Historic Preservation

39 Nominated for NY State-National Historic Register

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The New York State Board for Historic Preservation has recommended the addition of 39 properties to the State and National Registers of Historic Places. Property owners, municipalities and organizations from communities throughout the state sponsored the nominations.

Well-known landmarks and districts recommended for listing, including:

Garment Center Historic District – which includes 215 structures in a 25-block section of Midtown Manhattan, an area shaped by the city’s economic history, immigrant history, zoning and planning developments, and reforms following the 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire.

Woodlawn Cemetery – a vast 400-acre cemetery in the Bronx, where many of New York City’s arts, business and civic leaders are buried, including jazz trumpeter Miles Davis, Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia, author Herman Melville, newspaper publisher Joseph Pulitzer, women’s rights movement leader Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and department store magnate Frank Woolworth. The cemetery is composed of an unprecedented collection of artistically important memorials set in the Landscape-Lawn style.

The Niagara Hotel – A product of Niagara Falls’ history of tourism, industry and commerce, the 1925 structure is the last and only surviving major hotel of those that once dominated the city’s downtown.


Washington Square Historic District – Oswego’s historic civic and religious center that developed around a village green established in 1797.

Lustron Houses of Jermain Street Historic District – a remarkably intact Albany district of mid-20th century prefabricated steel homes manufactured by the Lustron Corporation to respond to the post-World War II housing demand.

New York Central Passenger and Freight Station – an outstanding example of an Art Deco train station built in 1936 – a style representative of the last gasp of major railroad station construction in the United States – in Syracuse, a major transportation hub in New York State.

Listing these properties on the state and national registers can assist their owners in revitalizing the structures. Listing will make them eligible for various public preservation programs and services, such as matching state grants and federal historic rehabilitation tax credits.

The New York State Board for Historic Preservation is an independent panel of experts appointed by the governor. The Board also consists of representatives from the following state organizations: Council of Parks- Council on the Arts- Department of Education- Department of State and Department of Environmental Conservation. The function of the Board is to advise and provide recommendations on state and federal preservation programs, including the State and National Registers of Historic Places, to the State Historic Preservation Officer, who in New York is the State Parks Commissioner.

The State and National Registers are the official lists of buildings, structures, districts, landscapes, objects and sites significant in the history, architecture, archeology and culture of New York State and the nation. There are nearly 90,000 historic buildings, structures and sites throughout the state listed on the National Register of Historic Places, individually or as components of historic districts.

During the nomination process, the State Board submits recommendations to the State Historic Preservation Officer. The properties may be listed on the New York State Register of Historic Places and then nominated to the National Register of Historic Places where they are reviewed and, once approved, entered on the National Register by the Keeper of the National Register in Washington, D.C.

The recommended properties listed by county are as follows:

