Preservation & Sustainability--Resources You Can Use

High Falls, Rochester NY

This weekend, The Landmark Society will be joining over 40 other organizations, businesses, and agencies as a vendor at the Greentopia Festival in High Falls. You might wonder, what is the purpose of this Greentopia and how does it possibly relate to The Landmark Society and historic preservation? First, the event itself is designed to celebrate the green movement, showcase what the region is doing to contribute to the movement, and open up a discussion about what sustainability and "green" really mean.

Genesee Valley Park, Rochester NY

That's where we come in. Although preservation isn't usually the first thing that leaps to most peoples minds' when they hear the words "green" or "sustainable," reusing our existing building stock, preserving our historic landscapes and rural spaces, and reinvesting in our urban centers and rural villages are all examples of recycling on a large scale. And, of course, there are added environmental benefits to preservation--most historic neighborhoods are walkable, older buildings were built to last with high quality materials, and most older buildings incorporate green features such as double-hung windows with operable upper and lower sash that allow you to maximize passive ventilation rather than blast the A/C.

Erie Canal & converted grain tower,
Pittsford NY

So come visit me this weekend at The Landmark Society's table at Greentopia--I and other friendly Landmark Society staff will be there all weekend. I'll be more than happy to share with you why preservation is a necessary part of ensuring the health and sustainability of our communities. Or, if you're reading this post after Greentopia, explore some of the links below to learn more about preservation and sustainability and, more importantly, how you can help save our planet by saving our historic resources.

If you only read one thing, take a look at this article from the National Trust's Preservation Magazine:
A Cautionary Tale--Amid our green-building boom, why neglecting the old in favor of the new just might cost us dearly. By Wayne Curtis.

From us, The Landmark Society:
8 reasons why preservation is an environmentally friendly activity
The Greenest Building - display board from Greentopia
Embodied Energy - display board from Greentopia
Preservation Tips - display board from Greentopia

From CITY Newspaper:
Closing the door on vinyl windows

From the National Trust for Historic Preservation:
Sustainability & Historic Preservation
Weatherization Guide
Window Know-How: A Guide to Going Green
Historic Wood Windows Tip Sheet
Energy Efficient Strategies - Cold Climates
Energy Efficient Strategies - Main Street

From the NY State Historic Preservation Office:
Weatherization Toolkit

From Old House Journal:
Weatherstripping 101 (the print version of this article has more helpful photos and inserts)

The Greenest Building - This website calculates the amount of embodied energy contained in an existing building and the amount of energy required to demolish a building. You can even convert those numbers into gallons of gasoline.


Caitlin Meives is Preservation Planner with The Landmark Society. She'll be spending this weekend celebrating her two favorite things--the natural and the historic built environments.

Live from Nashville

I'm in Nashville this week at the National Trust for Historic Preservation's Annual Conference. It's exciting to have a chance to visit a city I might never have been to otherwise, although truth be told, I haven't seen much of it yet! I arrived in the rain late yesterday afternoon, attended a reception in the hotel last night, spent the day (rainy again) in training sessions in the hotel, and finally ventured out late this afternoon to go to the Opening Plenary Session at the historic Ryman Auditorium, the "mother church of country music."

After a few songs by a local singer/songwriter, we heard some news about new and continuing National Trust initiatives, and then our two keynote speakers took the stage. Dame Fiona Reynolds, director general of the National Trust in England, spoke about her organization's programs in the sustainability arena, particularly their efforts to connect locally grown, seasonal food with a larger ethic of more sustainable living at their historic sites. She noted that western nations, whose lifestyles over the past 50 years have been so negatively impacting our global climate, need to change our ways and begin living in a more responsible, sustainable way, "and to help us, we have a recession." With the recession, people are finally starting to rethink the need to constantly buy more things, and are seeking out simpler, authentic activities to connect them with family and community - perfectly playing into our interests.

