The Historic House Trust of New York City was formed in 1989 as a public-private partnership with the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation [1] to preserve the historic houses located within New York City parks, [2] although most of the houses were not originally city-owned. [3] The Trust works with the individual houses to restore and promote the houses as a means of educating residents and visitors about the social, economic and political history of New York City and cast urban history in a new light. [4] The Trust includes 23 historic sites, with 18 operating as museums and attracting 729,000 annual visitors. [2]
The Historic House Trust includes properties in each of New York City's five boroughs, [5] and there is a house for every period in the City's history, depending on one's scheme of dividing history. [4] A number of the properties have live-in caretakers to help prevent vandalism and other problems. [6]
In 1988, the City Parks department established a Historic House Office to preserve the 23 City-owned historic house-museums located in City parks. This office gave way to the Historic House Trust of New York City in 1989, funded by private donations, [9] as well as grants, [10] with the goal of each house becoming a professionally accredited museum. [11] In an effort to increase awareness of the program during its first year of operation, the Trust developed a so-called passport program wherein visitors would receive stamps each time they visited one of the houses. If a visitor went to all 23 properties, they would receive an audience with the Mayor. [12] HHT's passport program was brought back in 2008 as a method of commemorating the Trust's 20th anniversary. [13]
The Trust also holds events such as the Historic Houses Festival, during which all the houses are open with different events at each, in order to raise awareness. [9] New properties are added to the Trust when they come under city control if private care-taking or ownership has not succeeded, [14] although the contents of the home may remain under private ownership. [15]
The National Trust for Historic Preservation is a privately funded, nonprofit organization based in Washington, D.C., that works in the field of historic preservation in the United States. The member-supported organization was founded in 1949 by congressional charter to support the preservation of America’s diverse historic buildings, neighborhoods, and heritage through its programs, resources, and advocacy.
Green-Wood Cemetery is a 478-acre (193 ha) cemetery in the western portion of Brooklyn, New York City. The cemetery is located between South Slope/Greenwood Heights, Park Slope, Windsor Terrace, Borough Park, Kensington, and Sunset Park, and lies several blocks southwest of Prospect Park. Its boundaries include, among other streets, 20th Street to the northeast, Fifth Avenue to the northwest, 36th and 37th Streets to the southwest, Fort Hamilton Parkway to the south, and McDonald Avenue to the east.
Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve is a United States National Preserve located in the Flint Hills region of Kansas, north of Strong City. The preserve protects a nationally significant example of the once vast tallgrass prairie ecosystem. Of the 400,000 square miles (1,000,000 km2) of tallgrass prairie that once covered the North American continent, less than 5% remains, primarily in the Flint Hills. Since 2009, the preserve has been home to the Tallgrass Prairie bison herd.
The Martin Luther King Jr. National Historical Park covers about 35 acres (0.14 km2) and includes several sites in Atlanta, Georgia related to the life and work of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. Within the park is his boyhood home, and Ebenezer Baptist Church — the church where King was baptized and both he and his father, Martin Luther King Sr., were pastors — as well as, the grave site of King, Jr., and his wife, civil rights activist Coretta Scott King.
The Vizcaya Museum and Gardens, previously known as Villa Vizcaya, is the former villa and estate of businessman James Deering, of the Deering McCormick-International Harvester fortune, on Biscayne Bay in the present-day Coconut Grove neighborhood of Miami, Florida. The early 20th-century Vizcaya estate also includes extensive Italian Renaissance gardens, native woodland landscape, and a historic village outbuildings compound.
Rockefeller State Park Preserve is a state park in Mount Pleasant, New York in the eastern foothills of the Hudson River in Westchester County. Common activities in the park include horse-riding, walking, jogging, running, bird-watching, and fishing. The park has a rich history and was donated to the State of New York over time by the Rockefeller family beginning in 1983. A section of the park, the Rockwood Hall property, fronts the Hudson River. It was formerly the private residence of William Rockefeller, and began use as a New York state park in the early 1970s. In 2018, the park was added to New York's State Register of Historic Places.
Gramercy Park is the name of both a small, fenced-in private park and the surrounding neighborhood that is referred to also as Gramercy, in Manhattan in New York City.
Weir Farm National Historical Park is located in Ridgefield and Wilton, Connecticut. It commemorates the life and work of American impressionist painter J. Alden Weir and other artists who stayed at the site or lived there, to include Childe Hassam, Albert Pinkham Ryder, John Singer Sargent, and John Twachtman.
