Preserve New York Grants - 2022
413 East 120th Street is part of the area of focus for Ascendant Neighborhood Development’s Cultural Resource Survey in Northeast Harlem. Photo credit: Sindayiganza Photography
The Preservation League of NYS and their program partners at the New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA) and the Robert David Lion Gardiner Foundation are thrilled to announce the recipients of their 2022 Preserve New York grants.
At its 2022 meeting, an independent grant panel selected 22 applicants in 18 counties to receive support totaling $235,920. Each grant supports important arts and cultural initiatives, as well as economic development related to our state’s arts and cultural heritage. Many of these grants will lead to historic district designation or expansion, telling the stories of communities throughout the state and allowing property owners to take advantage of the New York State and Federal Historic Tax Credits. This is even more valuable now, with the NYS Commercial Historic Tax Credit recently expanded for small projects, granting property owners a 30% credit. With the announcement of the 2022 awards, support provided by Preserve New York since its launch in 1993 totals more than $3.5 million to 510 projects statewide.
SCROLL TO LEARN MORE ABOUT THIS YEAR’S PNY GRANT RECIPIENTS, OR JUMP TO A SPECIFIC COUNTY:
Albany | Cattaraugus | Chautauqua | Clinton | Columbia | Dutchess | Erie | Herkimer | Kings | Monroe | Nassau | New York | Onondaga | Orleans | Schenectady | Suffolk | Ulster | Washington
Albany County
Students in front of the Pavilion with a mountain seen rising in the background. photo by Dorothy Matthews
Heldeberg Workshop, $8,000
Historic Landscape Report
The 237-acre Heldeberg Workshop property is ecologically diverse, geologically stunning, and has a rich but little understood history. It contains foundations of a pre-1767 homestead and a possible barn, a well, remains of an abandoned road, and an 1850s-era cemetery. The property is the site of a farm owned by Captain Henry Crounse, a Civil War Army officer. Crounse’s descendants cultivated an apple orchard, and these aging apple trees are reminders of the important role that fruit trees played in the town of New Scotland in the 20th century. This Historic Landscape Report will document the history and usage of the property from 1750 to the present day and provide recommendations about how to best share this historical knowledge with Capital District residents. The Report will also provide specific recommendations about how to stabilize the Heldeberg Workshop’s historical features so they can be preserved.
Cattaraugus County
A historic bank building with an arched window doorway, featuring a mural of theatre tragedy and comedy masks on the side of the building.
Gowanda’s Historic Hollywood Theater, Ltd., $8,400
Gowanda Savings and Loan Building Condition Report
Chautauqua County
A brown brick, two-story building
The Village of Lakewood, $13,440
1915 Village Hall Historic Structure Report
The Lakewood Village Hall was constructed in 1915 to serve as the first established location for the volunteer Lakewood Hose Company. Over the course of its more than 100 years of continuous operation, the building also functioned as a police station, history museum, community center, and Lakewood’s Village Court. The Village is planning for the building’s next generation of service. Clinton Brown Company Architecture, pc, will prepare the Historic Structure Report. The Village will use this Report for planning and funding capital improvement that will retain its historic character and improve its function for Village staff and residents.
Clinton County
A drone shot showing the Old State Road Bridge over the Ausable River. The top of the frame contains lush greenery.
County of Clinton, $12,000
Historic Structure Report for the Old State Road Bridge over the Ausable River
Old State Road passes through the former settlement of Ausable Chasm, a once thriving 19th century industrial community. During the 19th century, Old State Road crossed the Chasm via a succession of single lane wooden bridges. The present-day iron bridge is a single lane, double span, wrought iron Pratt Pony Truss bridge built sometime between 1890-1900. The Old State Road bridge closed to pedestrian and vehicular traffic in 2005 due to significant structural deficiencies that rendered the bridge unsafe. The Ausable, Keeseville, and Chesterfield communities have recently expressed interest in re-opening the bridge to vehicular traffic, requiring extensive rehabilitation work. A Historic Structure Report will be one of the first steps in the preliminary design for the rehabilitation of the structure. The Clinton County Highway Department will work with consultants from Foit-Albert Associates Architecture, Engineering and Surveying, P.C. of Buffalo to complete the Report.