The second keynote speaker was author Bill McKibben, who talked about climate change and the need for immediate action to reduce emissions. He made the interesting point that climate threatens culture as well as the environment, in that our connection to past events and cultural patterns is certain to change. As an example, he pointed to Vermont, where he said forecasts indicate that by the end of the century there will be no more snow; how will we relate to Robert Frost's poetry about snowy New England woods when the New England woods have no more snow? He also showed us a short video from the Maldives, where the land is just a few feet about sea level; with rising sea levels, their entire country may cease to exist. Bill is involved in the organization 350.org, which is planning worldwide actions on October 24 to demand global action to combat this threat to our planet and our culture.

After the plenary session, I headed to the opening reception, held at an Art Deco post office converted into a gorgeous art museum, where I caught up with colleagues from the Trust and other organizations and met new people as well.

Tomorrow's schedule includes an overview bus tour of Nashville (I hope the skies clear so I can actually SEE Nashville by then!), the annual advocacy luncheon (Laura Bush is this year's keynote speaker), and afternoon sessions on sustainability and modern resources, followed by an evening candlelight tour of houses in East Nashville.

The National Trust is offering opportunities to be a "virtual attendee" of several sessions - check out their website to find out how!

Posted by Katie Eggers Comeau, Director of Preservation Services

(Photos: A view of Nashville "honkytonks," from the hotel; and the historic Ryman Auditorium after the plenary session.)

Challenges and opportunities in the federal stimulus package

We’ve been hearing so much about the federal stimulus lately, but what does it mean for historic preservation?

Last week, I took part in a conference call for preservationists in the northeastern U.S. who are grappling with what the National Trust for Historic Preservation is calling “the perfect storm:” money pouring into new public works projects at the same time that budget cuts are affecting state agencies – including State Historic Preservation Offices (SHPOs), which are charged with reviewing the impact of publicly funded projects on historic resources.

It was interesting to hear how preservationists in the various northeastern states are dealing with these issues, which present both challenges and opportunities. Whether in the form of public works projects that threaten (or, in some cases, offer opportunities to rehabilitate) historic resources, cutbacks to SHPO staff and programs, or pressures to streamline project reviews, each state is facing a different scenario, and it’s clear from what the northeastern preservationists had to say that we face a huge challenge in trying to get a handle on the positives and negatives.

The National Trust has set up a very helpful website called “The Perfect Storm” where they are tracking stimulus-related issues in all 50 states, explaining how we can help support projects that are positive for preservation and offer alternatives to policies and projects that are detrimental to historic resources.

If you have any thoughts about how new stimulus funding might (or should?) affect historic resources, we’d love to hear them!

Posted by Katie Eggers Comeau, Director of Preservation Services

Preservation Priorities for a New Administration

What should President-Elect Obama do to support historic preservation? The National Trust for Historic Preservation is asking people who value historic buildings, landscapes and communities to weigh in on their top priorities and to submit comments and suggestions as they prepare their official platform for preservation, to be shared with the new administration.

Vote on your priorities and submit stories, recommendations, and advice from your perspective here.

Posted by Katie Eggers Comeau, Advocacy Coordinator

Sustainability, Recent Past, and More from Tulsa

Yesterday I posted a link to a description of an interesting session on climate change at the National Trust for Historic Preservation's annual conference in Tulsa. Here are a few more posts worth reading from Trust staffers who attended the conference.

One session whose description really resonated with me concerned sustainability issues relating to post-WWII buildings. Lately I've been giving two presentations, one on how historic preservation is the greenest form of development (recycling on a grand scale), and one on the importance of identifying and protecting our notable resources from the recent past. The two concepts are somewhat in conflict, as mid- to late-20th century buildings, on average, have much worse energy performance than buildings constructed before 1920 or after 2000 - so in one presentation I try to build people's appreciation for recent resources, while in the other I point out that they, not the older buildings more easily recognized as "historic," are a big problem from an energy perspective. The session on sustainability and modern buildings posed this dilemma as an opportunity, as described by Barbara Campagna:

...according to a 2003 Department of Energy report, 55% of America’s commercial building stock was built between 1945 and 1990. And the most inefficient buildings are those built during this same period. Given that almost 50% of the greenhouse gas emissions from the US come from the operations and construction of buildings, the only way we are going to make a demonstrable impact to the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions is through the greening of our modern heritage – most of which are not stellar icons like those discussed in this session.

