#historic-preservation

#historic-preservation

The effort, spearheaded by District 3 Councilmember Anthony Tordillos, comes in response to growing outcry from San Jose business leaders. They say existing preservation rules intended to protect the city's historic character have instead created a tangle of cumbersome requirements that have, paradoxically, caused many historic buildings to fall into blight and disrepair. Some of the loudest warnings have been issued from leaders in Japantown, a neighborhood home to a large number of properties on the city's official inventory of historic buildings.

Built in 1974 by an architect who prioritized form over function, the geometric stucco-and-cedar house lacked a full kitchen. It did, however, have water damage and a carpenter ant infestation. And the asking price was far too steep for its neglected condition. But the creative couple-she's the designer behind fine jewelry brand Mociun and he's a co-founder of mirror and furniture studio Bower -appreciated the quirky curves that give the home a special flow, so they negotiated a lower cost and began repairs.

The next time you host for the holidays, imagine more than a thousand people streaming through the front door. But it's OK - a professional designer has decked your halls; and never mind the small talk because trained volunteers will be on hand to answer questions and highlight your home's finer points. You might not even need to attend at all.

In a circa 1870s Greenpoint tenement building turned co-op not far from McGoldrick Park, this top-floor unit has period charm, modern updates, and low maintenance. The four-story, eight-unit wood frame walkup at 100 Newel Street boasts a well-preserved exterior with Italianate/Neo Grec-style arched and incised window surrounds, a matching canopy over the front door, bay windows, and a bracketed cornice. Greenpoint is home to a surprising number of early apartment buildings, with some possibly going back as far as the 1860s.

Its popularity was attributed to a best-selling 1848 book by Orson Squire Fowler, a phrenologist, sexologist, and amateur architect, called "The Octagon House: A Home For All." Fowler championed eight-sided houses because they received twice as much light as a traditional four-sided property and allowed owners to view the grounds from all angles. The Armour-Stiner Octagon House in the New York City suburb of Irvington-on-Hudson, around 18 miles from the northern tip of Manhattan, is a prime example of the genre.

While the original architect of Donald Trump's ever-expanding ballroom steps down and preservationists panic over the fate of New Deal murals inside the Social Security Administration building, the president gushes about painting the granite Eisenhower Executive Office Building white, fixing the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, and erecting his own Arc de Triomphe. To peruse the plans for a Trump-era capital district alongside the General Services Administration's list of assets identified for accelerated disposition the federal buildings slated for off-loading is to discern a diagram of Trump's values.

When Caroline Lunne, the founder of Migrate Marketing, a Charleston-based creative agency, first saw her future home, she described it as being "in bad shape." She lived down the street and would often pass the two-bedroom house that was built in 1937. That feeling of distaste softened on Caroline's many walks past the historic house. "Every time I passed it, I'd imagine what it could be. I always knew I wanted a project, something with history and heart,

Around 100 parishioners, preservation advocates, and East Village residents rallied on Sunday to oppose the cessation of services and the potential sale of the Most Holy Redeemer Church. Photo courtesy of Village Preservation Around 100 parishioners, preservation advocates, and East Village residents rallied on Sunday to oppose the cessation of services and the potential sale of the Most Holy Redeemer Church.

The Coconut Grove Playhouse, designed by the architect Richard Kiehnel, opened on New Year's Day 1927 with the luxuries of air-conditioning and the largest Wurlitzer organ in the US. Like many opulent venues at the time, the playhouse followed local Jim Crow laws and only welcomed white customers. A few blocks to the west, the much more modest Ace Theatre opened for Black audiences in the early 1930s in an area known as Little Bahamas, where many of Miami's Caribbean founders lived. In the 1950s, the Ace was the only movie theatre in the neighbourhood serving the Black community.

"So this is one of the only porches on building two that has remained open air for its entire history. And as a result, it needed a lot of work," Thompson said. "In particular, these spindles, which we had hand turned, by a local craftsman. And we actually found some of the original spindles elsewhere in the building. So we had those restored and then the columns themselves."

My enduring vision of a broom-swept interior just keeps passing before my eyes, says Nancy Lehrkind, who is spearheading the renovation of the historic building. She says the next tasks include graffiti removal from the old stone walls (built by the Works Progress Administration during the FDR years) and more landscaping cleanup. Volunteers will also decorate the beloved storybook station with holiday lights and staff an information booth at next week's Montclair Village Holiday Stroll.