44 Felton Road in the hamlet of Schuyler Falls. The red brick, two-story home has a wraparound porch and American flags displayed over the entrance. Credit: Christine Bush
Town of Schuyler Falls, $4,400
Hamlet of Schuyler Falls Cultural Resource Survey
The hamlet of Schuyler Falls is an intact example of early 19th and 20th century residential and commercial architecture in the North Country region. This year’s Preserve New York grant will extend the town-wide survey facilitated by a 2019 PNY award. The Town of Schuyler Falls will work with Adirondack Architectural Heritage to complete the survey, leading to an eventual National Register nomination. With National Register status, residents can take advantage of historic tax credits and other grant opportunities not otherwise available.
Columbia County
Photo shows a white, Victorian home with wraparound front porch partially obscured by a large bush. Credit: Jessie A. Ravage
Philmont Beautification, Inc., $14,000
Village of Philmont Historic District, Cultural Resource Survey
This grant follows a 2019 Preserve New York award that funded another Cultural Resource Survey in the Village of Philmont, which reviewed 425 properties. That survey, completed in January 2021, resulted in a Resource Evaluation by the NYS Historic Preservation Office determining a National Register-eligible historic district encompassing nearly all of the village’s historic infrastructure. Philmont retains a variety of residential architecture—both in taste and scale—representative of the period of development from the mid-1840s through the second quarter of the 1900s. Churches, an opera house, hotels and taverns, mill worker row houses, and commercial buildings form a coherent historic streetscape.
Dutchess County
12 Vassar Street is one of two historic Victorian Italianate buildings operated by the Cunneed-Hackett Art Center in Poughkeepsie.
The Cunneen-Hackett Arts Center, $13,320
9 and 12 Vassar Street Building Condition Reports
Janet A. Null from Argus Architecture will oversee a team of expert architectural engineers to conduct an in depth analysis of both buildings operated by Cunneen-Hackett Arts Center to create two Building Condition Reports. The Reports will give a thorough engineering assessment of the buildings’ structure and current condition; identifying maintenance concerns and hidden damages related to the age of the buildings. The team will make recommendations based on their findings that ensure the continued preservation of these historic landmarks and prioritize the most necessary and immediate renovations to those that can wait. The CHAC Board of Directors can then budget for these projects and look for ways to fund them.
The stone meeting house seen from the side. It is two stories with an attic and a covered front porch.
Town of Clinton Historical Society, $17,000
Creek Meeting House Historic Structure Report
The National Register-listed stone structure was built in 1777 as a Quaker Meeting House. Now home to the Town of Clinton Historical Society, the Creek Meeting House helps tell the story of the town through its building and collections. Their Preserve New York grant will be used to fund preparation of a historic structure report by John G. Waite Associates of Albany, NY. This document will guide future preservation work to ensure the Meeting House will continue to serve its community for many years to come.
Erie County
Side elevation of fog signal building. Photo by Mike Vogel
Buffalo Lighthouse Association, $14,000
Lighthouse fog signal building Historic Structure Report
The South Buffalo Lighthouse was replaced with an automated light in 1962 and the historic structure was left to the elements, ending the era of keeper-tended lights in the Buffalo area. A decade ago, the Association began work on the deteriorating station, and has raised more than $650,000 to reverse the decay and preserve the South Buffalo icon. With preservation work on the tower nearing completion, work will center on the fog signal building that once served as the U.S. Lighthouse Service’s fog signal testing station for the Great Lakes as well as the support building for a Marconi tower that was the Great Lakes region’s first radio station. Severe lake storms, especially in the last three years, have sent waves crashing through that building. Storms and vandals have left holes in the roof that supports giant 11-foot reflectors and trumpets that sent the fog horn’s mournful wail out over the lake. The Historic Structures Report by Clinton Brown Company Architecture, PC will include both history research and conditions assessment that will aid the ongoing station work by the nation’s leading lighthouse engineering firm, locally based ICC Commonwealth.
Locust Street Art is housed in a former convent. The two-story brick building features a green mansard roof and arched doorway.
