News and Events

Green Building Alliance, Northwest Branch Offers Lunch and Learn

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Preservation Erie has been asked to share information about the organization and the intersection of historic preservation and sustainability during a Green Building Alliance lunch and learn at the Tom Ridge Center on Wednesday, October 9 from 11:30-12:30. And we invite you to join us.

Green Building Alliance (GBA) is a community benefit organization headquartered in Pittsburgh. GBA strives to meet the ever-growing and changing demands of the green building marketplace through multiple programs and initiatives. Founded in 1993, GBA is the first U.S. Green Building Council affiliate and services all of Western PA through its three branch areas:

  • Greater Pittsburgh
  • Laurel Highlands
  • Northwest PA

Honey Stempka is the the Northwest Branch Director of GBA. Her work furthers GBA’s mission and grows GBA’s presence in Erie and the surrounding counties by planning and promoting events that increase awareness of green building principles, practices, techniques, and implementation.

Honey Stempka, Northwest Regional Director
Green Building Alliance
301 Peninsula Drive, Erie, PA 16505
(814)713-1036

And the winners are…

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The Erie Times News had a great response to their first Historic Homes Contest, and two homeowners have been acknowledged for their commitment to historic preservation and, more specifically, ongoing care for their own historic homes.

Read the full story online at www.goerie.com.

Walking Tour of Downtown Erie August 20

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You are invited to join fellow Preservation Erie Board member, Erie architect, and ardent preservationist Jeff Kidder for a walking tour of downtown Erie on Tuesday evening, August 20, from 6-7:30 pm.  The tour will begin at 4th and State, head south to Perry Square and then west partway down the West Sixth Street National Historic District.  To ensure a quality tour, the number of participants will be limited.  You can reserve your spot by replying to info@preservationerie.org, or by reserving a space through our Facebook page.  If you reserve a space and then need to cancel for any reason, we request that you please do so by August 15 by emailing us at info@preservationerie.org.

Wayne Students Inspire Pride in Community

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Wayne School’s Shapes and Stories of the City is a study of East Avenue and its surrounding neighborhoods that explores the importance of place. The study, which was led by local artist Tom Ferraro and is in partnership with Preservation Erie and language artist Lora Zill, culminates in a student exhibition during National Historic Preservation Month. As part of Gallery Night on Friday, May 31 from 7 pm to 10 pm the public is welcome to visit LifeWorks Erie (406 Peach Street) for a one-night showing of Shapes and Stories of the City.

The built environment in which Wayne students live and play contains all the elements of design – line, color, light, shapes, space, movement, texture, harmony, rhythm, balance and form. Under the guidance of Mr. Ferraro, students focused on shapes of the city and developed a basic understanding of the essential elements of architectural and urban design and then apply that appreciation and knowledge to identify and visually illustrate the innumerable shapes that permeate their neighborhoods.

Students also explored stories of the city. Neighborhoods and buildings have personalities, characters, and a physical appearance, just like people. They all interconnect. Students intuitively understand the structure and function of story, and they became the explorers, tellers, interpreters, visualizers, describers, of the stories of their neighborhoods as told through architecture, buildings and landmarks.

Twenty to twenty-five students spanning grades 5-8 at Wayne School participated in the Shapes and Stories of the City project, which was funded by a grant through The Partnership for Erie’s Public Schools. The Partnership for Erie’s Public Schools is a newly formed local education foundation supporting Erie’s public schools.

Shapes and Stories of the City is in partnership with Preservation Erie (PE, formerly the Erie Center for Design and Preservation). PE promotes the value of historic preservation and good urban design as key elements of a vision of sustainable development that can improve the quality of life in the region.

Annual Preservation Erie Awards

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Thursday evening, May 2, 2013 at the Masonic Temple Ballroom.

This event will feature a short keynote address by NYC architect and scholar, Charles D. Warren.  Warren will discuss John Nolen’s 1913 plan for Greater Erie.

Look for a press release soon!

Erie Center for Design and Preservation Launches Places that Matter Campaign

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The Erie Center for Design and Preservation (ECDP), a nonprofit organization focused on the preservation and adaptive reuse of greater Erie’s built environment, has launched an exciting new project called, “Name This Place That Matters” on its Facebook page which is aimed at elevating local awareness and appreciation for the unique and rich character of buildings and structures throughout the city.

Launched on September 11, and continuing every Tuesday for the next year, one close-up detailed photograph of one of the many important buildings that contribute to the life, beauty and history of this city will be posted on the ECDP Facebook page.  Visitors to the page are invited to identify and name the building or site.   On Thursday of the same week, a longer-range view of the building, along with its identity and a brief history, will be posted.

Two local photographers, Ron McCarty and Tanya Mattson, have taken photographs of more than 50 “Places That Matter,” which will be used over the first year of the project.  ECDP plans to engage the public through its Facebook page, Web site and public programs with the hope of building the list and then using it to help shape policies that can lead to greater preservation and adaptive reuse of the city’s built environment.  The “Places That Matter” project will also occasionally post images of buildings or structures that have been demolished, with the intent of heightening appreciation for those lost gems of the city’s past which potentially could have been saved with more effective local policies and greater foresight.