STATE REVIEW BOARD RECOMMENDATIONS

Albany County

1. Lustron Houses at Jermain Street Historic District – Albany

Allegany County

2. Centerville Town Hall – Centerville

Erie County

3. Lancaster District School No. 6 – Lancaster

4. Annunciation School – Buffalo

5. Buffalo Tennis and Squash Club – Buffalo

6. Harlow C. Curtis Building – Buffalo

7. Sardinia Old Town Hall – Sardinia

8. The Baptist Church of Springville – Springville

9. Richmond Avenue Methodist-Episcopal Church – Buffalo

Franklin County

10. James Wilder Farmstead – Burke

Greene County

11. Methodist-Episcopal Church of Windham Centre – Windham

12. Woodward Road Stone Arch Bridge – East Durham

13. Tannersville Main Street Historic District – Tannersville

Herkimer County

14. Emmanuel Episcopal Church – Little Falls

Jefferson County

15. Hiram Hubbard House – Champion

Lewis County

16. Lowville G.A.R. Soldier’s Monument – Lowville

Livingston County

17. Engleside – Dansville

Montgomery County

18. Kilts Farmstead – Palatine Bridge

New York City

19. Garment Center Historic District – Manhattan

20. General Society of Mechanics and Tradesmen – Manhattan

21. New York Congregational Home for the Aged – Brooklyn

22. The Woodlawn Cemetery – Bronx

23. Tremont Baptist Church – Bronx

Niagara County

24. The Niagara – Niagara Falls

Oneida County

25. Sylvan Beach Union Chapel – Sylvan Beach

Onondaga County

26. New York Central Passenger and Freight Station – Syracuse

Orange County

27. St. Andrew’s Cemetery – Walden

28. Milliken-Smith Farm – Montgomery

Orleans County

29. Benjamin Franklin Gates House – Albion

30. John Shelp Cobblestone House – Middleport

Oswego County

31. Historic and architectural resources in Oswego, including the Washington Square Historic District – Oswego

32. Oswego Yacht Club – Oswego

Rockland County

33. Johannes Isaac Blauvelt House – Blauvelt

34. Contempora House – New City

Ulster County

35. Saugerties Public Library – Saugerties

Warren County

36. Forward wreck site – Lake George

Washington County

37. Stoops Hotel – Battenville

Westchester County

38. Presbyterian Rest for Convalescents – White Plains

39. Soundview Manor – White Plains

Missle Silo Open House in Lewis, NY Sunday

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The Australian Architect and Designer Alexander Michael is conducting tours of his restored Atlas Missile Silo (video) in Lewis, Essex County, NY this Sunday October 26th from 11:00AM to 2:00 PM. This is the first (and perhaps the only) time the silo will be open to the public. The Lewis site is the only known restored missile silo in the United States (and perhaps the world). After over 11 years of restoration the restored command control center is an amazing sight.

The silo is Boquett 556-5, an Atlas-F ICBM silo designated by the US Air Force in 1960 (local report) and also known as Lewis Missile Base.

Rochester, Buffalo Preservationists Join Forces

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The directors of two Buffalo area preservation groups voted to merge their organizations late last week. Both the Landmark Society of the Niagara Frontier and the Preservation Coalition of Erie County will now be merged into one organization &#8211 Preservation Buffalo Niagara.

According to Buffalo Business First, the decision comes after nine months of negotiations. Preservation Buffalo Niagara will be governed by a 21-member board- 10 of the seats will be filled from existing directors and the remaining spots will be filled anew.

Buffalo Rising has more of the story:

According to Harvey [McCartney, retired Director of the Landmark Society] and Cynthia [Van Ness, President of the Preservation Coalition of Erie County], the new organization will have its work cut out. In addition to playing a key role in preparing for the 2011 conference, several longstanding preservation issues need to be addressed, including conducting more historic resource surveys (Rochester was fully surveyed in the 1980’s, Buffalo has not been), and bringing more preservation attention to Buffalo’s east side. A common thread through the discussions was the need for the new organization to get out in front of preservation issues and be proactive, rather than reactive—which all too often results in bruising preservation battles with preservationists being labeled “obstructionists.”

There will be a national search for an executive director in the months to come.

Civil War Fort Montgomery Needs Preservation

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According to an editorial in the Plattsburgh Press Republican this week, Fort Montgomery &#8211 not the Hudson River American Revolution fort, but the Lake Champlain (mostly) American Civil War one in Rouses Point &#8211 is in ruins, the victim of nothing less then neglect.


According to the Press Republican:

In April 1980, a huge portion of the northwest bastion collapsed into the moat, and cracks in the rest of the structure have raised concerns that a similar fate awaits the rest of the fort.


And there are other obstacles. Liability is an acute concern, as the unstable structure has long been used as a party spot for teens. Also, the location is surrounded by environmentally sensitive wetlands.


But the potential as a historic landmark and tourist destination &#8212- accessible by car, bus or boat &#8212- is undeniable. In fact, it can be seen by the preservation of a similar landmark, Fort Lennox, just a 20-minute drive upriver in Isle aux Noir, Quebec.