The session looked at the philosophical and practical issues associated with making these decidedly un-green buildings, constructed when energy was cheap (ever try to open a window in a 1960s office building?) more environmentally friendly.

While the session Barbara Campagna described focused on iconic buildings, another session looked at very ordinary buildings: 1950s and 1960s neighborhoods. This was another topic of particular interest to me, as I'm working on a project with the Village of Pittsford to develop some guidance for their Architectural and Preservation Review Board to use when reviewing applications to alter post-war houses in the village (the entire Village of Pittsford is a locally designated preservation district, meaning that any exterior alteration to any building, regardless of age, must be reviewed by the APRB). Adrian Scott Fine points out that in Tulsa, as in many communities, preservationists and others are just starting to come to grips with the implications of post-war neighborhoods as potential historic resources:

In an already rabid private property rights environment, it’s a tough sell to put in place local historic or conservation district designation anywhere these days, let alone to do it for a 1950s ranch house neighborhood. A big part of the problem is us and our need to get over ourselves. The idea of saving places which are from the period of our living memory is affected by a number of prejudices, where taste all too often trumps judgment. History didn’t stop in 1945 or in 1975. We cannot pick and choose arbitrarily which era of our past to deem more important.

Finally, another of Barbara Campagna's posts, this one a story about a tour of green rehabilitations in and around downtown Tulsa, resonated, for obvious reasons:

I learned that 60% of Tulsa’s downtown core is covered with parking lots and that the neighborhoods, communities and culture exist on the edge of downtown or the older “suburbs”. That encouraged me a bit, although I would like to understand sometime what happened to downtown Tulsa to devastate it to such an extent. There is no retail, few restaurants, no pharmacies, grocery stores, or dry cleaners anywhere in sight downtown. And while many downtowns around the country go dormant on the weekends, I have never seen a major city that is dormant during the week also...

...What I learned from this trip and from several other visits around the city over the weekend, was that there are islands of hope in the city. What’s missing right now is connection. Downtown has more holes than beauty and most of the innovation appears to be on the edge of downtown. But each of these projects represented the best in community activism and dedication to reviving place. Each of the people we met behind the tour and the projects are adaptive use warriors -– recognizing the importance of keeping what you can and looking for ways to bring culture and community to their city. I hope that the influx of 1,500+ preservationists will have some impact on the political will and that ten years from now the surface parking lots will be replaced with parks and green buildings, you will be able to find a pharmacy, grocery, restaurant, and store on every corner and the streets will be alive with activity during both the week and the weekend.

Sound familiar?

The National Trust conference will be in Buffalo in 2011 - we look forward to the opportunity to bring those 1,500 preservationists to Rochester while they're right next door.

Posted by Katie Eggers Comeau, Advocacy Coordinator

Preservation and Climate Change - A View from "Across the Pond"

Last week the National Trust for Historic Preservation held its annual conference in Tulsa. I wasn't able to make the trip to Oklahoma but have been following along via the National Trust's blog, where Trust staffers have been describing the sessions, their impressions of Tulsa, and more. A post describing a session on climate change and historic preservation, featuring speakers from the United Kingdom, caught my eye. From the description posted by Barbara Campagna, it sounds like it was quite a far-reaching session, containing information on current and projected impacts of climate change on specific historic properties, discussion of how to truly measure values related to sustainability, and explanations of steps that British preservation organizations are taking to both adapt to climate-induced changes and to reduce the energy needs of historic buildings. Here's a particularly chilling passage from Barbara's description:

Decades of neglect and little investment leads to slum clearance and wholesale redevelopment, while whole life costing tied to embodied carbon modeling has been using carbon calculations (15-20 years) assigned by bankers and investors that are likely less than the true value of our material culture. In terms of ecological sustainability, models suggest that melting ice caps will cause a breach of the Thames and catastrophic flooding of London.

At the end of the post are some interesting links to British organizations that are pursuing this type of holistic view of climate change as it pertains to historic buildings - great stuff.

Posted by Katie Eggers Comeau, Advocacy Coordinator