May 28, 2010 – Preservation in Pink

Who is opinionated? Most of us, right? Well good, because there are a few surveys around the internet that need some well-reasoned, fairly opinionated preservationists (and others) on the case.

First, how important are trails to communities? Do you think they’re great? Spotsylvania County, VA is currently running a survey to find out what people would like to see in the area. For those of you familiar with Spotsylvania County (Mary Wash grads!) take one minute to fill out the survey and help Spotsy create a safer environment for pedestrians and cyclists. For the survey, click here. (You do not have to live in Spotsylvania County — just be familiar with it — the quiz asks for your location, but can otherwise be anonymous.) Thanks to Andrew Deci for sending the survey.

Second, preservationists and those familiar with the Secretary of Interior Standards for Rehabilitation, you are aware that preservation + sustainability are natural friends, but we haven’t quite figured out how to meld them into guidelines that aren’t so incredibly case-by-case or trial and error. Do you have ideas and thoughts as to how the guidelines should or should not incorporate sustainability? This is the perfect survey for you. Sent from Andrew Deci via Megan J. Brown at the Historic Preservation Grants Division at the National Park Service:

As the custodian of the Secretary’s Standards and of the Guidelines for interpreting them, the National Park Service is beginning the process of expanding the Guidelines for Rehabilitating Historic Buildings in order to address questions raised by the current emphasis on sustainability. Before we begin to draft any expanded Guidelines, it is critically important that we hear from those who rely on the Standards and Guidelines to preserve their local communities. We need to know what general concerns you have, and we need to know of specific issues you have encountered where historic preservation values and sustainability were or appeared to be at odds with each other. In all of the current discussions concerning historic buildings and sustainability, an important component is the relationship between the Secretary of the Interior’s Standards for Rehabilitation and the various recommended building treatments designed to attain more sustainable communities and energy efficient buildings. While there is a growing body of information on how to undertake these alterations, there is not yet a set of official guidelines on how to make such changes in ways that appropriately maintain the character of historic properties. Please take a few minutes to complete this online survey before June 1. The survey will no longer be available after that time.

To take the survey click here.

Thanks everyone!

Three years ago today, I wrote the very first Preservation in Pink blog post. It was more of an announcement than a real post, but still, PiP has been a blog since May 28, 2007. This goes back to the very first newsletter (6 pages only, all but one article written by me – just to get it out there). Three years ago I wasn’t exactly sure what I would do with a blog other than post the newsletter rather than requiring readers to rely on email. If you browse through the archives you’ll see that nothing happened with the blog again until October 2007 and then posts remained scattered through much of early 2008.

Blog posts began to take shape and routine around May 2008, when I attended the Poplar Forest Architectural Restoration field school. It wasn’t until the summer/fall of 2008 that I decided the Preservation in Pink should be more dynamic and that it should serve more of a purpose than announcing the newsletter. By August/September PiP became a daily (weekdays) routine.

Since those early days, readership has increased from a whopping average of 2 readers per day in 2007 (really, there was nothing to see anyway) to 19 per day in 2008 to 130 per day in 2009 and already at 200+ per day in 2010. Wow! And here we are hovering around 86,000 visits to Preservation in Pink.

This is the perfect time to say thank you to all of you, readers, who visit PiP, leave comments, share the link, display your magnets, and who offer encouragement and show interest. A great big thank you to guest bloggers. You have made PiP so much more diverse and are a wonderful addition to the blog! Mostly, I continue to write and share thoughts because it combines two of my passions – preservation and writing – but it makes me so happy that other people can connect to Preservation in Pink. From current events to ethics to road trips to the occasional soap box and personal essay with flamingo pictures and jokes, I hope that you can always find some way to connect with historic preservation through Preservation in Pink. As always, whenever you have a suggestion for PiP or something you’d like to share, please do.

Thank you!