It took hundreds of stonemasons thirty years to build (1844 and 1871), according to the great Wiki:

Named for Revolutionary War hero General Richard Montgomery who was killed at Quebec City during the 1775 invasion of Canada, construction began on Fort Montgomery two years later in 1844. Fort Montgomery was one of a very few &#8220Permanent&#8221 or &#8220Third System&#8221 forts built along the Northern Frontier, most being constructed along the Atlantic Coast. Work on the fort remained almost continuous through 1870, with the peak of construction taking a frenzied pace during the American Civil War, amidst rumors of possible British intervention against the Union from Canada. These fears were actually proven to be not that far fetched when the Confederate led St. Albans Raid, the northernmost action of the Civil War, took place in nearby Vermont in 1864 involving an incursion by the enemy from Canada.

In 1926 the United States Government sold Fort Montgomery along with its adjacent Military Reservation at public auction. During the period of disuse which followed, as had also happened with the abandoned 1816 fortification, many locals visited the fort, carting off untold amounts of lumber, bricks, windows, and doors for use in their homes and other buildings. Ultimately the majority of the fort, aside from the gutted westward facing officer’s quarters, a small portion of the southern wall and 3 bastions, (2 of which remain today) was demolished in 1936-1937. Its massive stones were crushed and dumped into the lake for fill to construct a nearby bridge between Rouses Point, New York and Alburg, Vermont. After a number of private owners, the property was sold to Victor Podd, Sr. who constructed the headquarters of the Powertex Corporation on the adjacent &#8220Commons&#8221 to the west of the fort. Island Point, the actual fort site, was left untouched. During the mid-1980s Podd worked with local historical societies to have the State of New York purchase the property with a view toward possible restoration of the site. Despite being offered the fort at no cost, negotiations were unsuccessful and the State declined to accept the property. Since May 2006 Podds’ heirs have attempted to sell the fort on eBay. The first auction ended on June 5, 2006, with a winning bid of $5,000,310. However, the sale was not completed, and the fort and lands surrounding it remain for sale.

There are current concerns among local preservationists that what remains of the fort today is in danger of a catastrophic structural collapse. This is in part due to the removal of iron reinforcing rods, emplaced around 1886, which were likely cut out for their scrap value during the wartime scrap metal drives of World War 2. These rods were originally devised to brace up and support the massive weight of the fort’s detached outer wall face, a defensive element of the fort’s construction which later proved over time to be a structural flaw. Previously a third remaining bastion on the northern side of the fort suffered a similar collapse and was completely destroyed in 1980, mostly falling into the moat.

Thanks in part to a National Register of Historic Places listing in 1977, the fort is often confused with &#8220Fort Blunder,&#8221 for which construction began in 1816. Thanks to a surveyor error, it was discovered that this first fort had been accidentally built on the Canadian side of the border and the site was abandoned. Materials from the fort were taken by locals for local building projects. It was never officially named.

49th Annual Schenectady Stockade Walkabout

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With a slogan that says &#8220Party Like It’s 1662,&#8221 the Schenectady County Historical Society, the Stockade Association and the Downtown Schenectady Improvement Corporation present the 49th Annual Stockade Walkabout and Waterfront Faire on Saturday.The Walkabout showcases the oldest continuously occupied historic district in the United States, which was designated the first Historic District in New York state in 1962. During the event, from 11 a.m to 5 p.m., you can interact with historical characters from Olde Schenectady, stroll through the neighborhood, tour privately owned 18th- and 19th-century homes, visit historic churches, view the Stockade’s only archaeological dig and join an archaeological tour or an architectural tour.

The Walkabout House Tour includes: guided tours of historic homes, churches and public buildings- an archaeological dig at a historic house garden- an architectural tour- an archaeological tour- historic boats along the Mohawk River- carriage rides along the river path and through the streets- children’s activities in the park- live music and refreshments throughout the day- an antique car exhibit- guided tours of the old Erie Canal- and Colonial artisan demonstrations and fine crafts.