Locust Street Neighborhood Art Classes, Inc., $14,000
Historic Structure Report
Locust Street Art (LSA) will continue its work with Clinton Brown Company Architecture, PC to prepare a Historic Structure Report for their National Register-eligible former convent building. The Preservation League previously funded a Handicapped Accessibility Study in 2021 through the Technical Assistance Grant program, also a NYSCA regrant partnership. This year’s Report will support LSA in its effort to restore and preserve its iconic community building, thus supporting locally initiated historic preservation efforts in the Fruit Belt Neighborhood of the City of Buffalo. With these reports in place, LSA will be able to move forward on a multi-phase plan to construct ADA friendly/compliant components to the existing building to better serve those in our communities who are differently abled.
Herkimer County
Streetscape in the Village of West Winfield
Village of West Winfield
Village of West Winfield Cultural Resource Survey
Kings County
A row of two-story townhouses all featuring bay windows on lower and upper floors.
Prospect Lefferts Gardens Heritage Council, $7,423
Prospect Lefferts Gardens Neighborhood Cultural Resource Survey
Prospect Lefferts Gardens is an ethnically diverse neighborhood in Central Brooklyn with richly varied architecture. Housing was designed in styles popular in middle-class neighborhoods at the turn of the century, including Renaissance Revival, Romanesque Revival, Spanish Mission style, Colonial Revival, Tudor Revival, and Art Deco. Restrictive covenants meant the neighborhood grew cohesively, and it remains one of the finest enclaves of nineteenth- and early twentieth-century housing in New York City. Prospect Lefferts Gardens Heritage Council Inc. (PLGHC), in partnership with the staff of the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation & Historic Preservation, has identified this area as an important historical and cultural resource that merits preservation and positive action against developmental pressures and the deferring of property maintenance due to cost. This Preserve New York grant will allow PLGHC to contract with AKRF, Inc. to complete a Cultural Resource Survey of the neighborhood. This document will inform a future National Register nomination. Once listed, homeowners will be able to take advantage of Historic Tax Credits, making upkeep of their historic buildings much more affordable.
Monroe County
The Stone-Tolan House, seen at an angle with a bare tree to the left in the foreground. It is a red, 2-story frame house with a 1-story frame wing. It is a vernacular Federal-style structure and served as a frontier tavern, public meeting place, and pioneer homestead.
The Landmark Society of Western New York, $9,560
Stone-Tolan Historic Site Building Condition Report
Stone-Tolan is the oldest structure in Monroe County, constructed in two stages in 1792 and c.1805. The four-acre site is architecturally and historically significant, is listed in the National Register of Historic Places, and is a designated Town of Brighton landmark. The site reflects the early European-American settlement in the area (serving as a home, farmstead, tavern, and inn). The site also holds the Council Rock, a significant feature to the Seneca Nation. This large erratic boulder marked the location for Nation gatherings before the incursion of European-American settlers from New England.
The Landmark Society will be working with project consultant Bero Architecture, PLLC. The firm has a long history with the site, including completing a condition report in 1986 and managing almost a dozen repair and restoration projects from the 1980s through the early 2000s. The Building Condition Report funded by this year’s Preserve New York grant will focus on the Stone-Tolan House and associated outbuildings, including the shed, smokehouse, and privy.
Nassau County
A view just above ground-level of weathered gravestones in Monfort Cemetery.
Town of North Hempstead, $9,600
Monfort Cemetery Existing Conditions Report
The Town of North Hempstead will be working with Burying Ground Preservation Group, Inc. to complete the Existing Conditions Report of Monfort Cemetery. This document will inform future efforts to restore this historic Port Washington burial ground. The Monfort Cemetery contains the graves of approximately 154 early residents of the community, ranging from 1737-1892, who are arranged in the cemetery as family groupings in thirteen rows. The gravesites include some of the Town of North Hempstead’s earliest Dutch settlers and their descendants, including that of Adrian Onderdonck, the Town’s first supervisor and a signer of the 1775 declaration of independence that split North Hempstead from that of Hempstead Town. The significance of the site in telling the story of the separation of the Towns of Hempstead and North Hempstead after the American Revolution is especially timely, considering the run-up to commemoration planning for the 250th Anniversary.