Most Americans seen the Cinerama Dome. Since opening in 1963, the Hollywood movie theater hosted dazzling film premieres and black-tie galas, its striking geodesic shape expertly framing celebrities and red carpets. The theater - designed by Pierre Cabrol of Welton Becket's esteemed architectural firm - has also had cameos in legendary films, like Quentin Tarantino's Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.

San Jose has gained a new educational landmark as Hillbrook School opens its permanent high school campus in Downtown San Jose. Known for its JK-8 program in Los Gatos, the school now extends its innovative approach to older students in a vibrant urban setting. The new facilities at 227 N. First Street include classrooms, offices, and an arts and athletics center, creating a hub that blends learning with city life.

Shirley Temple's signature tune has become a cultural touchstone, showing up in the history of the Chicago mob (it was the nickname of the Cicero crew) and, of course, "The Simpsons." But if you haven't seen the 1934 film "Bright Eyes," you might not know that the ship in question is an airplane or that this hymn to air travel was originally sung as Temple's character taxied around one of Los Angeles' first commercial airports, Glendale's Grand Central Air Terminal.

Great cities have thriving downtowns, where the entire community can partake in joyful and affordable cultural experiences. That is why it is so exciting that San Jose, the national Levitt Foundation and Friends of Levitt Pavilion San Jose have a formal partnership to bring a state-of-the-art performance venue to St. James Park. After 13 years of dreaming, designing and extensive community input, this vision now has momentum to become reality.

The Zaharakako decorated their emporium in a grand turn-of-the-century style with two onyx soda fountains, a Tiffany-like lamp, a 50-foot mahogany backbar, intricate wood and brass works, and an Italian marble counter. At some point, the brothers expanded their sweet offerings to soda water (an innovation at the time) flavored with syrups and ice cream cones. One of their prized acquisitions - and clientele favorite - was a 1908 Welte Orchestrion, a self-playing organ, similar to a player piano, that imitates a several-piece orchestra.

Those structures are - or were - earthquake shacks, also known as earthquake cottages or refugee cottages. With the help of the Army, the city built the shacks in the wake of the 1906 earthquake, which left 225,000 San Franciscans without homes. They placed the tiny, one-room cottages in city parks, and residents whose homes had been destroyed paid $2 a month to live in them. At one point, more than 16,000 people lived in the shacks - approximately three for every 250-square-foot dwelling.

New interior renders released by Studio Sofield - the firm responsible for the interiors of SHoP Architects' ultra-thin tower at 111 West 57th Street - reveal how the triangular icon is being reshaped from office spaces into a collection of homes. While the 1903-built structure is shaped strongly by its site and steel frame, its tapering geometry guides the plan of each unit.

The museum will merge its current location on 19 South 22nd Street with the adjacent Swedenborgian Church and Parish House on 2129 Chestnut Street. This plan has been in the works for awhile, with the Mütter having purchased the property for $9.3 million in 2023. So far, the museum has raised $27 million through an initial phase of fundraising "to support plans to create a cohesive campus," the release indicated.

Long before Orange County became known for Disneyland or surfing, the area was the agricultural heart of Southern California. The local economy hinged on cattle ranching and citrus growing-cowboys weren't an uncommon sight, and adobe homes once lined the streets. It may be hard to imagine the county's idyllic past, but that history is actually alive and well in San Juan Capistrano, a small town near the county's southern border.

The San Francisco Office of the Chief Medical Examiner sought the public's help in identifying a man who was found deceased in front of 131 10th Street. The man, described as around 30 years old, with red hair and distinctive facial freckles, was identified Monday with the help of media attention on the case, but his identity has not been released. [KRON4]

In a city of about 120,000 residents, it takes only about 50 to trigger the process. If that designation is issued on the grounds that the site has some historic value, future attempts to alter the property become much more challenging. It's a tool councilmembers and housing advocates say has been weaponized to prevent or delay housing development in the city.

Aiming to clear roadblocks to building housing in Berkeley, the city may soon create stricter requirements for its landmark designations process. In a city of about 120,000 residents, it takes only about 50 to trigger the process. If that designation is issued on the grounds that the site has some historic value, future attempts to alter the property become much more challenging. It's a tool councilmembers and housing advocates say has been weaponized to prevent or delay housing development in the city.

