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Drip drip drip. How many buildings must we lose? (via The Portland Mercury: http://www.portlandmercury.com/blogtown/2016/08/31/18533886/after-outcry-portland-will-force-delay-to-some-old-building-demolitions)

#iheartoldshit #demolition #gif #historic preservation

As the city becomes more of a corporate and condo island,” Mr. Rosenthal said, “some of us wish for a better balance between money and art, between progress and preservation, and we hope that one day we will see a reversal of the destruction of conscience and community we are witnessing.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/23/nyregion/the-magic-shop-a-venerable-recording-studio-in-soho-will-close.html?_r=0

thisjawnmatters

Valentine’s Day is this weekend. Are you planning on heart bombing your favorite historic places? Share your love with #IHeartSavingPlaces! #Repost @yfpaphilly: Roberts Vaux Junion High School, Irwin T. Catherine, 1936-1938. #thisjawnmatters #heartbombs #savephillyschools #thisplacematters by savingplaces http://ift.tt/1o0orOs

Several groups are concerned about the possible demolition of the Ambassador Grill and Lounge and the lobby of the One UN New York hotel, both designed by the architect Kevin Roche.

“We’re at a critical point in the cycle with postmodern interiors in New York,” [preservationist Theodore] Grunewald said. “When they’re new, people get excited about them. After a while, they disappear into the background of the city. People look at other new things. These buildings recede. Right before they’re rediscovered, people think they’re worthless. The same thing happened with Art Deco. That’s a dangerous moment.”

#ambassador grill and lounge (manhattan #ny #restaurant)#postmodern #preservation #Manhattan #One UN Hotel

Sources are telling us that Yonah Schimmel’s Knishes – headquartered at 137 East Houston since 1910 – is reportedly on the verge of departure. Apparently word on the street is that the landlord is trying to force ‘em out with an all-too-familiar rent hike.

via Bowery Boogie

If the rumors are true, it's just another chapter in the story of Manhattan's Lower East Side, dying its slow death-by-a-thousand-cuts brought by homogenization, luxury development, and rent-hikes.

#Yonah Shimmel's Knishes #Lower East Side #BoweryBoogie

Cities aren’t just so many square feet of space from which profit can be squeezed, they are the repositories of people’s memories, the often narrow spaces in which people can create a life they have chosen rather than were given.

- Feargus O'Sullivan in CityLab On the transformation of London's Soho from interesting, queer, bohemian, and all-night into something glassy and dreadfully boring.

#Soho #London #neighborhood change

"Menino leveraged the economic boom to breathe new life into historic landmarks that had languished for years under his predecessors, places like the Allen House mansion on Washington Street in the South End. He never let up in working to rehabilitate others like the Ferdinand Blue Store in Dudley Square. And he stood in the way of the bulldozer when it mattered most... A large part of Menino’s legacy will be the demolitions Boston didn’t see."

Carter Wilkie on former Boston Mayor Tom Menino's preservation legacy.http://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2013/03/29/protecting-historic-buildings-and-neighborhoods-tom-menino-blazed-trail-preservation-for-other-urban-mayors/jXUaT6iXq80qWat5ztrFGP/story.html

#tom menino #historic preservation #boston

HOT LINKS: Creative church reuse, Manhattan layers, 15 San Franciscans, Petrified Forest honors

1962: Petrified Forest National Park visitors compound. [AP]

It's been too dangin long. With that, some hot headlines:

In Pittsburgh former churches are being converted into more than condos - they're becoming everything from hotels to hookah bars. Can we pull this sort of things off in more places? [NYT]

Here's some ambition for you, Urban Layers maps Manhattan's history showing the age of every building.

San Francisco Chronicle design critic John King picks out his top 15 buildings that say 'San Francisco'. [SF Gate]

Buildings designed by modernist giants Richard Neutra and Robert Alexander in Arizona's Petrified Forest National Park were named a National Treasure by the National Trust earlier this month. [AP]

Hot Links: border feuds, mod preservation plaques, smog-eating buildings, and more

by roboppy on Flickr | Creative Commons

Georgia and Tennessee are having an old fashioned border feud. Over water. (Think Colonial era meets Chinatown.) [AtlanticWire]

Payphone time machines (this is not a new Ice Cube movie) [AtlanticCities]

This artist has drawn more than 500 of New York's building and wants to draw all of them. All 900,000. [NYTimes]

New York City's best public food market is in Philadelphia [Mark Bittman, NYTimes]

QueensWay viaduct park vs restored rail service speeding commutes from Rockaways [A/N blog]

Torre de Especialidades: Mexico City's smog-eating building [Fast.Co Exist]

New Canaan's modernist gems get specially designed mod history plaques [A/N blog]

Michael Bloomberg: Mayor of Preservation [Wall Street Journal] Yo Pritzker: Give Denise Scott Brown her due [Change.org petition] Should Madison Square Garden stay put... FOREVER? [A/N blog]

#water wars #smog #QueensWay #payphone #Michael Bloomberg #Mexico City #Madison Square Garden #Denise Scott Brown

Long time, no links. HOT LINKS lives.