The ECDP “Name This Place That Matters Campaign” can be found at the organization’s Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/ErieCenterforDesignandPreservation

Walking Tour of West 21st Street Historic District

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In celebration of National Historic Preservation Month, on Saturday, May 19, from 10 am-Noon, the Erie Center for Design and Preservation (ECDP) will conduct a walking tour of one of Erie’s great National Historic Districts.

Established in 1990, the West 21st Street National Historic District (which lies between Peach and Myrtle Streets) features more than 30 buildings of a wide range of late nineteenth and early twentieth-century architectural styles, including Romanesque, Italianate, and Colonial Revival.

Participants in the tour will have an opportunity to tour the interiors of several homes along the way. This area of Erie, part of the South Erie district known as Federal Hill in the early nineteenth century, once housed some of the city’s most prominent businessmen, including Heman Janes, co-founder of Standard Oil.

In this event, the ECDP will not only showcase one of Erie’s grandest historic districts, but also hopes to reinforce the importance of retaining the character and integrity of all urban neighborhoods in the city. A number of buildings in the West 21st Street neighborhood have either been demolished or are threatened, and those properties will be pointed out on the tour as well.

Chris Magoc, chair of the Mercyhurst University History Department and President of the ECDP, says that “the tour is intended to highlight the critical importance of good planning and citizen vigilance in preserving those features of both architecture and the urban landscape that makes all neighborhoods special.”

Participants in the tour will gather at 10 AM in the St. John’s Lutheran Church, 2216 Peach Street, where Rick Liebel, an ECDP Board member and resident of the district, will offer a brief talk on the history of the district before the tour begins. Because the tour will include home interiors, the number of participants will be limited to 15. No interior photography will be allowed, but participants are encouraged to bring cameras and to take exterior shots of the district.

Those who are interested in this free walking celebration of Erie’s historic urban landscape need to RSVP by calling 824-2075, emailing [email protected], or indicating their interest on the ECDP Facebook page.

This link offers an excellent historical overview of the district: http://www.livingplaces.com/PA/Erie_County/Erie_City/West_21st_Street_Historic_District

Updating the Inventory of Erie’s Historic properties

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Steve Bukowski, a senior Public History major at Mercyhurst University, is nearing the end of a months-long project to update the city of Erie’s survey of historic properties. Steve has now photographed and recorded data on well over 400 properties, with more to come in the last few weeks of the project.

Executed in fulfillment of Bukowski’s required internship and senior project in public history, the effort also will include an extensive narrative of Erie history as it is reflected in the city’s extant built environment—essentially what Erie’s built landscape tells an observer about the city’s history.

Look for the completed inventory and the historical narrative sometime by the middle of May—in time to help the Erie Center for Design and Preservation celebrate National Historic Preservation Month.

In the meantime, here is a link to a 3-minute video on the project, courtesy of Chris Norris, the Mercyhurst University Web master:

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=574087472550

Thoughtful Urban Planning = Happier Residents

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A 2007 Gallup study examined a number of questions directly related to the built environment, including the convenience of public transportation, the ease of access to shops, the presence of parks and sports facilities, the ease of access to cultural and entertainment facilities and the presence of libraries. All were found to correlate significantly with happiness, with convenient public transportation and easy access to cultural and leisure facilities showing the strongest correlation. The statistical analysis also included questions related to urban environmental quality apart from cities’ built form, and produced additional significant correlations. The more respondents felt their city was beautiful (aesthetics), felt it was clean (aesthetics and safety), and felt safe walking at night (safety), the more likely they were to report being happy. Similarly, the more they felt that publicly provided water was safe, and their city was a good place to rear and care for children, the more likely they were to be happy.

To read more, visit Why the Places We Live Make Us Happy

Preservation Pennsylvania Acknowledges Efforts to Save the Villa Maria Chapel

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On January 17th, Preservation Pennsylvania published the 2011 Pennsylvania at Risk listing, a listing of ten endangered resources in the State. Villa Maria Chapel made the cut. Although it is currently an unused space, the Chapel has been an architectural cornerstone of its residential neighborhood since 1925. Over the last six years Save the Villa Chapel volunteers, a subcommittee of the Erie Center for Design and Preservation (ECDP), have held more than a dozen fundraising events, paid for temporary roof repairs and facilitated communication with the Chapel owners. In an effort to find an adaptive reuse plan and long-term steward for the property, Save the Villa Chapel Committee and ECDP hosted a day-long design charette for the Villa Chapel in September. The charette generated several reuse concepts (see Erie Times-News article), including plans for a restaurant, an apartment building with efficiency units and a combination venue with a day care on the ground floor and space above for events like weddings and recitals. See the proposal prepared by Kidder Wachter Architecture and Design here.

Preservation Pennsylvania has been a great help to the Save the Villa Chapel Committee and the Erie Center for Design and Preservation. We thank them for their support and acknowledgement!

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