Young Preservationists release Top 10 list of regional opportunities
Among thousands of opportunities for preservation in the area, 10 stand out in the 2016 list of the Young Preservationists’ Association.
The sites include St. John Vianney Church in Allentown — the subject of a hotly contested closure in April; Carnegie’s Husler Building, home of the Historical Society of Carnegie and the Honus Wagner Museum; the historic district of West Middletown, Washington County, which includes more than 30 buildings built before 1850; and Shaw Avenue Millionaires’ Row in McKeesport.
The Top 10 list and past success stories will be features of the YPA’s annual celebration of preservation Thursday at the Frick Art and Historical Center, 7227 Reynolds St., Point Breeze.
A VIP champagne event begins at 5 p.m. The VIP ticket is $100. The larger event, with ticket prices ranging from $15 to $35, runs from 6 to 9 p.m. For more information and tickets, visit youngpreservationists.org.
The Young Preservationists Association formed in 2002 and have released a Top 10 list since
2003. The list has been an opportunity for devotees of historic and architectural assets to champion examples that may be vulnerable to redevelopment or debilitation.
The list has not been exclusively buildings.
This year’s includes “preservation friendly ordinances” throughout the region and the Larimer Avenue bridge, which YPA describes as “among the finest extant examples of an open spandrel, poured concrete arch bridge left within the city limits.” It spans Washington Boulevard.
The Allegheny Commons pedestrian footbridge made the list two years ago and will be on YPA’s list of reminders from past years “until I can walk across it,” said YPA executive director Matthew Craig. The pedestrian bridge was demolished several years ago, but the city has promised to replace it when it has the funds.
Without funds of its own to rescue historical sites, YPA is encouraging others to see the potential of investing even in hard-sell areas with little investment. One of the houses in McKeesport’s Millionaires’ Row is on the market for $8,700 — an encouraging price in a discouraging market.
Past Top 10 opportunities that remain in need include the New Granada in the Hill District, which made the 2003 list. It awaits investment to be redeveloped, although it has been stabilized by the Hill Community Development Corp. and its partners.
Brownsville’s commercial district was also on YPA’s original list as an early hub of the National Road and remains on its reminders list as a business district whose architecture is “a treasure waiting to be restored.”
“I do think there has been an awakening” to the value of historic properties, Mr. Craig said, citing the interest among the St. George Church Preservation Society, which references the original name of St. John Vianney, to reopen as a church with a sub-leasing community partner.
YPA board member Will Prince said the green movement has been helpful in suggesting “next identities” for old buildings and other sites. The axiom is that the greenest building is one that has already been built.
This year, YPA is also putting out a Top 10 list of successful preservation sites.
The Armstrong Cork Factory in the Strip, now luxury apartments and condos, had been an empty, decrepit and vandalized industrial hulk in 2003 when it made YPA’s list. YPA calls it “a preservation model of adaptive reuse.”
Other successes are the Paramount Pictures Film Exchange in Uptown, which made the Top 10 list in 2009 and is now home to Denmarsh Photography and StartUptown, a startup incubator; the Strand Theater in Zelienople, which was shuttered when it made the 2005 list and is now serving up popcorn and movies on Main Street; and the Beaver Pennsylvania & Lake Erie passenger station. It was on YPA’s list in 2007.
The Beaver Area Heritage Foundation did an adaptive reuse study in 2011 and determined that it could be selfsustaining if it was a center for cultural and other events, including weddings, said David O’Leary, chairman of the Beaver Station project.
The station opened last year, restored to the tune of $2.7 million, which included a state grant of $700,000 and additional support from the Allegheny Foundation and the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, he said.
Mr. Craig said no one believes it possible or practical to save every old building or site.
“There has to be a wisdom,” to honor and respect craftsmanship, he said, the places without which we would lose our valuable stories. “There is a sociological element to preservation that cannot be ignored.”