Beginning February 25th, Marilyn Sassi will present four lectures in a series entitled Early Mohawk and Hudson Valley Life: How Clothes, Arts and Architecture Changed, 1750-1814 on the evolving material culture of the Mohawk and Hudson Valley area.
Each week will focus on a different area of history and the changes seen during that period. Sassi is a teacher and historian specializing in material culture, architecture and area history. Continue reading
Fort Ticonderoga has announced that it has received a grant from The Perkin Fund which will support dendrochronological research on the 19th-century Pell house located on the Fort Ticonderoga peninsula.
According to Beth Hill, Fort Ticonderoga President and CEO, the grant will provide funding for vital research to help Fort Ticonderoga date the construction of the Pell home, known as the Pavilion. The result of the analysis will help inform the future interpretation and use of the historic structure. Continue reading
The Historic Districts Council is kicking of the 20th Annual Preservation Conference on Friday, March 7, 2014 with the Design Awards Ceremony and Opening Reception. The inaugural HDC Design Awards will be presented by jury chair James Stewart Polshek, FAIA.
The ceremony will be followed by a reception where attendees can meet the awardees and view their projects. The following day, Saturday, March 8, 2014 will consists of two morning presentations and panels, one with the award winners themselves presenting their projects and the other featuring a discussion of “What is ‘Good’ Design?”. Continue reading
New York City’s Historic Districts Council (HDC) has announced its 2014 Six to Celebrate, an annual listing of historic New York City neighborhoods and institutions that merit preservation attention.
This is New York’s only citywide list of preservation priorities coming directly from the neighborhoods. Continue reading
The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (NYSDEC), Adirondack Architectural Heritage (AARCH), the Town of Newcomb, and the Adirondack Ecological Center have announced that historic Camp Santanoni, located off Route 28N in Newcomb, will be open for three special weekends this winter. Continue reading
Hell’s Kitchen and the Battle for Urban Space: Class Struggle and Progressive Reform in New York City, 1894-1914 by Joseph J. Varga (Monthly Review Press, 2013) considers how urban spaces are produced, controlled, and contested by different class and political forces through an examination of the famous Manhattan neighborhood during the “Progressive Era.”
Hell’s Kitchen is among Manhattan’s most storied and studied neighborhoods. A working-class district situated next to the West Side’s middle- and upper-class residential districts, it has long attracted the focus of artists and urban planners, writers and reformers. Now, Joseph Varga takes us on a tour of Hell’s Kitchen with an eye toward what we usually take for granted: space, and, particularly, how urban spaces are produced, controlled, and contested by different class and political forces. Continue reading
The New York State Board for Historic Preservation recommended the addition of 33 properties, resources and districts to the State and National Registers of Historic Places. State and National Register-listing can assist property owners in revitalizing the structures, making them eligible for various public preservation programs and services, such as matching state grants and state and federal historic rehabilitation tax credits. Continue reading
The New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation has announced the recipients of the 2013 New York State Historic Preservation Awards. Established in 1980, the State Historic Preservation Awards are given each year to honor excellence in the protection and rejuvenation of New York’s historic and cultural resources.
The awards were announced at what was apparently a private ceremony held in the visitor center at Peebles Island State Park in Waterford. This year’s award recipients include: Continue reading
The Historic Districts Council, along with the Union Square Community Coalition (USCC) have been advocating for the designation of Tammany Hall for several years (USCC first asked for its designation in 1984). Finally, at the end of October the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) voted to designate Tammany Hall an individual landmark Continue reading
Whether you love learning about period homes or just can’t wait for Downton Abbey Season 4 to start (January 5, 2014) join the Jay Heritage Center and learn more about the architectural and cultural history of Highclere with Curt DiCamillo, a noted authority on British country estates.
In 1836, Peter Augustus Jay and his wife Mary Rutherfurd Clarkson took down the battered 1745 farmhouse that had long been the original country seat of the Jay family. The soaring Greek Revival mansion that took its place was meticulously planned in the “English stile” which Peter and Mary would have seen during trips to Europe. Continue reading
The New York Times’s Op-Docs and the National Film Board of Canada (NFB) have debuted an immersive, interactive multimedia series on urban highrise living. The series, “A Short History of the Highrise,” had its world premiere at the New York Film Festival and launches today on NYTimes.com.
