Rethinking Preservation in Urban Settings
For this panel, we invited people working across the state, from Buffalo to Queens, who are thinking outside the preservation box to work with their communities. We wanted to look at how practitioners take a more holistic approach to preservation in urban centers — not just relying on tried and true preservation tools like landmark designation and historic tax credits. From cultural districts to building shell stabilization, there are so many ways preservationists can engage with the complicated realities of their city's built environment to better serve the people who call these places home.
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Gentrification is Inevitable and Other Lies
In April, we hosted a virtual Roundtable to discuss Leslie Kern’s book Gentrification is Inevitable and Other Lies. For anyone who missed the conversation, we wanted to share a few key resources mentioned during the Zoom.
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Expanding Narratives: The Erie Canal and Beyond
This panel used the iconic Erie Canal as a starting point for a conversation about how organizations can be better about sharing complicated histories, touching on issues related to environmental justice, urban renewal, disinvestment, segregation, and displacement. There is no single narrative about any history or historic place — the realities are often complicated, messy, and worth spending time thinking critically about. History is constantly being written and rewritten and we are all active participants in that process. The panelists also talked about implementation, how we take steps to truly tell a more complete story through our preservation work.
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Disability Justice in Preservation
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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Salvaging What Can't be Saved: Deconstruction, Salvage & Sustainability
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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Public Art x Preservation
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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Social Justice and Preservation of Place
Presented in partnership with the Tenement Museum, this webinar explored the intersection of social justice and preservation. How can the act of preserving and stewarding a building tie directly into a broader social justice mission? We wanted to explore the idea that preserving, restoring, rehabilitating, and stewarding a physical place can be integral to social justice work. In this conversation, we dig into how different kinds of organizations can incorporate preservation practices, without necessarily being a “preservation” organization.
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Preserving Black Heritage on Long Island: The Pyrrhus Concer Action Committee as Case Study
The effort to save the Pyrrhus Concer Homestead demonstrates how interdisciplinary coalition-building can support historic preservation efforts, centered around issues of equity and social justice.
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Workforce Development in Preservation
In this webinar, panelists representing successful preservation trades training programs share their best practices, program specifics, and talk about the perennial need for these kinds of opportunities.
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Preservation in the Adirondacks
We brought together three Adirondack-based preservationists to explore how the preservation movement has helped shape the region and how it continues to evolve.
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Telling the Full Story: Reinterpreting History in New York
How do we get to a place where "telling the full story" is normal instead of novel? In this webinar we heard from leaders of historic sites around the state who are doing the work to bring underrepresented histories to light.
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Preserving LGBTQ History
For Pride Month, we hosted a panel to talk about the importance of preserving LGBTQ+ history.
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Land Banks, Preservation & Affordable Housing
We invited several professionals whose work exists at the intersection of preservation and affordable housing to hear their perspectives on how this work is being done successfully — and what challenges still exist. Our panelists share examples of how preservation and affordable housing efforts can work together, from community land trusts to land banks, along with specific project examples.
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Sustainable Preservation
In this webinar, the League welcomed Nakita Reed, Associate at Quinn Evans, Evan Mason, Principal of Sustainable Homes+Yards, Melissa Auf der Maur, Director and Co-founder of Basilica Hudson and River House Project, and Angel Ayón, Principal of AYON Studio Architecture and Preservation, to have a conversation around the intersection of preservation and sustainability, from specific policy issues and project examples to how the field needs to move forward.
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Heritage Buildings and the Art of Creating Healthy Environments
Our relationship with the built environment has changed considerably over the past year. COVID-19 has disrupted our lives in myriad ways, including how and where we spend our time. We have spent so much time in our own homes, so little time in indoor public spaces, and more time — if we were lucky — taking refuge outdoors. Over a year into the pandemic, things are starting to open back up, and we are starting to think about how our public places can better serve us in a post-COVID world. When the team from Walter Sedovic Architects | Modern Ruins reached out about putting a webinar together to do a deep dive into this topic, we jumped at the chance to host them.
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The Great Migration in New York
While we’ve been reading Isabel Wilkerson’s The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration as our February Preservation Book Club pick, we wanted to dive into the topic of the Great Migration and its effect on New York. On Tuesday, February 23, we welcomed historians Dr. Carla DuBose-Simons and Dr. Jennifer Lemak and members of the Rapp Road Historical Association Beverly Bardequez and Stephanie Woodard to share their expertise.
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Elmhurst African American Burial Ground in Conversation
Learn more about the work being by the Elmhurst History and Cemeteries Preservation Society to advocate for the protection of the Elmhurst African American Burial Ground.
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Further Reading on Sag Harbor's SANS Community
We’re closing out our Seven to Save spotlight on SANS with a roundup of content, including recommended reading and media coverage to help paint a more complete picture of this special place.
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