Trump mused this week to Fox News Host Laura Ingraham about his plan to repaint the Eisenhower Executive Office Building completely white. So, you know it was always considered an ugly building, Trump said. But it's actually one of the most beautiful buildings ever built. Trump produced a mock-up of the building saying, Look at that. How beautiful that is with a coat of paint.

"Everything was blue underneath, from floor to ceiling," says vintage dealer Robert Ropertz. It's just the kind of surprise one encounters when scraping through layers of paint and wallpaper in an 1865 building. Then, there's the crooked floors, crumbling clay plaster, and leaky roofs, all of which illustrator Andrea Weber and Ropertz, who is also a painter and preservationist, took in stride.

This therapist unlocked a piece of history. Construction crews working on a refreshed storefront for a Brooklyn psychotherapy office discovered stunning, century-old stained glass that offers a sneak peek into Greenpoint's past. "I was totally blown away. It's a huge unexpected gift," Karen G. Costa, who has rented Brooklyn Psychotherapy's office at 705 Manhattan Ave. for years, told The Post. "I almost cried."

New Yorkers love a historic landmark, and College Point's Poppenhusen Institute has always been one of those gems that locals know is special. Now, the 1868 structure-already listed on the National Register of Historic Places and protected as a city landmark-has emerged from a $6.2 million restoration. The city unveiled the completed restoration at a ribbon-cutting ceremony this week, marking the latest milestone in an ongoing, multi-phase effort to preserve one of Queens' most significant cultural hubs.

Preservationists are petitioning to save Washington, D.C.'s Wilbur J. Cohen Federal Building, dubbed the "Sistine Chapel of New Deal Art" for the 20th-century masterpieces its houses, including murals by Philip Guston and Ben Shahn. Despite its landmark status, the Trump administration has listed the building up for sale, raising fears it could be demolished. Living New Deal, a California-based nonprofit building a database of New Deal public artworks across America,

"a thoughtful approach to historic preservation that saves a deteriorating landmarked building."

SANTA CRUZ - For years, the San Lorenzo River mouth surf break in Santa Cruz has been celebrated by local surfers and history buffs as the location where surfing was first introduced to the continental United States more than a century ago. On Friday, state authorities stepped in to make that recognition official. The California Historical Resource Commission unanimously agreed to designate the Three Princes' Surf Site at the San Lorenzo River mouth as a California Historical Landmark. The application process was spearheaded by California State Parks but came after at least a decade of advocacy work among local community members and surfers.

The last we'd heard of the beloved and historic Land's End restaurant the Cliff House, which closed in late 2020 and its iconic lettered Cliff House signage came down when the restaurant owners could not renew their lease with the property owners at the National Park Service, the new owner said a new restaurant there would not open until late 2025.

When the Breuer Building on 75th and Madison reopens on Saturday in its new life as an auction house for Sotheby's, return visitors will notice that the lobby is much as they left it. The room is a rare interior landmark, a designation that encompasses what seemed like furniture: slabs of seating and tables that are cemented in. But Sotheby's still managed to make some tweaks.

CB2's Land Use Committee voted against the proposal for the 27-story development, which would rise from a landmarked Fort Greene church. After more than a year of speculation about the future of the landmarked Hanson Place Central United Methodist Church in Fort Greene, plans are now clear: The owners want to use the church's shell as the base of a 27-story, 240-unit apartment tower that would rise beside the iconic Williamsburgh Savings Bank Tower.

The story of America's motels begins, as travel journalist Ellie Seymour reminds readers, exactly a century ago in 1925, when architect Arthur Heineman opened the Milestone Mo-Tel in San Luis Obispo, California. The term 'motel' itself was born out of necessity, as 'Milestone Motor Hotel' simply didn't fit on the rooftop sign. Offering private garages and hot showers, it catered to the rise of automobile tourism and set the blueprint for a phenomenon that would flourish after World War II.

At the heart of the Historic Jeddah Waterfront Regeneration Initiative, the Culture Square stands as a bold statement of renewal, an intersection where memory, art, and urban transformation converge.

Imagine freeways along Lady Bird Lake in Austin, through Georgetown in Washington, along the beach in Santa Monica, through the French Quarter in New Orleans, or bisecting Cambridge between Harvard and MIT. Freeway builders had their sights set on all these places. They would've had their way, too, if not for the meddling protesters who foiled their schemes. The freeway revolt of the 1960s and '70s changed the course of American history, saving some of the nation's oldest and most-beautiful neighborhoods.