All posts tagged: National Trust for Historic Preservation

Summer Saturdays are the Best

Published by

The joyful photograph at the top of the post – which comes from the wonderful photo/blog Real People Eat Local (check it out for their delicious pictures) – is a perfect encapsulation of our day.  Summer Saturdays really are the best! Today started relatively early (by Saturday standards) as Andrew had to be at the Cathedral for a choral practice at 8 a.m.  Our car is in the shop this weekend waiting for a leaky fuel pump to be repaired (one never wants to smell gasoline in your home garage), so Candice, Andrew and I had to juggle our schedules around the availability of Zipcars – the wonderful car sharing service we swear by.  Because we have some 25 Zipcars within about 3 blocks of our house, we picked one up (a little Honda) and were on our way by 7:30.  Urban living is great! Swim team meets the past six weeks have their own charm, but they have disrupted the Saturday morning ritual Candice and I established this year.  So we were pleased to …

The Intersection of Preservation and Sustainability

Published by

Portland, Oregon is a city with a well-deserved reputation for livability and sustainable development.   I visited Portland late last week and was reminded again of how much this community can teach other American cities about building an environmental consciousness and offering transportation options that decrease reliance on the automobile. In touring the city with friends and colleagues, I saw vibrant historic neighborhoods around an active downtown.  But I also learned of  preservation battles that ended with perfectly good buildings being demolished – even though preservation was the sustainable alternative.  Preservationists in Portland often feel left out of the discussions – and the decisions – on questions of livability.  It shouldn’t be that way. While in Portland, I joined two colleagues in a discussion with Mike Francis, editorial board member at The Oregonian. We talked about the intersection of preservation and sustainability, as well as preservation’s ability to prime the pump for economic development. In a piece entitled, To Be Sustainable, Use What You Have, Francis makes the case for preservation as a key to economic …

The beauty of the Dutch Antilles

Published by

Late last month I had the opportunity to visit two of the islands of the Dutch Antilles – Bonaire and Curacao – as part of a National Trust Gardens of the Caribbean tour.  (These are the B and C islands of the A-B-C Antilles.  We didn’t make it to Aruba.)  This was a new part of the world for me and it was a great experience. The scene was set with enlightening lectures prior to our arrival by long-time Trust lecturer Paddy Bowes and Williams College professor Michael Lewis, which prepared me for the very arid conditions on the islands (8 variety of cacti on Bonaire), and the Dutch city-planning and architectural influence.  You can see the latter in the photo at the top of the post of one of the most photographed streets in Willemstad. Our first stop in the Dutch Antilles was the island of Bonaire and the town of Kralendijk.  The landscape and wildlife are the stars here, with clear blue waters and pink flamingos. Our last day of the tour took …

VOA Highlights Preservation of Rosenwald Schools

Published by

Rosenwald Schools are unique in the American landscape.  Built in the early 20th century to educate African-Americans in the rural south, the 5,000+ schools quickly became  centers of community life as well as educational facilities during the difficult years of segregation. I wrote a blog post in October of 2008 after reading Mary Hoffschwelle’s insightful book on Rosenwald Schools.  Now Voice of America has featured the Rosenwald Schools story – along with information on the preservation efforts led by the National Trust for Historic Preservation with funding from the Lowe’s Charitable Foundation – in a new video on their web site.  Take a look below.  I think you’ll enjoy it. More to come… DJB

Rugby, Tennessee: Where my preservation career began

Published by

Today’s PreservationNation blog has a story and video about Historic Rugby, a 2009 National Preservation Honor Award winner of the National Trust for Historic Preservation.  The blog post brought back great memories. Rugby was established in the 1880s by the successful Victorian-era author Thomas Hughes as a Utopian community for the second sons of English gentry.  Due to the system of primogeniture, these men would inherit little or no property and had very limited career opportunities.  Hughes established this colony in the beautiful but hard-scrabble Cumberland Plateau area of Tennessee.  After some initial success, the colony fell on hard times, ultimately failed and was largely forgotten.  In the mid-1960s, residents of the area began to restore the remaining historic buildings and over the course of five decades have saved this wonderful place and turned it into a thriving community and a favorite spot for tourists. That’s the official story.  The reason it is important to me is because it is where I undertook my first hands-on preservation work, leading to a career that’s now in …

