“When you look at what we’ve accomplished in just four months,
it’s pretty incredible.” There’s
no disputing that recent assessment by Henry McCartney, Interim Executive
Director of Preservation Buffalo-Niagara.
Formed last year,
Preservation Buffalo-Niagara was the culmination of nearly a year of effort
toward consolidation and organizational development by local preservation
groups.
But in a major coup for that effort, it was announced last week
that the organization was chosen to receive a significant preservation field
services grant in the second–and possibly final–funding round, joining 45 other
organizations to date. Awarded
through the National Trust for Historic Preservation, and funded by the Robert
W. Wilson Charitable Trust, this “Partners in the Field” grant will allow for the hiring of a full-time preservation specialist to
operate throughout the 7-county western New York region. In another clue to the caliber of the
competition, about half of the grants have gone to statewide organizations, and
organizations in cities such as San Francisco and Baltimore. Preservation Buffalo-Niagara received
the only award in New York State.
In an entry on its
blog, the National
Trust describes the mission of the Partners in the Field program as “Make a Lot
of Noise, and Save a Lot of Buildings.”
To win this funding, the timing of Preservation
Buffalo-Niagara’s formation couldn’t have been more auspicious. “If we had formed just six months
later, we would have missed the window of opportunity,” Catherine Schweitzer
told me. “Even a year ago, our
Buffalo preservation organizations would not have been eligible and able to
apply for this grant. Only by
melding the two organizations, obtaining local foundation investment, and
qualifying as a Local Partner of the National Trust for Historic Preservation
were we able to successfully compete for this significant grant.”
Also, according to Catherine, the commitment of local funds made
a critical difference. “It showed
that our vision and work is supported by Buffalo’s foundations, as well as our
members. This support, coupled
with the needs of our region for more robust use of historic preservation,
enabled us to make a very compelling case for this highly competitive grant
award. With funding from the
Community Foundation of Greater Buffalo, we now have the first-year match in
hand and can start the search for the preservation specialist almost
immediately.”
This newly created position of “preservation specialist” will be
used to expand the scope of on-the-ground preservation services and assistance
to property owners, developers, local officials, and others needing information
and tools to protect and enhance their communities. Beginning this year, according to Catherine, this initiative
will expand preservation tools and practices into more neighborhoods, and also
into more rural areas. The
preservation specialist will be available to provide services in Erie, Niagara,
Cattaraugus, Chautauqua, Orleans, Genesee, and Wyoming Counties. Office space will be in the Market
Arcade in downtown Buffalo, and also, on a regular schedule, at city hall in
Niagara Falls through an arrangement with Falls Mayor Dyster. “We don’t want Niagara to just be in
our name,” Catherine told me, “we want to actually be in Niagara County.” Services to surrounding counties will
be on-call.
As the name “Partners in the Field” implies, building
partnerships will be a major theme of this initiative. Working closely with the Preservation
League of New York State, the State Historic
Preservation Office, and the National Trust
for Historic Preservation, the preservation
specialist will serve as a local contact for these organizations–their “feet on
the streets.” These organizations
have specialized expertise, programs, and in some cases, funding available for
preservation, and the preservation specialist will provide the connection for
communities, building owners, and developers.
The preservation specialist will report to the permanent
executive director–the search for whom is being overseen by Interim Executive
Director Henry McCartney, who is the retired executive director of the Landmark
Society in Rochester. He told me that candidates from all
over the state and country have already been interviewed–in fact, he and
Catherine Schweitzer began talking with candidates last year at the National
Trust preservation conference in Tulsa, OK. They expect one of the many well-qualified candidates to be
selected and at work by this spring.
Looking at the bottom line: how will this help save buildings? Catherine Schweitzer was quick to point
out that Preservation Buffalo-Niagara doesn’t have the mission, capability, or
money to save every building.
Rather, these services will help others save buildings, by providing
advice on the condition of buildings, preservation regulations, funding sources,
and preservation strategies. While
some historic districts in Buffalo, for example, have neighborhood associations
which have historically served some of these functions, the largest, Hamlin
Park, does not. The preservation specialist
would be able to assist in that area.
And what about walking the line between advice and
activism? Catherine acknowledged that
both of those things play critical roles in preservation. “We wouldn’t be where we are today,
doing this, without the work of the more activist preservation groups such as
the Preservation Coalition and the Campaign for Greater Buffalo.” She went on to say that “some things
require more of a deft, behind-the-scenes touch, but sometimes you have to be
more vocal and visible against something that’s just wrong.” Like everyone involved in preservation
in western New York, the preservation specialist will have to walk that line.
According to Henry, the field services partnership program got
its start in Vermont 12 years ago, between the National Trust and the
Preservation Trust of Vermont. He
pointed out, however, that the Landmark Society in Rochester has provided
similar services to the outlying counties it serves for some time. Catherine told me that the Wilson
Foundation, working with the National Trust, has recently played a visionary and
catalytic role by institutionalizing this kind of partnership arrangement in
the last couple of years. The
success was visible at the conference in Tulsa last year, when field services
reps from all over the nation posed for a photograph. According to the National
Trust,
in many areas of the country there has been a lack of preservation specialists
to visit local communities and give on-site help. So these folks have become the “circuit riding preachers” of
preservation–helping communities save a lot of buildings and, hopefully, making
noise when necessary.
The funder of the Partners in the Field program, the Robert W.
Wilson Charitable Trust, was established by Wall Street legend Robert
Wilson. In 2008, he was on
Business Week’s list of America’s top 50 givers–having given $43 Million, about half of which
provides scholarships for needy students to attend Catholic schools in New York
City.
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Painting above of Market Arcade Building by Dr. V. Robert Lalli.
Read more about Dr. Lalli here.