2024 marks the 25th Anniversary of the League’s Seven to Save program. We’ll be sharing highlights throughout the year with a new list planned for 2025.

The Preservation League has been helping New York State communities retain and reuse threatened sites through its Seven to Save Endangered Sites Program since 1999. Building on partnerships with groups and individuals, Seven to Save listing has been a key catalyst to the successful revival of dozens of buildings, landscapes, downtowns, and neighborhoods endangered by threats such as lack of regulatory protections, neglect, imminent demolition, and incompatible development.

Our call for nominations will open in August for inclusion on the 2025-2026 Seven to Save list.

We encourage applications reflecting the cultural and economic diversity of our state and its history, as well as its extraordinary heritage of architecture and design reflected in all property types. 

We draw statewide attention to New York’s most important and at-risk historic places through our Biennial Seven to Save program.

Click here to see all of our previous Seven to Saves.


Program Guidelines

 

Seven to Save Goals

  • Spotlight important endangered historic buildings, structures, landscapes, and communities.

  • Generate enthusiasm for the protection of listed sites.

  • Provide guidance, strategies, and tools to alleviate threats to listed sites.

  • Identify options for the viable use of listed sites.

  • Use listed sites to focus public attention on broader statewide preservation issues.

  • Demonstrate the economic and community-building benefits of historic preservation.

Seven to Save Benefits

  • Statewide Publicity: Listed sites will benefit from media outreach and enhanced visibility through the League’s communication platforms.

  • Local Publicity: Preservation League staff will work with local advocates on a public announcement of the listing. The League will be available to local media for interviews and comments. By mutual agreement, the League will enhance the visibility of the threatened property and its selection as a Seven to Save site by working with the successful nominators to produce and display banners, signs, or other materials for use on-site, as appropriate.

  • Educational: Listed sites will be given priority for the Preservation League’s educational outreach programs and materials.

  • Financial: Listed sites will be given priority for any Preservation League funding programs that may be applicable. Funding generally available include the League’s Preserve New York and Technical Assistance Grant programs.

Nomination criteria

  • The nominated site must be located in New York State.

  • The nominated site must be culturally, historically and/or architecturally significant (but need not be designated as a local landmark, or listed on the State or National Registers of Historic Places).

  • The continued existence and integrity of the site must be seriously threatened.

  • There must be a strong local group with an identified leader/contact person advocating for the protection of the site, with the capacity to effectively partner with the League.

  • The Preservation League will be able to play a meaningful role through one or more of our existing programs, including technical services, public policy, grants, etc.

  • When possible, the nominated site will illustrate a broader regional, state and/or national preservation issue.

  • In selecting the sites for the 2022-2023 list, the Preservation League will consider diversity of historic and current cultural associations, geography, property type, preservation issues, stakeholders, and audience.

The nomination deadline was Friday, March 4, 2022.

If you have questions, please contact Katie Eggers Comeau at 518.462.5658 x12 or kcomeau@preservenys.org.

All listings on the League’s Seven to Save List are made at the discretion of the League’s Seven to Save Committee based on the information available to them at the time of their convening. Committee members are guided by the nomination criteria and program goals.


Hidden in Plain Sight

In 2017, we organized the first Hidden in Plain Sight exhibition, showcasing that year’s Seven to Save designees. Featuring black and white photography by Bruce Harvey, Ph.D., this exhibition series allowed us to use art as a tool to rally advocates to the sites that tell unique stories of New York’s communities.