Tickets for adults purchased in advance are $18, and the day of the event are $25- tickets for children younger than 12 are $7. Park free at Schenectady County Community College and other public lots.

The free Waterfront Faire features arts and crafts vendors- family activities- live entertainment and music- food and refreshments- carriage rides- Schenectady County Faire &#8212- Colonial artisans and demonstrators- and an authentic bateau and turn-of-the-century launch boat.

For more information, visit http://www.stockadewalkabout.com. You can also find information or purchase tickets with credit cards by calling 374-0263. Tickets can also be purchased at the Schenectady County Historical Society, 32 Washington Ave., Schenectady, NY 12305.

Fort Drum WWII Barracks to be Demolished

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The Watertown Daily Times is reporting that 87 World War Two era barracks at Fort Drum are going to be torn down in the next month:

Those buildings, built in 1941, are being torn down to make way for more construction to accommodate units of the 10th Mountain Division. South post will become the new home for the 91st Military Police Battalion, 7th Engineer Battalion and 63rd Explosive Ordnance Device Battalion — which is currently deployed to Baghdad, Iraq.

We want to tear them all down eventually,&#8221 said James W. Corriveau, the public works director for Fort Drum. &#8220We are building new facilities on that space and falling in on the old infrastructure.&#8221

The demolition of old motor pools along Gasoline Alley has been ongoing this summer.

Here’s a gem from someone with a [ahem] sense of history:

&#8220The nostalgic value of this World War II world isn’t too much,&#8221 Mr. Corriveau said. &#8220The Army has lots of stuff from that time period — these buildings weren’t supposed to last forever.&#8221

Here is a little history from the Fort Drum website:

With the outbreak of World War Two, the area now known as Pine Camp was selected for a major expansion and an additional 75,000 acres of land was purchased. With that purchase, 525 local families were displaced. Five entire villages were eliminated, while others were reduced from one-third to one-half their size.

By Labor Day 1941, 100 tracts of land were taken over. Three thousand buildings, including 24 schools, 6 churches and a post office were abandoned. Contractors then went to work, and in a period of 10 months at a cost of $20 million, an entire city was built to house the divisions scheduled to train here.

Eight hundred buildings were constructed- 240 barracks, 84 mess halls, 86 storehouses, 58 warehouses, 27 officers’ quarters, 22 headquarters buildings, and 99 recreational buildings as well as guardhouses and a hospital. Construction workers paid the price, as the winter of 1941-42 was one of the coldest in North Country history.

The three divisions to train at Pine Camp were General George S. Patton’s 4th Armored Division (Gen. Creighton Abrams was a battalion commander here at the time), the 45th Infantry Division and the 5th Armored Division.

The post also served as a prisoner of war camp. Of those prisoners who died here, one Italian and six Germans are still buried in the Sheepfold Cemetery near Remington Pond

Americas First Railroad Tunnel Located?

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Incredible news from the Schenectady Gazette this morning. Schenectady City Historian Don Rittner has apparently found the first railroad tunnel ever constructed buried in the historic Schenectady stockade district. The find includes a section of the original tracks:

The 15-foot-deep tunnel snakes its way across what are now a dozen or more private backyards. But in 1832, that land was a major thoroughfare — the foundation of the city’s prosperity and growth for the next century.

Hundreds of business owners and daring families rode through the tunnel on trains so experimental that they were considered too dangerous to be allowed on city streets. They could travel so fast and their engines could produce so many wild sparks that city leaders feared pedestrians would be run over and buildings burned down.

So horses dragged the trains from the Erie Canal to the Scotia bridge along a safe, deep tunnel. It was an experiment that lasted just six years, but in that time it was guaranteed a place in the history books. Not only was the tunnel the first ever constructed for a locomotive, but the entrance was the first junction of two railroad companies, according to Rittner.

