PreservationNation Blog

PreservationNation

• Twitter Chat in Review: Bridging the Preservation Generation Gap
  This month's Twitter chat about inter-generational preservation seemed to move at an even faster pace than usual. We had a lively discussion of the varied motivations people of different ages have for becoming interested in preservation and ways to keep them active and engaged. Not surprisingly, holding events centered around food and drink came up - the recurring sub-theme of all the chats!
  
  
• Preservation Round-Up: Going to Graceland Edition
  In today's Preservation Round-Up: stories on Elvis' Graceland, preservation as shield against new development, a new old metal facade in Manhattan, a Tiffany stained-glass church turned concert hall, and how development patterns affect human health.
  
  
• I Brake for Brown Highway Signs (And Other Road Trip Thoughts)
  Sometimes it feels like historic preservation is this very formal and staid task. And, sometimes, it is. We talk about it as a responsibility, which it certainly is. But our interest and engagement with old and historic places can be as casual as slowing down to admire a building shaped like a pot. Or running screaming from a creepy old house. Or easing the gas pedal while passing through an old main street. Our appreciation and interaction with these places, whether accidental, intentional, planned, or spontaneous, is one of the most crucial elements of their eventual memory and sustainability.
  
  
• Rockhill Creamery: National Preservation Award Winner
  Rockhill Creamery, a micro-dairy and artisanal cheese operation, is bringing Utah's rich agricultural heritage to life. Owners Pete Shropp and Jennifer Hines have painstakingly restored and re-purposed seven historic structures on their property, and Rockhill Creamery has become a community centerpiece in the Cache Valley.
  
  
• Preservation Valentines for Prentice Women’s Hospital
  The Save Prentice Coalition - a collaboration between AIA Chicago, docomomo chicago midwest, Landmarks Illinois, Preservation Chicago, and the National Trust - announced a new, slightly nontraditional campaign (aren't those the best kind?) to bring attention and, yes, love to Prentice. Presenting, the "Show Prentice Some Love" contest.
  
  
• Preservation Round-Up: Opportunities, Not Obstacles Edition
  Today's Preservation Round-Up features stories from across the country: Seattle's case for older buildings, classic LA housing types, St. Louis public housing remembered, new bleachers at Chicago's Wrigley Field, lost and found at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, and the importance of the Miami Herald building.
  
  
• [VIDEO] De/Re-Constructing an Historic Metal Facade
  Working with old and historic buildings is often a lesson in patience. So when I came across this time-lapse video of a building having its facade removed (for relocation to a nearby storefront), it was refreshing to imagine it all happening in a matter of seconds.
  
  
• Preservation Superhero: Becky Anderson of Burlington, Iowa
  Preservation can be an addicting hobby. Fix up one place and pretty soon you want to fix up another. For Becky Anderson, the hobby didn’t stop with houses. In 2008, her daughter, a local real estate agent, told her about the Hedge Building, a Victorian Gothic main street commercial building built in the 1880s that was on the market. Anderson remembers, "The amount of original woodwork and detail in the building was amazing. I was thinking, ‘could I take this on?'"
  
  
• Minvilla Manor: National Preservation Award Winner
  In the early 20th century, Fifth and Broadway was just a streetcar ride away from the bustling heart of Knoxville’s commercial center, and the 13 Minvilla townhomes were the height of sophisticated living for the city’s growing middle class. By the 1960s, however, the townhomes had been converted into the Fifth Avenue Motel, a magnet for crime.
  
  
• Death of a Bodega (and the Forgotten Theater Upstairs)
  A friend of mine once told me that your bodega knows all your darkest secrets. Being my primary water supply, East Village Farms may know me better than myself. When I heard that they were closing I found it hard to believe; it’s clean, friendly, busy and, well, pricey. I always assumed it had long ago cleared the zenith of the retail life-cycle and was well into piloting the stratosphere of boundless, automatic prosperity. But this bodega has it’s own secret, one that anybody looking at the building from across the street will wonder: what’s upstairs?