Historic Preservation | Mindful Walker

Entries Tagged as 'historic preservation'

Redeemer Lutheran’s Staying Power

October 5th, 2011 · 6 Comments · Beyond Gotham

When we behold a beautiful historic house of worship, we may well find a sturdy and durable congregation that has also withstood the test of time. Both materials and people become a study in resilience. Redeemer Lutheran Church in Kingston is a sweet and brightly warm church set within the Rondout neighborhood of this Hudson [...]

Stained-Glass Glory in Chicago

July 11th, 2011 · 3 Comments · Beyond Gotham, Columns and Features

The names Healy and Millet likely will never be as well-known as Tiffany. But to those who look up at two stained-glass ceilings in the building that housed Chicago’s grand first central public library, George Healy and Louis Millet created an artwork that is dazzling, like Louis Tiffany’s, in that “can’t take my eyes off [...]

A Bit of the 19th Century on Lispenard

June 10th, 2011 · 8 Comments · Explore New York

Every once in a while I turn down a street in New York and suddenly think, “How have the bulldozers and the glass towers not obliterated this one?” Lispenard Street is one such place, a quiet street of a few blocks that is seemingly forgotten just one block south of the crazy, hustle-bustle free-for-all of [...]

Wal-Mart Will Not Build at Battlefield

January 26th, 2011 · 4 Comments · Be a Mindful Activist, Beyond Gotham

Preservationists today hailed the decision by Wal-Mart to drop its plans to build a supercenter within the original boundaries of the Wilderness Battlefield in Virginia. In an unexpected move early Wednesday in Virginia’s Orange Circuit Court, Wal-Mart revealed it was abandoning its proposal to construct a store on the property. The retailer said it was [...]

Order Unheeded at Underground RR Home

December 13th, 2010 · 6 Comments · Be a Mindful Activist, Explore New York

One hundred and fifty years ago, escaping slaves found a safe shelter at the home of Quaker abolitionists who lived at 339 West 29th St. in New York City. The family risked their lives in harboring the slaves. During the Draft Riots that erupted in the city in 1863, the family came under attack for [...]

Going Dutch at Kingston’s Wiltwyck Inn

October 22nd, 2010 · 6 Comments · Beyond Gotham

Call it Old Europe and the Dutch colonies meet the early 20th century. The Wiltwyck Inn is a petite building, by no means grand. This two-and-a-half story structure, tucked among plenty of historic buildings in the Uptown Stockade neighborhood of Kingston, conjures up faraway places and times long ago, thanks to its personality and out-of-the-ordinary, [...]

Savoring Leroy Street’s Details

August 2nd, 2010 · 5 Comments · Explore New York

Often a street in New York just beckons you to walk down. Leroy Street in Greenwich Village is one of those places. On a walk down Leroy Street between Bleecker and Bedford streets and then around the corner, noise peeled away and the buildings drew my eyes to their features. It’s another era, no longer [...]

The Wilderness: An “Endangered Place”

May 21st, 2010 · No Comments · Be a Mindful Activist, Beyond Gotham

The land on which thousands died in the cause to end slavery and keep the United States together cannot speak for itself. For generations, people have walked the land of the Wilderness Battlefield, remembering on this hallowed ground the harsh and brutal battle the Union and Confederacy fought in May, 1864. Now, a new generation [...]

Transported Back at 20 Exchange Place

May 14th, 2010 · 9 Comments · Explore New York

Buildings are like stories, marked by scenery, time and place, and plot. They often have a rise and decline, and maybe a rise again. Buildings evoke an era, and characters conceive, design, build, and inhabit them. Like the times when we read only a few pages or a chapter of a story, we may see [...]

Duane Park’s Compact Patch of History

April 7th, 2010 · 4 Comments · Explore New York

If you were creating a scavenger hunt that captured the history of New York City’s tiny Duane Park and its surroundings, you could use anything from eggs, butter, bog grass, and Dutch coins to 19th century shoes, coconut, banjos, and a dish of chocolate soufflé. That would begin to hint at the many layers of [...]