Technically, the first rail road in the United States is believed to have been a gravity railroad in Lewiston, New York in 1764. The Mohawk and Hudson Railroad, of which the tunnel would have been a part, was the first modern-style railroad built in the State of New York- it was incorporated in 1826 by the Mohawk and Hudson Company and opened August 9, 1831. On April 19, 1847, the name was changed to the Albany and Schenectady Railroad. The railroad was consolidated into the New York Central Railroad on May 17, 1853. In 1867, the first elevated railroad was built in New York.

FDR Library literally falling apart

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From the New York Times, via the History News Network:

The Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum at Hyde Park, N.Y., the nation’s first presidential library, is literally falling apart. The roof leaks, the basement floods, asbestos is flaking from old steam pipes, an ancient electrical system could send the whole place up in smoke. This sorry situation is an insult to the person the library and museum honor: the founder of the New Deal, the greatest investment in our nation’s modern development&#8230-.

While the library sits high above the river, its basement lies below the water table. Sump pumps installed in 1939 are supposed to keep it dry, but don’t. Storms have caused flooding in the basement where collections are stored and in restrooms and public areas. What’s worse, storm and sewer drainage run together, which means they mingle if there’s a backup in the basement.

The electrical system, which was also installed in 1939, has outlived the suppliers of replacement parts. Archivists turn the lights on and off using the original circuit breakers. And with the electrical vault in the flood-prone basement, the library’s director, Cynthia Koch, fears that a short in the system could set the place on fire and destroy the entire collection.

Fort Ticonderoga Facing Financial Ruin

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Fort Ticonderoga President Peter S. Paine Jr. has suggested in a memo forwarded to the Plattsburgh Press Republican that the historic site (a veteran of the French and Indian and American Revolutionary wars as well as the War of 1812) has seven options to avoid permanent closure, none of them good.

Paine wrote in the memo that &#8220the fort is running through its available endowment funds to pay the Mars Education Center bills, and, in the absence of a major infusion of funds, the fort will be essentially broke by the end of 2008.&#8221


His options include applying for new short-term loans (perhaps from the Essex County Industrial Development Agency), banking on a new capital campaign to raise $3 million to $5 million (Paine had said the Fort needed 2.5 million), asking the state for a bailout or to take over ownership of the fort, selling some of the fort’s property or collections (it holds paintings worth millions, including Thomas Cole’s 1831 &#8220Ruins of Fort Ticonderoga,&#8221 but its ownership is in dispute) or closing for an indefinite period until the finances are sorted out.

Paine’s proposals come after a year of chaos at the fort began when Deborah Mars, a Ticonderoga native married to the billionaire co-owner of the Mars candy company Forrest Mars Jr., bailed on their long-time support for the fort just before completion of the new $23 million Deborah Clarke Mars Education Center. The Mars paid for nearly all of the new building’s construction but left before it was finished leaving Fort Ti about a million dollars in debt. When the building bearing their name opened this month, they didn’t show. Mr. Mars said disagreements with fort’s Executive Director Nicholas Westbrook were the reason why. Paine replaced Deborah Mars as the fort’s president.

A newly released study of Revolution War and War of 1812 sites by the National Park Service [pdf] points to the problem of private ownership of some America’s most important heritage sites:

Nonprofit organizations dedicated to preserving, maintaining, and interpreting their historic properties own all or portions of 100 Principal Sites [identified by the report]. Ownership of four Principal Sites is unknown currently. Private owners still control most of the Principal Sites, especially the battlefields and associated properties made up of large land areas. Privately owned sites or portions of sites are without any known form of enforceable legal protection. Many private owners maintain and care for their historic properties, but without legally mandated protection, the properties could be damaged or destroyed at any time.