The Bonnet House is a historic home in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, United States. It is located at 900 Birch Road. On July 5, 1984, it was added to the U.S. National Register of Historic Places. It is named after the Bonnet Lily.
The Trust for Public Land is a U.S. nonprofit organization with a mission to "create parks and protect land for people, ensuring healthy, livable communities for generations to come". Since its founding in 1972, the Trust for Public Land has completed 5,000 park-creation and land conservation projects across the United States, protected over 3 million acres, and helped pass more than 500 ballot measures—creating $70 billion in voter-approved public funding for parks and open spaces. The Trust for Public Land also researches and publishes authoritative data about parks, open space, conservation finance, and urban climate change adaptation. Headquartered in San Francisco, the organization is among the largest U.S. conservation nonprofits, with approximately 30 field offices across the U.S., including a federal affairs function in Washington, D.C.
The Wallkill Valley Rail Trail is a 22.5-mile (36.2 km) rail trail and linear park that runs along the former Wallkill Valley Railroad rail corridor in Ulster County, New York. It stretches from Gardiner through New Paltz, Rosendale and Ulster to the Kingston city line, just south of a demolished, concrete Conrail railroad bridge that was located on a team-track siding several blocks south of the also-demolished Kingston New York Central Railroad passenger station. The trail is separated from the Walden–Wallkill Rail Trail by two state prisons in Shawangunk, though there have been plans to bypass these facilities and to connect the Wallkill Valley Rail Trail with other regional rail-trails. The northern section of the trail forms part of the Empire State Trail.
Kingsland Homestead is an 18th-century house located in Flushing, Queens, New York City. It is the home of the remains of The Weeping Beech, a landmark weeping beech tree, believed to have been planted in 1847. The homestead is also close to the 17th-century Bowne House, the location of the first Quaker meeting place in New Amsterdam. The homestead is operated by the Queens Historical Society, whose quarters are inside; the homestead is open to the public as a museum. The Kingsland Homestead is a member of the Historic House Trust, and is both a New York City designated landmark and a National Register of Historic Places listing.
The Clayton-Cedarmere Estates are located in Roslyn Harbor, New York, United States, listed jointly on the National Register of Historic Places in 1986. Clayton, the bulk of the property, is the large landscaped Bryce/Frick estate, now home to the Nassau County Museum of Art. Cedarmere, the smaller of the two, is William Cullen Bryant's estate, currently undergoing interior renovation, is located on the west side of Bryant Avenue; overlooking Hempstead Harbor, now a historic house museum. The grounds are open to the public. The two combined properties, with input from several notable architects, illustrate the development of estates on the North Shore of Long Island over a period of nearly a century.
Sunnylands, the former Annenberg Estate, located in Rancho Mirage, California, is a 200-acre (0.81 km2) estate currently run by The Annenberg Foundation Trust at Sunnylands, a not-for-profit organization. The property was owned by Walter and Leonore Annenberg until 2009 and had been used as a winter retreat by the couple beginning in 1966, when the house was completed. The city of Rancho Mirage considers the property to be “rich with historical significance” and declared Sunnylands an historic site in 1990. Located at Frank Sinatra and Bob Hope Drives, the property has been the vacation site of numerous celebrities and public officials. Sunnylands is sometimes referred to as the "Camp David of the West."
There are 75 properties listed on the National Register of Historic Places in Albany, New York, United States. Six are additionally designated as National Historic Landmarks (NHLs), the most of any city in the state after New York City. Another 14 are historic districts, for which 20 of the listings are also contributing properties. Two properties, both buildings, that had been listed in the past but have since been demolished have been delisted; one building that is also no longer extant remains listed.
Prairie Avenue is a north–south street on the South Side of Chicago, which historically extended from 16th Street in the Near South Side to the city's southern limits and beyond. The street has a rich history from its origins as a major trail for horseback riders and carriages. During the last three decades of the 19th century, a six-block section of the street served as the residence of many of Chicago's elite families and an additional four-block section was also known for grand homes. The upper six-block section includes part of the historic Prairie Avenue District, which was declared a Chicago Landmark and added to the National Register of Historic Places.
The Women's Rights National Historical Park is a United States National Historical Park in Seneca Falls and Waterloo, New York, United States. Founded by an act of Congress in 1980 and first opened in 1982, the park was gradually expanded through purchases over the decades that followed. It recognizes the site of the 1848 Seneca Falls Convention, the first women's rights convention, and the homes of several women's rights activists.
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