Rather than tell you about the remaining school assignments I have, I thought I’d find some interesting preservation links for you. Happy December! Happy snow!
Enjoy.
* Ah, Long Island, or ultimate suburbia as I call it. Fortunately, there are still some hints of its interesting past. I have no idea how I came across this blog, but Old Long Island features historic images of the great Long Island estates (think Great Gatsby style). Some posts have Library of Congress images, some have real estate ads, others are from books and other printed materials; most are linked with images to Google Earth. Even if you do not have a Long Island connection, the architecture of these estates is beautiful.
* Sabra, over at My Own Time Machine, always finds interesting articles and current event topics. I love a recent post of hers about Historic Heidelberg – Kerlin Farm, located outside Philadelphia. From the post, this is the issue:
WHAT: Now under threat of demolition, one of the oldest residences in Pennsylvania at 1050 Ashbourne Road, Cheltenham, PA. The 300+ year old estate hearkens to the very beginning of European settlement in this region. It would be difficult to stand in a place that more completely describes the settlement and growth of a particular place over the course of three centuries. Now it is facing the wrecking ball.
Click through for more information. Be sure to read Sabra’s comment to mine addressing issues such as how much is too far gone, stabilizing ruins, and the education system.
* Route 66 News talks about an article that finds John Steinbeck’s Travels with Charley to be fiction. Personally, I could care less if it’s fiction. I love the book anyway. You?
* Are you an alum of the UVM Historic Preservation program? Check out the new HP alumni website. And come to the party on Saturday.
* This warrants a much longer discussion, but for now: the University of Mary Washington has a master plan to raze seven buildings including the historic 1931 Seacobeck Dining Hall. Seriously, UMW? Your historic preservation program is one of the best undergraduate programs in the country and you’re not going to take the advice of that department? Bad move.
* Actually, Preservation Nation’s Story of the Day feature often has stories about demolition threats. Yikes! (Not to be confused with that yikes!) Isn’t it time people got over the whole demolition thing? It’s not green, people.
* Christmas and historic mansions? Oh, how grand living that life must have been.
Shared with me, courtesy of Sabra, who found this on Etsy (via caramelos). If anyone has sent one the way of Preservation in Pink, I’ll love you forever (ahem, sisters). Just kidding! But they are adorable.
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Unrelated but worth sharing:
Follow my sister Annie O’Shea through the skeleton World Cup race series this winter.
Send thank you notes to the United States soldiers! (It takes about five seconds.)
Preservation in Pink 
Well, not to plug my own blog (since you’ve done that so nicely for me — thanks!) but I do want to direct anyone who’s interested to a great article the NYT did on Steinbeck’s home on Long Island (look, I’ve connected another of Kaitlin’s shout-outs to this comment!), where he wrote [the apparently fictional?] Travels with Charley. Here’s my blurb, to save you the bother of finding it at the Time Machine.
John Steinbeck. I remember reading Steinbeck’s Travels with Charley and dreaming of someday having a dog of my own and setting off to travel the country. He wrote the book at this Sag Harbor bungalow, where you can still find a doorframe marked with the height of anyone who came to visit (including the dog Charley), Steinbeck’s scrawl in cement (“To my Ladye, In thee I have myn erthly joye”) and fading handwritten labels on drawers of tools (“Knives, Chisels, and Bladey Things,” “Glory! Nails, In Excelsis”). How poignant when the longtime caretaker says “I wish there was some way to preserve this.”
At Steinbeck’s Getaway as Heirs Feud Revives – Sept 23, 2010:
P.S. Hope you get a boxful of flamingos!
Travels with Charley is on my bedside table! Just the thought of setting out with one furry companion, rather than a husband and two kids, is SO appealing! But we’re all in the car next week, from NY to FL! Help!