Grand Central Station. December 2012. Photo by The Preservator

Holy Moses, has it been this long? Preservator readers - all three of you - I apologize. I have been cheating on you, writing for a certain Philly-centric online outlet. But, let's be real, I miss being here too. So let's not dwell in neglect, but push on where we left off. Here are a few Friday HOT LINKS: JFK's PanAm Worldport (now Delta Terminal 3) building is a goner [Atlantic Cities] To be fair, this once futuristic, jet-age wonder has seen better days, but what a bummer. savetheworldport.org What's a tree worth? Maybe more than your house. [Next City] Affordable LGBT housing for seniors in Philly's Gayborhood by Wallace Roberts Todd [A/N blog] Why the Philadelphia Historical Commission won't process any nominations [Hidden City Daily] Isn't it time to divorce Penn Station and Madison Square Garden? Kimmelman says yes. [NYTimes] LPC designates 5 historic firehouses: Sunset Park, Windsor Terrace, Longwood, Rockaway Park, and Bathgate [A/N blog] Grand Central Station at 100, a look at this beauty past and present [A/N blog]

Photo Friday: South Philly Kaleideoscope + Hot Links

South Philly Kaleidoscope, 804 Christian St. photo by Preservator

City Life Could Change Your Brain for the Worse [Wired] National Trust for Historic Preservation Announces 2011 List of America's 11 Most Endangered Places [NTHP] America Reviving its Highway System for Cyclists [GOOD] Solving the Real Estate Crisis with Parks [The Dirt] Philly Stories: Park Preservation: Help Save East Kensington's Emerald Park [Grid] Philadelphia's Summer Music Festival Breakdown [Philebrity] Philly Independent Film Festival Gears Up [Newsworks Owner of Church [of the Assumption] Takes Demolition Appeal to Common Pleas Court [PlanPhilly] Nightmarket's Next Stop: Mt. Airy on Aug. 4 [nightmarket]

#photofriday #Mural #kalideoscope

Robert N. C. Nix, Sr. Federal Building and U.S. Courthouse

Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

Philadelphia is not especially well known for its collection of Art Deco/Moderne architecture, but it is home to some real treasures of 1930s design. One of my favorites is the monumental Robert N. C. Nix, Sr. Federal Building and Court House, taking up half of the block along the western side of 9th Street between Chestnut and Market. The Nix building was constructed between 1937-1939 as a project of the Public Works Administration, a federal initiative to provide jobs and economic activity surrounding public construction projects as part of the nation’s recovery from the Great Depression.

The Nix building is a stylized Moderne structure built out of Indiana Limestone, with simplified classical design elements. The entrances to the Court House, on Market and Chestnut, are flanked by huge bas-relief granite sculptures depicting allegories of justice and the rule of law. My favorites, however, are the bas-relief sculptures along 9th Street showing postal carriers in different parts of the United States.

For especially good interior photos of the post office and courts, visit the General Services Administration page for the Robert N. C. Nix, Sr. Federal Building and U.S. Courthouse. All photos above by Preservator.

#public art #Philadelphia #Modernistic #GSA #Art Deco

Monday Roundup: Kimmel Center redesigns, Kensington's Visitation BVM Matters, PHA Property Disposal, SEPTA Goes Hybrid

Dorrance H. Hamilton Garden at the Kimmel Center, 2009. photo by Bob Jagendorf / flickr / creativecommons license.

Renderings for the BLT Architects redesign of the Kimmel Center's Dorrance H. Hamilton Garden have been released, revealing a more functional event space - check them out on the A/N blog. West Kensington's beautiful, twin-spired Visitation BVM Catholic Church (built in 1879) is a finalist in the National Trust for Historic Preservation's "This Place Matters" grant competition. The $25,000 prize would support Visitation's church, school, and community center. Vote for Visitaiton BVM here. The Philadelphia Housing Authority is seeking nonprofit takers for more than 1,000 of its vacant properties, and will over more than 1,200 to the public at market rates. [Inquirer] SEPTA plans to install batteries along the Market-Frankford line to capture and store power generated as trains stop [New York Times Green blog].

