Blog of the Pennsylvania State Historic Preservation Office
May is National Historic Preservation Month and a great time to announce two new exciting preservation initiatives at the PA SHPO. We’re celebrating this year by kicking off our “Community Connections” campaign, the outreach and planning efforts for Pennsylvania’s next statewide historic preservation plan, and our Preservation50 Community Recognition campaign. Continue reading
Time for April’s SHPO Shout-Out! I’m going to mix it up a bit this month and Shout Out about something that’s happening soon rather than something that’s already happened or is in the process of happening. It’s not that I don’t have a whole bunch of great things waiting in the wings – it’s just that the 2016 Pennsylvania Statewide Conference on Heritage is a REALLY big deal and I’d be derelict in my duties as Education and Outreach Coordinator if I didn’t make sure that all of our dedicated readers know all about it. Continue reading
I had to quickly learn the answer to that question for the first time this year… Advocacy Week is our annual opportunity to have a mass impact on opinion leaders and policy makers – together with a cohesive message in support of preservation-positive legislation. Advocacy Week is organized each year by Preservation Action and the National Conference of State Historic Preservation Offices (NCSHPO) and brings together over 250 preservationists to Washington, DC to promote sound federal preservation policy and programs.
Question: What do a Georgian country estate, an African American Methodist Church, the Whiskey Rebellion, and Chester County all have in common?
Stumped? Can’t think of an answer? Then you’re not paying attention! It’s the last Wednesday of the month, which means its SHPO Shout-Out Day, and this month’s Shout Outs go to an interesting array of worthy preservation activities in Pennsylvania. That’s not to say that these are the only good preservation projects out there. We know there are more! You just need to drop me a note and tell me about what’s going on in your neck of the woods.
Great news for fans of Pennsylvania’s beloved blue and gold markers – there are going to be more of them soon! At the March 9th meeting, the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission recently approved 23 new historical markers. Many of the marker applications and approvals were from Philadelphia County this year so we’re anxious to get some great nominations next year for subjects of statewide and/or national significance in Pennsylvania’s other 66 counties! The Marker Program encourages broad distribution, so individuals and organizations from across the commonwealth are encouraged to research their history and develop nominations for people, places, events, and innovations in their own area. We know there is more history out there to share!
While Punxsutawney, Jefferson County is best known as the home of a renowned weather forecasting groundhog, it is also a community of notable historic buildings, including the grand Classical Revival style US Post Office. With all this great weather we’ve been having, it looks like that famous groundhog got it right this year with his “early spring” prediction!
We have probably all visited places or done things in our childhood that we’ve long since forgotten, and certainly didn’t appreciate the significance of it until much later in life. Thinking about the National Park Service’s Centennial and the #FindYourPark campaign recently brought back a memory of visiting Hopewell Furnace National Historic Site with my parents when I was a kid. I couldn’t have known it at the time, but I’m beginning to realize that a fun little day trip many years ago helped to pique my interest in and appreciation for historic places in ways that changed my life. Continue reading
It’s been a happy convergence of events. As planning started for the 50th anniversary of the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA) of 1966, the PA State Historic Preservation Office announced its new name and is currently rehabilitating its office space, adapting and reusing the staff’s original office cubicles from Y2K. All that reorganizing has uncovered some long forgotten records that had been packed up and moved to the Commonwealth Keystone Building when the staff relocated here from their original home on the fifth floor of the State Museum Building. These files are an interesting look back at the early years of the federal/state partnership in historic preservation and the Historic Preservation Board. Continue reading
by Vanessa Zeoli, AECOM Technical Services
A potentially trendsetting countywide survey has just been completed in the floodplains of Monroe County, in the heart of the Pocono Mountains region of northeastern Pennsylvania, identifying all flood-prone historic properties there and laying the groundwork for the development of strategies to better protect the county’s historic built environment from future flood damage. Continue reading
Preservation Pennsylvania has announced the addition of 8 properties to Pennsylvania At Risk, the list of sites determined to be among the most endangered historic resources in the Commonwealth. The sites were selected from nominations submitted by the public in 2015 and will become Preservation Pennsylvania’s work priorities in 2016. Continue reading
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