Miami Landmarks Past (and the More Recent Past)

Published by

I’m wrapping up a visit to Miami and Miami Beach for work (I know – I love my job) that ended with a spectacular tour of two landmarks of Miami’s past…and the more recent past. Recently the National Trust for Historic Preservation has listed three properties in Miami on the annual list of America’s 11 Most Endangered Historic Places.  We visited two of those sites yesterday and they gave first-hand evidence to the wide range of places that make up the American experience. First up was the 1963 Miami Marine Stadium.  Arriving by boat while listening to the architect – Cuban born Hilario Candela who at age 27 designed this aquatic marvel with its zigzag concourse floating over the stands – was an incredible experience.  It is threatened because the city sees the site as much more valuable for development, even though it doesn’t take a great deal of imagination to understand how this wonderful place could thrive again as a civic center for all South Florida.  Watch the video at the end of the …

This Holiday Season: Buy Locally

Published by

I have never been one to rush out to the local mall on the so-called “Black Friday” after Thanksgiving.  With a day off, and the opportunity to connect with friends, food, and football, what’s the point? But for the past several years we’ve returned to the beautiful Shenandoah Valley town of Staunton, Virginia, where we lived for 15 years in the 1980s and 1990s, to spend the holiday with good friends.  We make all those connections above (except for the football – our friends don’t have cable) but we add in lots of live music so it makes for a terrific respite. And we’ve taken to spending a good part of Friday in downtown Staunton.  I know this part of town intimately, having worked with the local merchants, property owners, residents and city officials to preserve it for 13 years.  My office was in the Wharf Historic District and our home was only 4 blocks away in the New Town Historic District.  Downtown Staunton is a National Trust Great American Main Street Award winner as …

Is This A Great Country or What?

Published by

If you have had it up to here with screaming right-wing talk show hosts or pontificating left-wing bloggers or just three days of rain, I have the perfect antidote:  the Vintage Roadside 2009 Road Trip Slide Show. Each year Jeff and Kelly from Vintage Roadside travel the back roads from Portland, Oregon to the host city of the National Preservation Conference and take pictures and blog about the experience.  (Vintage Roadside makes great t-shirts that honor the wonderful mom-and-pop roadside attractions, motor courts, motels, tiki lounges, drive-in restaurants, bowling alleys and roller-skating rinks found along America’s back roads.)  This year the trip took them to Nashville, Tennessee.  You will laugh out loud, you will be amazed at the quirky attractions that still remain on America’s roadsides, and you’ll marvel at what a diverse country we live in.  So take my recommendation – visit their slide show and spend a few minutes with this great country. Thanks Jeff and Kelly.  It was wonderful to spend a bit of time with you in Nashville.  Thanks for what …

Why architecture matters: I.M. Pei and Henry Cobb’s Hancock Tower

Published by

I’m reading Paul Goldberger’s new book Why Architecture Matters. As you would expect from Paul, it is a smart, well-written work that is designed to help the reader interested in buildings “come to grips with how things feel to us when we stand before them, with how architecture affects us emotionally as well as intellectually.” I’ve already come across numerous passages and examples that resonate, but last evening I was reading his take on I.M. Pei and Henry Cobb’s John Hancock Tower on Copley Square in Boston and was reminded of my last impression of that building when Andrew, Claire and I were visiting the city in March 2008. Paul, a Pulitzer-Prize winning writer and a trustee of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, is describing the Hancock Tower in comparison to New York’s Seagram Building and G.M. Building.  All three are postwar American landmarks. It was great fun to introduce Claire and Andrew to Copley Square when we visited Boston in 2008.  We toured the great H.H. Richardson-designed Trinity Church, of course, and took …