#Visitation BVM #This Place Matters #SEPTA #PHA #Kimmel Center

Photo Friday: Hot Hot Heat + Hot Links

Seger Playground, Philadelphia. Photo by The Preservator.

Whoa nelly. Hot times. Don't forget that the City of Philadelphia has an interactive map designed to help you beat summer heat, showing swimming pools and cooling centers. Click here. I really miss phillyskyline.com. Brad Maule, the man behind the lens and the words, returned to Philly briefly and posted a great photo essay of his trip on his new website, Maule of America, here. It makes me miss PhillySkyline even more. Over at PhillyHistory, Shawn Evans posted about the prevalence of the city's neighborhood movie theaters. The pictures of these lost picture palaces are fantastic. According to the Philadelphia City Planning Commission, The Future Begins Now. This week the commission adopted the Philadelphia 2035 Citywide Vision this week. If you're up for the long read, download the full thing here, or the summary here. Inga sums it up in this week's Changing Skyline.

#photofriday #phillyskyline #PhillyHistory #inga saffron

Travel Postcards: Pittsburgh, Santa Barbara, and Catskills

In the last month, I went to Pittsburgh twice, zipped west to California, and drove up to the Catskill mountains. More on Philly soon. Meantime, here are some postcards from my travels.

Clayton, Frick Art & Historical Center, Pittsburgh, PA. Photo by The Preservator

In Pittsburgh I visited Clayton, the centerpiece of the Frick Art & Historical Center - a Victorian jewel built for Henry Clay Frick. History does not recall Frick kindly as an industrialist. (Recall the blood shed on his orders during the Homestead Steel strike in 1892.) But, Frick is well-regarded for his vast art collection and as a museum benefactor. At home, Frick was a man of style. Clayton, is a delightful Victorian pile in the Point Breeze neighborhood of Pittsburgh. The house is a museum with original furnishings and objects intact and offers a portrait of how swells like the Fricks lived in Pittsburgh. Beautiful gardens, a really good cafe, and a free museum round out the five-acre complex.

Santa Barbara, California. Photo by The Preservator

Oh, California. Land of my youth! It was a quick visit for a family occasion, but I still managed to put my feet in the Pacific Ocean and watch dolphins playing near the shore. I stand by my conviction that the Pacific is superior to the Atlantic. Sorry.

Photo by The Preservator

Palms to pines. This is the lake in the Catskills where my grandmother lives. It's the most beautiful place I know.

#travel #santa barbara #pittsburgh #catskills

Hot Links - Weekend Edition

Repairing / Remodeling - Bainbridge and South Reese St, Philadelphia. Photo by The Preservator

Hot Links: Philadelphia Inquirer building is up for sale (again). [Philly.com] Bart Blatstein's trashy manners [DailyNews] SEPTA launches TransitView, for real-time bus and trolley info [TechnicallyPhilly.com] Changing Skyline History vs. Highrises: An Urban Debate [Inquirer] This weekend: Philly Beer Week kicks off today - some picks via PhillyHomegrown [HomegrownBlog] The Roots Picnic 6/4 at Festival Pier[okayplayer] Philadelphia Burger Brawl benefit for William M. Meredith Elementary School [facebook] New farmers market opens this 6/5 in Pennsport's Dickenson Square Park [uwishunu]

#weekend #SEPTA #Roots Picnic #Inquirer #inga saffron #hot links #Farmer's Market #Beer Week #Bart Blatstein

Photo Friday: Race Street Pier

I popped over to the newly opened Race Street Pier yesterday. Despite the heat, there were several people there enjoying the new park: a couple of people camped out on the new wood benches in the shade of relatively mature swamp oak trees, a few parked on the steps, and two guys were fishing off the end of the pier. Field Operations' design succeeds in creating a wide variety of spaces, heights, and textures that are a pleasure to discover along the length of the pier. The trees are already relatively mature, and with time will make the park a cool, leafy landscape along the water. Access to the new park space is easy, though it feels a little lonely in its current setting. Here's hoping it will be connected to more public improvements along the Delaware River in short order. Maybe it was yesterday's heat, but I couldn't help but think that an ice cream stand would be an fantastic addition at the park's entry. Enjoy the long weekend, everyone.

#Race Street Pier #photofriday #Philadelphia #Delaware River

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