The series unfolds in four short, interactive films that viewers can navigate using touch commands like swipe, pinch, pull and tap. On desktop and laptop computers, users can mouse over features and click to navigate. Smartphone users can view the four films via the New York Times Mobile Web site. Continue reading
The New York State Board for Historic Preservation has recommended the addition of 20 properties, resources, and districts to the State and National Registers of Historic Places.
“Survival of these noteworthy places is crucial in preserving the great diversity of New York’s communities,” said Rose Harvey, Commissioner of the Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation. “Placing these landmarks on the State and National Registers of Historic Places will offer well-deserved recognition along with tools to help them last into the future.” Continue reading
The Preservation League is seeking nominations from local and regional preservation organizations, advocacy groups, municipalities and others for its 2014-15 list of New York State’s most endangered places, Seven to Save.
Since 1999, the Preservation League has highlighted New York’s most threatened historic sites through its Seven to Save list, which now provides two years of enhanced services from the League to bolster visibility and build support for preservation. Continue reading
The historic Nellis Tavern museum on State Highway 5 east of St. Johnsville in Montgomery County will present “A Handsome Assortment: Chairs of the Turnpike Tavern Era,” an exhibit scheduled for September 21-22, 1 p.m. to 4 p.m.
The “turnpike era” in upstate New York corresponded roughly with the first half of the nineteenth century. The exhibit will feature examples of the types of seating pieces which would have been found in common use in establishments like Nellis Tavern during its heyday between 1800 and 1840, when it faced the Mohawk Turnpike (present State Highway 5). Today, objects like these are regarded as distinctive examples of early American artisanship. They are often examples of early American mass production, as well. Continue reading
Montgomery County Historian Kelly Yacobucci Farquhar will lead a walking tour in the Village of Canajoharie on Saturday, August 10th at 11am. The tour will highlight various sites associated with the African Americans who lived in Canajoharie during the 19th century as well as potential abolitionist activity.
Brochures will identify the sites on a map of the Village of Canajoharie and the walking tour will include a portion of the sites. The tour will meet at the NBT Bank parking lot on the corner of Route 10 and Mohawk Street (site of Hotel Wagner and the former drive-thru bank) at 11am. There will some hills involved in the walking tour and it is expected to last approximately 1 hour.
Continue reading
My previous post about Weigand’s Tavern was written about an historic structure, one of the oldest in Newburgh, which was in peril. Sadly, it is but one instance of many; there are too many cases in other parts of Ulster and Orange counties.
Another example is the Johannes G. Hardenbergh house, which was introduced to me by a fellow firefighter who explored its remains as a young child. This post will be about what happens when a local community does not, or can not, move fast enough to save a piece of history in time. Continue reading
At the end of June, the New York State Board for Historic Preservation recommended the addition of 17 properties, resources and districts to the State and National Registers of Historic Places.
Listing these properties on the State and National Registers can assist their owners in revitalizing the structures, making them eligible for various public preservation programs and services, such as matching state grants and state and federal historic rehabilitation tax credits. Continue reading
The Friends of Jackson House, an organization that has come together to advocate for the preservation of the historic Jackson House in Fishkill, Dutchess County, New York is spreading the word about their attempt to save the house from relocation or demolition, and asking for signatures on an online petition. Continue reading
This year the Historic Districts Council launched a new campaign to combat the potential loss of historic community libraries. The campaign is expected to lead to the nomination of all the New York City Carnegie Libraries to the New York State and National Register of Historic Places. Continue reading
Shaker Heritage Society recently completed a dynamic on-line resource called Virtual Watervliet (VWV). Virtual Watervliet provides a high quality experience via a website or mobile application that helps users better understand the significance and development of America’s first Shaker settlement.
At the core of VWV, is the digital reconstruction of all known Shaker structures built in the publically accessible areas of the Watervliet Shaker National Historic District since the late 18th century. The digital reconstruction allows users to fly through the historic site and to rotate 3D models of historic Shaker architecture. Continue reading