New York County
Streetscape at Madison and East 129th Street. Credit: Sindayiganza Photography
Ascendant Neighborhood Development Corporation, $12,000
Northern East Harlem Cultural Resource Survey
Ascendant and Landmark East Harlem, along with other local stakeholders, will use their 2022 Preserve New York grant to identify potential individual State and National Register listings as well as the boundaries of potential new historic districts. This work follows previous reports also funded through Preserve New York grants in 2019 and 2021. Preservation consultant Bill Morache will undertake a reconnaissance level survey of the northern portion of the neighborhood of East Harlem in Northern Manhattan. The study area is a diverse, mixed-use enclave within the larger Harlem community. The study area encompasses the blocks bounded by East 115th Street to the south, Fifth Avenue/Marcus Garvey Park to the west, and the East/Harlem Rivers to the north and east, respectively. Ascendant, and its partners in the Landmark East Harlem alliance, successfully worked to list the East Harlem Historic District on the State and National Registers of Historic Places in 2019. Ascendant and LEH secured a determination of eligibility for the proposed East-Central Harlem Historic District in 2020, and they are working on a nomination to list that historic district in 2022.
Sculpture by William Tarr dedicated to Martin Luther King Jr., outside of Martin Luther King Jr. High School on Amsterdam and 66th Street. Photo by Mid-Century Mundane Blog
Landmark West!, $3,402
Upper West Side public art Cultural Resource Survey
The Upper West Side is entrenched in (and a reflection of!) American culture, from the decades-long presence of the Lincoln Center and home of the American Broadcasting Campuses alone. As institutions have expanded and contracted, many pieces of public and semi-public art have disappeared. This cultural resource survey is a reconnaissance mission by Landmark West! to find and document the remaining artwork across the neighborhood, a crucial component to preserving and celebrating our communities’ cultural heritage.
Onondaga County
The 1850 Weighlock Building in Downtown Syracuse seen from the northeast.
Erie Canal Museum, $8,000
1850 Weighlock Building Condition Report
The Syracuse Weighlock Building is an important example of Erie Canal architecture and history. Built in 1850, it is the last surviving weighlock building in New York and the current home of the Erie Canal Museum. Their Preserve New York grant will fund a full condition report of the historic building to be completed by Crawford & Stearns, Architects and Preservation Planners LLC. The report will allow museum staff to plan out future repairs and renovations that will preserve the historic integrity of the structure for many years to come.
Orleans County
One of the Cobblestone Museum’s properties is the 1883 First Universalist Church. Built in the Federal style, the building represents the oldest cobblestone church in North America. It was constructed using fieldstones set in courses roughly 4 1/4″ high, with rough cut limestone quoins varying in size from 8″ x 14″ to 9″ x 23″. Bricks were used for lintels and the sills were fashioned from wood. Masons used the depressed hexagonal or “Gaines Pattern” of mortar embellishment.
The Cobblestone Society & Museum, $8,000
Hamlet of Childs Cultural Resource Survey
Through its Preserve New York grant, the Cobblestone Museum will work with the Landmark Society of Western New York to conduct a Cultural Resource Survey of the Hamlet of Childs. This reconnaissance level survey will be used to inform a National Register historic district nomination, which will include the Cobblestone Museum buildings and surrounding properties. This project seeks to build on the momentum created by the inclusion of the Hamlet on the Landmark Society’s 2019 Five to Revive list. The Museum has been in contact with the New York State Historic Preservation Office and has identified preliminary district boundaries.
Schenectady County
The Mabee Farmouse
Schenectady County Historical Society, $13,000
Mabee Farm Building Conditions Assessment
The Mabee Farm Historic Site is the oldest extant house in the Mohawk Valley, and a rare surviving example of intact modest eighteenth century rural domestic building that retains much of its original material and design. The site is of significant historic and educational value to Schenectady County and its people. Over the last two decades, the site has developed into a pre-eminent eighteenth and nineteenth century farm museum of the Mohawk Valley and Capital Region, offering a diverse interpretive experience in a historically and architecturally rich setting. Generating a Building Condition Report means we can take vital steps in preserving and maintaining the house, thereby ensuring this significant set of structures is properly cared for.
Suffolk County
A two-story, grey house with a steeply pitched roof sits behind a short picket fence with a blue sky behind.
