effective Easement Monitoring

By Forum Online posted 03-22-2019
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On March 13 Preservation Leadership Forum hosted the most recent Forum Webinar , which focused on easement monitoring as a critical component of a preservation organization’s easement program.  Regular monitoring not only ensures compliance with the property’s easement but it can also be a valuable tool to improve relationships between the property owner and the easement-holding organization. Speakers Raina Regan, senior manager of easements at the National Trust for Historic Preservation, and ...
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A Preservation Look Forward

By David Brown posted 03-19-2019
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This post is adapted from remarks at the February 23, 2019, National Trust for Historic Preservation Board of Trustees meeting. Board chairman Timothy Whalen invited me to speak at my last board meeting after more than two decades with the National Trust.   Over the past 22 years, I made it a practice to regularly reflect on both the legacy and the promise of the National Trust for Historic Preservation. We were founded by Congressional Charter after America’s leaders had seen the destruction ...
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Two Movements, Intertwined?

By Special Contributor posted 03-15-2019
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By John H. Sprinkle Jr. The Pocantico Center Preservation Fellowship, now in its fifth year, is funded by the Rockefeller Brothers Fund and the National Trust for Historic Preservation. This two-week residential fellowship provides preservation professionals with the opportunity to reside in the historic Marcel Breuer House in Pocantico Hills, New York, while working on a defined project with significant benefit to the preservation field.  Through April 19, we are accepting applications for ...
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We Can Carry the Change in Preservation Forward—But Not Alone

By Katie Rispoli Keaotamai posted 03-14-2019
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Preservationists have made substantial progress toward a more inclusive, less restricted movement. Our practice is increasingly multifaceted—we are staffing historic sites, working in construction trades, supporting real estate and economic development, and working as advocacy professionals. And this range of preservation professionals of all ages and levels of experience is active in the conversation about the future of preservation , engaging on subjects like climate change, development, business ...
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The National Trust Community Investment Corporation’s Investments in Opportunity Zones

By Merrill Hoopengardner posted 03-11-2019
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As Opportunity Zones continue to come into focus, the National Trust Community Investment Corporation (NTCIC) is collaborating with investors, real estate developers, and community development leaders to explore how Opportunity Zone capital can best be used in underserved communities and complement successful incentives such as the New Markets Tax Credit (NMTC) and historic tax credits (HTCs). Since 2000 NTCIC has invested more than $1 billion in 175 transformative community development projects ...
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