True Green / Sometimes It Takes a Storm…

My street corner in Forest Hills, Upper Northwest DC, on Saturday afternoon, February 6th, during the Blizzard of 2010.

I started writing this True Green blog just about a year ago as a way to post sections of my forthcoming Best Practices Manual.  Life, work and blog fatigue (both writing and reading them) got in the way and this is my first posting since August. Sometimes all it takes is a historic winter storm to reactivate my interest in writing! Washington D.C. and much of the mid-Atlantic have been snowed under since Friday (snowpocalypse, snowmageddon, snOMG) , and just when the Metro reopened today, we are expecting another 12 inches of snow in the next 24 hours. The good news – this has given me the time to finish my Best Practices Manual which will be posted on this site in the next couple weeks in its entirety; the bad news – many people, places and historic sites are confronting emergency and disaster situations.

Historic Sites Fund Materials Available Online

National Trust Historic Sites will be pleased to hear that Historic Sites Fund grant materials are now available online right here on the blog!

Click here to access the revised HSF Manual and Guidelines, report forms, and project checklists. This page is password protected.

HSF grants are available exclusively to National Trust Historic Sites.

Is a Distinctive Destination near You?

Today, the National Trust for Historic Preservation announced its 2010 list of America’s Dozen Distinctive Destinations and perhaps one is near you. For 10 years the National Trust has annually selected communities across America that offer cultural and recreational experiences different from those found at the typical vacation destination. From dynamic downtowns and stunning architecture to cultural diversity and a commitment to historic preservation, sustainability, and revitalization, the selected destinations boast a richness of character and exude an authentic sense of place—and historic sites are often a key ingredient.

This year’s list includes Chestnut Hill, which is near Cliveden (a National Trust Historic Site) as well as a dozen other historic places.  By coincidence, Chestnut Hill figures prominently in one of the books I’m reading: Last Harvest: From Cornfield to New Town: Real Estate Development from George Washington to the Builders of the Twenty-First Century, and Why We Live in Houses Anyway by Witold Rybczynski.   It’s a charming place and even though it’s close to Philadelphia, it’s far enough off the beaten path that the millions of tourists that make the pilgrimage to Independence Hall have never seen or heard of this distinctive town.  And that’s the point of DDD—to let more people know about the wonderful places that exist in America and well as remind people of what’s worth preserving.  Historic preservation is not just about buildings and landscapes, but also people and communities.

So here’s your shopping list for travel this year (and I bet you haven’t visited more than a couple of them): 

Activity Planning Tips and Ideas for February 2010

February is good for minor events for specialized audiences. Weather can easily jeopardize an event, so plan accordingly. By this time, the public is anxious to get back outside again and you could marry an event with a holiday during this time. Consider serving as a judge for History Day at the local or regional level. These typically occur in March but recruiting of judges begins in February. Call the History Day Coordinator of your local school district or historical society and share the expertise of your Site.

Looking Ahead to March

• All month: Women’s History Month. For ideas, contact the National Women’s History Project at www.nwhp.org or see www.preservationnation.org/issues/diversity/womens-history-in-preservation.
• March 1, 2010: Read Across America Day (first Monday in March).
• March 14, 2010: Daylight Savings Time begins (second Sunday of March).
• March 14: St. Patrick’s Day.
• March 30, 2010: The Feast of the Passover (Pesach) (lunar).
• Varies: Spring Break. Confirm the schedule with local schools. See also April.

Want to see the entire year?  The 2010-2011 Planning Calendar for historic sites is available free as a pdf (and it includes two years in one!).

Participation in the arts declines for first time in 20 years

The National Endowment for the Arts recently released the findings from its “Survey of Public Participation in the Arts”.  Conducted about every five years starting in 1982, this survey was conducted in 2008 and received over 18,000 responses, making it is the longest running and broadest study of its kind in the US.   Although the focus is on music, theater, dance, art, and literature, a small portion is devoted to “historic sites,” which are broadly defined as parks, monuments, historic buildings, and neighborhoods.

The big news is that while previous surveys showed that about 40 percent of Americans regularly participated in music, theater, dance, or art, for the first time there was a

Compact Planning Calendar for 2010

Better late than never, I’ve updated the Compact Calendar for Historic Sites to reflect the new year.  If you haven’t used it before, it’s a handy one-page calendar of the year with major holidays and events highlighted.  Unlike other calendars, however, it’s a single run of dates from January to December.  Too often I’ve used the traditional calendar for planning, only to discover that I neglected to notice that a month had five Mondays or scheduled two events in the same week even though they’re in two different months.  And this may be personal–it just looks much more sensible for planning–one continuous stream of time rather than arbitrary months of inconsistent number of days.  I didn’t seem that many people used it in 2009, but I continue to find it helpful (and I can never find a copy on my computer, so I look here on the NTHS Blog for one!).  And again, thanks to David Seah for developing this tool.