Fort Ticonderoga had already been identified in the report as a Priority I (&#8220these sites need immediate preservation or may be lost by 2017&#8243-) facing a &#8220medium&#8221 level of threat. The threat is real for the already economically depressed Adirondack region of New York State, and the locals are restless.

A Short History of Fort Carillon / Fort Ticonderoga

The fort located at the north-south choke-point between Lake George and Lake Champlain was ordered built by French Governor-General Vaudreuil (the French Governor of Canada) as the southernmost fort of the French Empire in the New World as a bulwark in anticipation of attacks on Fort St. Frederic and the French settlements at today’s Crown Point, New York (currently being excavated) and Chimney Point, Vermont. Named Fort Carillon, it was built by soldiers and settlers in 1755-56. The following year French General Montcalm used Carillon as a base to attack British Fort William Henry at the southern end of Lake George. In 1758, British General Abercromby led an overwhelming British and Colonial Army in a attack on the fort that ended disastrously. American colonial forces under Benedict Arnold and Ethan Allen took the poorly manned fort in the opening engagements of the American Revolution without a fight in 1775. It was retaken by Gentleman Johnny Burgoyne in 1777. Native Americans from the Algonquin, French Mohawk, Huron, and Nippissings are among those associated with the history of the fort.

It is considered one of America’s oldest heritage tourism sites with tourists arriving in numbers in the 1830s (by way of comparison, the Hasbrouck House, George Washington’s headquarters at Newburgh, NY, became the first historic house museum in the United States in 1850). In 1783, George Washington visited the Fort with New York’s Governor Clinton. Following the Revolution New York State granted the Fort and its surrounding grounds to Columbia and Union Colleges. In 1791 future presidents Thomas Jefferson and James Madison both visited the fort.

William Ferris Pell purchased 546 acres containing the ruined fort in 1820, but it wasn’t opened to the public until 1908. The non-profit Fort Ticonderoga Association took control in the 1930s and members of the Pell family formally loaned many of the paintings and artifacts to the fort in the 1940s. Mount Independence, the high ground on the Vermont side of Lake Champlain where many colonial troops were encamped during occupation of the fort is under the care of the Vermont Division for Historic Preservation. The ruins at nearby Crown Point are a New York State Historic Site.

This post also appeared at Adirondack Almanack, the premiere blog of the culture, politics, history, and environment of the Adirondacks.

New York Historical Society Revising Development Plans

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The New York Times is reporting that the New York Historical Society’s plans to build an enormous tower in Central Park West has been seriously revised following heavy pressure from historic preservation interests:

After a year and a half of controversy and intense opposition by preservationists and neighborhood groups, the New-York Historical Society at 77th Street and Central Park West has abandoned its pursuit of a $100 million, 23-story luxury condominium tower, along with a five-story annex that would have risen above an adjacent empty lot the society owns at 7-13 West 76th Street.

Instead, the society has embarked on a $55 million, three-year renovation of its galleries, entrance and facade that will create a permanent main-floor exhibition hall showcasing some of its treasures, an interactive multimedia orientation program in its auditorium, an 85-seat cafe and a below-ground children’s gallery and library, society officials said&#8230-

A wide coalition of opponents had criticized the height of the tower — 280 feet, doubling the 136-foot height of the current structure — and had charged that the tower would deform the skyline of Central Park West and cast a shadow on Central Park. The society’s building has landmark status individually, and as part of the Upper West Side-Central Park West Historic District and a smaller domain, the Central Park West-76th Street Historic District.

The New York Historical Society is the city’s oldest museum and research library. It was founded on November 20, 1804. Facing economic distress and inadequate management the society limited access to its collections in the early 1990s. In 1988 hundreds of paintings, decorative art objects, and other artifacts were discovered in horrendous conditions in a Manhattan art warehouse. That same year, the board dismissed nearly a quarter of its museum staff, closed half of the gallery space and curtailed visiting hours. James B. Bell, the society’s director since 1982, resigned.