Excellence Award Spotlight: Ann-Isabel Friedman
“It’s an honor to have been nominated by my long-time SHPO colleague Kathy Howe, and to be recognized by Preservation League staff, officers, and trustees, many of them close colleagues and collaborators,” said Ann-Isabel Friedman. “The Sacred Sites program is the New York Landmarks Conservancy’s only state-wide program, and this honor is a testament to its reach and efficacy over the last 40 years.”
For more than 20 years, Ann-Isabel Friedman directed the Sacred Sites Program at The New York Landmarks Conservancy (NYLC) in New York City, acting as a tireless advocate for historic religious properties. Throughout her distinguished career, she provided an indispensable source of financial support, technical assistance, and educational programming for hundreds of religious spaces – not only in New York City, but throughout the State. The League is proud to recognize Ann’s extraordinary contributions to the field with a 2025 Excellence in Historic Preservation Award.
“Ann exemplifies the very best of our field,” said Erin Tobin, Executive Director of Adirondack Architectural Heritage. “She is thoughtful, visionary, and deeply committed to protecting the places that share our cultural identity in every corner of New York State. She has mentored many preservation professionals in her 30+ year career, including me.”
“Ann was incredibly devoted to assisting congregations across the State preserve their historic religious buildings. She had endless time for consultation and vast knowledge of the best contractors and restoration methods,” said Peg Breen, President of the New York Landmarks Conservancy. “Above all, she was beloved by her colleagues for her spirit and spunk.”
From 2001 until her retirement in 2024, Ann guided hundreds of congregations of all denominations as they replaced roofs, restored masonry work, did structural repairs, and revived stained glass windows. Not only did Ann provide technical assistance but she also facilitated the survey and National Register listing of countless historic religious properties, organized Sacred Sites open houses, and initiated a city-wide survey of historic religious properties in 2004 to better identify New York's important historic resources. Anne was skilled at guiding congregations and organizations through the intricate process of navigating preservation law, getting funding support, and matching religious sites with preservation professionals. Ann's contributions to religious properties are evident not only in restored buildings, but also in the vital services that these places provide, including food pantries, meeting halls, and migrant and health-related support services.
Ann said, “ At the Conservancy, I enjoyed travelling statewide, networking and collaborating with Preservation League staff and Preservation Colleague groups, co-hosting fundraising, repair and adaptive use workshops, and providing referrals to architects and contractors to help guide cost-effective repair and restoration. I also enjoyed getting to know and work with SHPO and Parks colleagues to help religious institutions obtain National Register listing to qualify for Conservancy funding, and potentially augment Conservancy grants with substantial state grant funding.”
In her nomination, Kathy Howe Community Preservation Bureau Director at the NYS NYS Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation, said, “Ann was always available to offer her guidance and expertise to the many different congregations that are the stewards of historic religious buildings throughout the state. Many religious properties that were threatened with demolition or suffering from extreme deterioration have been saved thanks to Ann's determination, creative problem-solving skills, and advocacy.”
After almost 24 years at the helm of NYLC’s Sacred Sites program, Ann had many highlights of her statewide work (a few photos of her at work over the years seen at right). When we asked what some of her proudest professional moments were, this is what she told us:
In my time at the Conservancy, there were some great Cinderella projects, where our advice, referrals, and financial support really made a difference. Rugged Cross Baptist, originally a Lutheran Church in Bedford Stuyvesant, Brooklyn called the Conservancy when the top central panel of their altar window pancaked; Jesus had literally fallen out of the building. There was also a large hole in their tower roof. The church was about to develop affordable housing on their parking lot. We referred the church to a stained glass studio to secure and store the window, to a preservation architect to assess the building envelope, and reached out to the developer to match Conservancy funding for a conditions assessment and construction documents. Kathy Howe wrote the National Register nomination, and Parks augmented about $85,000 in Conservancy funding with a major EPF grant, agreeing that if we restored the tile tower roof, the less visible gable roof could be replaced in kind with asphalt shingle, extending the project budget. Other multi-year, major projects included the restoration of Queens oldest surviving synagogue, Congregation Tifereth Israel, with Conservancy, state, and city funding; and the stabilization and adaptive use of Universal Preservation Hall in Saratoga Springs, where we helped fund initial shoring and stabilization; and then helped with additional referrals and guidance for drawing down state funding as ownership shifted from Universal Baptist Church to secular nonprofit performing arts and event space. I’m also proud of the city-wide survey of religious properties that I helped launch and manage, which was completed this past summer by the Conservancy’s current Sacred Sites Director, Colleen Heemeyer. The survey has identified hundreds of significant sites, resulting in over 50 National Register nominations, including New York City’s oldest extant mosque, in Williamsburg, and twenty synagogues, making these sites eligible for Conservancy funding. Twenty of these have garnered multiple Conservancy grants totaling $650,000, with three sites receiving additional New York State restoration grants totaling $950,000.