Terra Cotta Tales: Alwyn Court

March 4th, 2010 · 7 Comments · Explore New York

If the Alwyn Court apartment building in New York was a wedding cake, you might look at it and say, “Somebody went nuts with the icing.” Is it beautiful or it is too much? The creators of this 12-story confection of a building, constructed from 1907-1909 at the corner of West 58th Street and Seventh [...]

Wilderness Wal-Mart: A Day in Court

February 5th, 2010 · 3 Comments · Be a Mindful Activist, Beyond Gotham

The Battle of the Wilderness, one of the crucial turning points on the Union’s path to victory in the Civil War, encompassed three days of horrendous combat in May, 1864. Those fighting to keep part of the original battlefield safe from a Wal-Mart and big-box retail development hope their own campaign will live to see [...]

The Terrazzo Map: En Route to Recovery?

December 7th, 2009 · 12 Comments · Be a Mindful Activist, Explore New York

Call it the perfect work of art for the era of pony cars, muscle cars, family vacations on the road, and gas at about 30 cents a gallon. In the 1964 World’s Fair, when the Tent of Tomorrow opened at the New York State Pavilion, its floor became an instant, and fascinating, hit. It was [...]

Terra Cotta Tales: Apostolic Church

November 20th, 2009 · 3 Comments · Explore New York

An angel, calm and serene, is playing an instrument, perhaps heralding an arrival. Indeed, those worshiping inside the church where the angel is on the front exterior wall were awaiting a coming – the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. They believed it was going to happen imminently. The years of the 19th century came and [...]

Terra Cotta Tales: The Rodin Studios

November 6th, 2009 · No Comments · Explore New York

f the artists who developed the Rodin Studios building on New York City’s West 57th Street or the architect who designed it had favorites among the structure’s terra cotta characters, we may never know. Was it the frog, the man reading his book, or the ancient character holding a palette? We do know that nearly [...]

Lamartine Place: Saved for Posterity

October 16th, 2009 · 7 Comments · Explore New York

One hundred years from now, most of those who walk on West 29th Street in Manhattan may not know what Fern Luskin, Julie Finch, and a small group of local citizens did to preserve the block between Eighth and Ninth avenues. But in all likelihood they will see, largely intact, the mid-19th century row houses [...]

The “Fairest” Land: The Lake District

September 28th, 2009 · 10 Comments · Beyond Gotham

Beautiful landscape calls us to dream and to wander, to take paths unknown. In it, we fix our eyes both on the distant horizons and on the tiniest details at our side. It reaches into our souls, rewards and soothes us. It is the Earth’s embrace. Standing in an open field in England’s Lake District [...]

Taking In the Subway’s Old Powerhouse

August 10th, 2009 · 4 Comments · Be a Mindful Activist, Explore New York

It was on the perimeter of a legendary slum that back then fit its name, Hell’s Kitchen. Yet it was conceived and designed by men in suits who believed that fine, grand civic buildings served to reflect the great accomplishments and ambitious aims of a city crossing a threshold. The Interborough Rapid Transit Company (IRT) [...]

The Glories of New York’s Stoopscapes

July 27th, 2009 · 2 Comments · Explore New York

Like other city dwellers, New Yorkers follow the progress of the days and seasons on the details of the buildings and structures around them, from the rosy-pink and golden light of dusk upon the brick and stone to the melting of snow on window sills or the glint and angle of sunrise caught between two [...]

Wal-Mart: A Step Closer at the Wilderness

July 1st, 2009 · 6 Comments · Beyond Gotham

If land where the Union and Confederacy fought the Battle of the Wilderness in the Civil War is to remain hallowed ground, now is the time to speak up. Within the boundaries of this historic battlefield in Orange County, Virginia, Wal-Mart proposes to build a 138,000-square-foot supercenter. Its plans for the commercial development received the [...]