Pennsylvania Historic Preservation

Blog of the Pennsylvania State Historic Preservation Office

Category: National Historic Preservation Act (Page 5 of 6)

August’s SHPO Shout-Out!

August 31, 2016 / / 0 Comments

It’s that time again!

As some of you may know, the National Park Service highlighted Pennsylvania in their #50for50 social media campaign earlier this month.  This initiative is part of their broader effort to celebrate and recognize the 50th anniversary of the National Historic Preservation Act this year.  Each week, NPS has been promoting the interesting, meaningful, and successful historic preservation work being done in each of the 50 states, the District of Columbia, and U.S. territories.  (FYI, this week is South Carolina’s turn!)

Here at PHMC, we participated by adding the #50for50 and #Preservation50 hashtags to all of the preservation-related posts on the Pennsylvania Trails of History Facebook page and @PHMC Twitter feed.   I think NPS could have featured Pennsylvania’s successes for a year and still not have gotten through them all, but alas, we need to share the limelight.  So, I thought it would be a great idea to share with you some of the stories that didn’t get aired that week and that we haven’t covered in previous posts and Shout-Outs.

shout out 4

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Advocacy Week logo
Preservation Advocacy Week logo.

What is National Historic Preservation Advocacy Week?

April 13, 2016 / / 0 Comments

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.

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The Historic Preservation Board at their October 2015 meeting at the Ephrata Cloister. [Standing L to R: Martin Rosenblum, Richard Leonori, John Conti, Susan Hannegan, Robert Armstrong, Jane Sheffield, Steven Gimber. Seated L to R: Jeff Slack, Brian Fritz, Margaret Newman, Suzanna Barucco (Chair), Richard Burkert. Not pictured: Steven Burg, Lloyd Chapman, Sherri Geary]

Pennsylvania’s Historic Preservation Board: Past, Present, And Future

February 17, 2016 / / 0 Comments

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

5 Things To Know: Section 106 and Consulting Parties

December 16, 2015 / / 0 Comments

Arguably, like most any full-time hard working adult, there aren’t enough hours in the day to absorb all of the informative blogs and interesting articles regarding Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA) of 1966 that traverse the “intra-web.” So no surprise, I recently came across a blog a mere 6 months after its initial posting that immediately grabbed my attention. On March 6, 2015, the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s Preservation Leadership Forum posted Elizabeth Merritt’s “Worst Practices for Section 106 Consultation.” Her blog very candidly captures the 10 worst approaches to Section 106, noting instead that Section 106 should in fact be a “team exercise, with all parties working together to come up with an agreed-upon solution.” Recognizing that historic preservation is a public interest, Section 106 is inherently a consultative process. But who should be included in that process or, in other words, who should be getting the invite to the party (after all, they are called consulting parties)? This blog hopes to provide some guidance on answering that question. Continue reading

CLGs in Pennsylvania

CLG Soul Searching

September 16, 2015 / / 1 Comment

The 1980 amendments to the National Historic Preservation Act  established the Certified Local Government (CLG) program to give local governments a formal voice in the national historic preservation conversation.

The Central Market in Lancaster. The City of Lancaster is a Certified Local Government.

The Central Market in Lancaster. The City of Lancaster is a Certified Local Government.

Let’s call out the super-powers of metaphor to explain this relationship.  I often like to use the fabulously versatile bungee cord.  Yes, the thing you use to keep your bike attached to the bike rack on your car or for a dozen other things.  Imagine the CLG program as a bungee cord.  It can expand.  It can reinforce.  In this metaphor, the CLG bungee cord connects the National Park Service to State Historic Preservation Offices to municipalities to citizens.  The CLG bungee cord carries the energy and economic connection between the national preservation program and a local preservation program for participating local governments.  Broad guidelines have been established by the National Park Service that provide the framework for participation in the CLG program; however, states have wide latitude to tailor the program to best assist the characteristics of their local governments.   Continue reading

Ceramic figurine uncovered along I-95 in Fishtown. Courtesy of PennDOT.

Digging Deep: Pennsylvania and the Making Archaeology Public Initiative

May 20, 2015 / / 2 Comments

by Joe Baker, PennDOT Cultural Resources Program

Dr. Frank Vento along the banks of the Susquehanna River. Photo by Joe Baker.

Dr. Frank Vento along the banks of the Susquehanna River. Photo by Joe Baker.

On a lovely morning in early autumn, I arrive at an old farm along the Susquehanna River to find Dr Frank Vento in his natural element. That is to say, he is squatting down at the bottom of backhoe trench some eight feet deep, carefully examining the many layers of flood-deposited sediment left behind by the great river. Frank is a geomorphologist: a geologist and archaeologist whose specialty is the formation of floodplains, terraces, and other kinds of landforms created by the interaction of climate, gravity, water, wind, and sometimes, humans. Frank is down there looking for something, and as I walk up to the edge of the trench, he finds it.

“Hah! I knew it!” Continue reading

The National Park Service @ 100: #FindYourPark

April 22, 2015 / / 0 Comments

2016 is shaping up to be a great year for celebrating historic preservation.  The National Historic Preservation Act turns 50, and the National Park Service turns 100!  Throughout the next year, the National Park Service and its partners will announce a number of initiatives for this centennial celebration.  A few days ago, President Obama declared this week (April 18-26, 2015) as National Park Week, which the National Park Service (NPS) and its partner, the National Park Foundation, call “America’s largest celebration of national heritage.”  All week long people can explore the country’s National Parks and connect with others who love and support these treasures and ensure their longevity over the next 100 years.

But, you ask, what do the National Park Service’s centennial celebrations have to do with Pennsylvania’s State Historic Preservation Office (PA SHPO)? Hint: It’s not only because Pennsylvania boasts 5 National Parks (in addition to several National Historic Sites, Trails, Monuments, Heritage Areas, Recreational Areas… and the list goes on!) or because NPS funds a large number of the federal programs administered by our office…. Continue reading

Before the (Next) Storm: The Disaster Planning for Historic Properties Initiative

February 4, 2015 / / 3 Comments

The Pennsylvania State Historic Preservation Office (PA SHPO) is pleased to announce that it has begun moving forward on an exciting and historic new initiative to continue through 2017.

Special funding awarded by the National Park Service following Hurricane Sandy has enabled the PA SHPO to assist select counties with prioritizing their communities’ historic properties during the pre-disaster planning process—to help ensure they are better protected the next time a major disaster strikes the Keystone State. Continue reading

Preservation at 50: Planning for the Anniversary of the National Historic Preservation Act

December 17, 2014 / / 2 Comments

I am dismayed to learn from reading this report that almost half of the twelve thousand structures listed in the Historic American Buildings Survey of the National Park Service have already been destroyed.  This a serious loss and it underlines the necessity for prompt action if we are not to shirk our duty to the future.

– Lady Bird Johnson in With Heritage So Rich, 1966

medium-logoIn the waning months of 1964, a small group of preservation advocates, beleaguered by nearly two decades of Federal transportation and urban renewal programs that decimated historic communities across the country, gathered to strategize about a new national framework for historic preservation. They wondered whether the “progress” ushered in by the post war economic boom could be redefined in ways that would respect, and even enhance, historic places? Those efforts would eventually lead, in October 1966, to the adoption of the National Historic Preservation Act, the most comprehensive and fully articulated law protecting historic places in the United States.

The country is preparing to mark the 50th anniversary of the NHPA in 2016, and there are many preservation accomplishments to celebrate, but also much left to be done.  Preservation50, a coalition of national preservation organizations and agencies is organizing the celebration of the NHPA anniversary and they need your input and involvement. Continue reading

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