I’ve got some great SHPO Shout-Outs to share with you this month, and I’m anxious to get started! I would be remiss, though, in my duties as Education and Outreach Coordinator if I didn’t share some exciting updates about our Community Connections public outreach effort for the next statewide historic preservation plan. ICYMI, you can check out this blog from Monday to learn what we and our Partners have been up to lately and find out about your chance to hang out with Preservation PA’s Mindy Crawford, PA SHPO staff, and some of our local partners at an Open House coming soon to a community near you.
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Surveying Rural PA: Update on the Disaster Planning Initiative
Bedford and Cameron Counties are the latest counties to be surveyed as part of the Pennsylvania State Historic Preservation Office’s (PASHPO) Disaster Planning for Historic Properties Initiative, following up on the surveys done in Monroe County and the City of Philadelphia by AECOM Technical Services.
Architectural historians from AECOM canvassed the two counties to catalog historic resources over 45 years of age within 100- and 500-year flood hazard areas. Each county presented a remarkable variety of historic structures, from the Bedford Springs Resort — a National Historic Landmark in Bedford County – to Civilian Conservation Corps structures in Cameron County’s Sizerville State Park.
AECOM sought to locate and document significant historic resources from vernacular to high-style in design, and ranging from Colonial-era to mid-century modern in period, in order to thoroughly identify flood-prone historic resources in the two counties. Continue reading
Community Connections: What’s New?
Its been a few months now since we introduced you to the Community Connections: Planning for Preservation in Pennsylvania campaign and I thought it was a good time for an update. We’ve been making great progress over the summer and we have some exciting things coming up this fall.
Wild Whippersnappers or Heritage Heroes? The [not always] Young Preservationist Movement
From Pittsburgh to Philly and in between, the Young Preservationist movement is changing the way we approach historic resources, leaving many of us scratching our heads as to what the real deal is.
Know of a cool person, place, or event? Maybe it should have a PHMC Marker!
Question: What do Albert M. Greenfield, Eddie Adams, and Mr. Rogers have in common? One was a Philly businessman, politician, and influential member of the Planning Commission. Another was a Westmoreland County native who won a Pulitzer Prize for his photojournalism of the Vietnam War. And who doesn’t know Mr. Rogers, whose show on PBS stations everywhere taught us all about being good neighbors? Continue reading
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.
Marketing Archaeology: A Non-Scientific Survey about Public Outreach Tools
Fostering a public appreciation for historic resources and archaeology is one of the most important keys to protecting our history.
Unfortunately, many cultural resources professionals struggle with how to make their work accessible and interesting to the general public. In this blog post, we take on this challenge and announce the launch of a non-scientific, but very intriguing experiment to explore how the public responds to different avenues of communication – brochures, social media and web tools. Continue reading
Every two years, the National Alliance of Preservation Commissions hosts a conference unlike any other – an event focused on providing training and education on issues relevant to historic preservation commissions, review boards, and local governments. FORUM is a truly national event, drawing participants from all over the country to share ideas, war stories, and best practices for making local preservation efforts more effective. You might remember that FORUM 2014 was held in Philadelphia and attracted nearly 800 attendees from 48 states! Mobile, Alabama played host to FORUM 2016 from July 27-31, and nearly 600 people gathered to bask in the balmy Gulf Coast weather and Southern hospitality, including a few of us from Pennsylvania. Here are some of the highlights. Continue reading
Due to Fiscal Year 2015-2016 budget challenges, the status of Year 3 of Pennsylvania’s Historic Preservation Tax Credit program was up in the air through March 2016. With the enactment of a budget, there was a brief application window with a March 24, 2016 deadline. The shortened budget period did impact the total number of applications to the Department of Community and Economic Development (DCED) as the total decreased from 30 in the second round to 23 applications for the third round.
PHMC quickly reviewed the applications to ensure applicants owned qualified historic buildings and that proposed rehabilitation plans met the Secretary of the Interior’s Standards for Rehabilitation. As the qualified applications far exceed the limited $3 million in available credits, DCED used a fair and balanced selection process based on a first -come, first serve basis with regional distribution to select the first round of projects. Continue reading
Highway Planning on a Landscape Scale: The Next Generation
by Brenda Barrett, Living Landscape Observer
What happens when a highway project long planned to improve the functionality of the overall transportation system runs up against newer approaches of planning on a landscape scale? Continue reading
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