Southampton History Museum, $8,440
Halsey House Building Condition Report
Halsey House was built in 1683 and was recently declared New York State’s oldest, wood-frame building. Purchased by the Southampton History Museum and restored in 1960, it soon opened to the public with exhibits on a Southampton pioneering family and the Shinnecock Tribe. Visitors who pass through the weathered front door find the wide-planked floors, hand-hewn beams, furnishings, textiles and objects that were the backdrop for domestic farm life in colonial times. Outside, the culinary and medicinal plants that were once household necessities flourish in a replication of a colonial herb garden. The Southampton History Museum will work with Steward Preservation Services, Inc. to complete a Building Condition Report to assess current rehabilitation needs and allow the museum to set a timeline and beginning fundraising.
Ulster County
Lattingtown Baptist Church, a two-story, white church building set back behind a small graveyard.
Town of Marlborough, $10,000
Town of Marlborough Hamlets Cultural Resource Survey
Washington County
The stone blast furnace seen from an angle, with two openings visible at ground-level. The furnace is partly obscured by the surrounding vegetation.
Friends of Camp Little Notch, $$8,560
Mount Hope Blast Iron Furnace Historic Structure Report
The creation of a Historic Structure Report and Condition Assessment will guide the Friends Of Camp Little Notch (FOCLN) board as they prioritize steps to stabilize and preserve the National Register-eligible iron ore furnace and associated landscape. The furnace is often acknowledged as the most significant unreconstructed example of its era remaining in New York State. Janet A. Null, Architect with Argus Architecture and Preservation, PC of Troy, NY, will complete the Historic Structure Report. Null was the principal consultant who completed the research and stabilization/preservation recommendations of the better-known McIntyre furnace near Newcomb, New York. Being an expert with 1800s iron furnace preservation will allow her to provide FOCLN with in-depth historical information in the context of statewide history and to provide state-of-the art recommendations for the furnace’s stabilization/preservation.
“The Preserve New York program ensures arts and culture organizations continue to be beacons of New York’s rich history. By preserving significant spaces and sites, we promote vitality and drive economic activity across our great state,” said Mara Manus, NYSCA Executive Director. “NYSCA applauds the Preservation League of New York State for their stewardship of this crucial opportunity and extends our sincere congratulations to all awardees.”
“The projects funded by Preserve New York exemplify the excellent preservation planning work being done throughout our state,” said Katie Eggers Comeau, Vice President for Policy and Preservation at the Preservation League. “The League is grateful to our program partners at NYSCA and the Gardiner Foundation for their support for Preserve New York. With each of these grants, a meaningful historic place takes a significant step toward a more secure future, and we are pleased to be working with such dedicated project sponsors to make this work possible.”
“The Robert David Lion Gardiner Foundation is delighted to have partnered once again with the Preservation League of New York State to support preservation projects on Long Island. These awards prepare our stewards to professionally assess the needs of future renovation and restoration of their historic site, thus saving them as educational tools for future generations,” said Kathryn M. Curran, Executive Director of the Robert David Lion Gardiner Foundation.
The Preserve New York program is a regrant partnership between the New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA) and the Preservation League, made possible with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature. The Robert David Lion Gardiner Foundation has generously provided additional funds to support nonprofit projects in Nassau and Suffolk Counties.
Since 1993, Preserve New York has been providing funds to municipalities and nonprofit organizations that need technical, professional assistance to guide a variety of preservation projects. The historic structure reports, building condition reports, cultural landscape reports, and cultural resource surveys funded through this program lead to positive outcomes across New York’s 62 counties.
About the Preservation League of New York State
Since its founding in 1974, the Preservation League has built a reputation for action and effectiveness. Our goal has been to preserve our historic buildings, districts, and landscapes and to build a better New York, one community at a time. The Preservation League of New York State invests in people and projects that champion the essential role of preservation in community revitalization, sustainable economic growth and the protection of our historic buildings and landscapes. We lead advocacy, economic development, and education programs across the state.
Connect with us at preservenys.org, facebook.com/preservenys, twitter.com/preservenys, and instagram.com/preservenys, and youtube.com/c/PreservationLeague.