Trust Me: Inside the National
Trust
BY ARNOLD BERKE
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(Art by Richard Thompson)
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In December the Trust and four other
national nonprofits filed amicus briefs in a
lawsuit over a New Orleans development. The suit
contends that the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban
Development didn't produce an environmental impact statement
and failed to follow required federal preservation review
procedures when it gave $25 million to redevelop the
St. Thomas Housing Project. The suit was filed in federal
court in 2002 by local groups that said a proposed Wal-Mart
Superstore (opened last summer) and new housing
in the Lower Garden District could harm historic sites
in the area. The alleged environmental impacts included
the razing of 1,500 units of public housing without
providing for appropriate relocation of residents. The
suit also says HUD erred by leaving compliance procedures
in the hands of the city housing authority and the developer.
The other organizations are the American Planning Association,
Sierra Club, Institute for Local Self-Reliance, and
Great Rivers Environmental Law Center.
... It will take at least
$60,000 to shore up Sagrado Corazon Mission,
a church flirting with collapse in the Texas hamlet
of Ruidosa. The elements are eating away at the c.
1914 adobe, unused since the 1960s and missing one
of two towers and much of its roof. But help is coming.
The Texas Historical Commission offered $30,000 to
stabilize the building. Then the Presidio County Historical
Commission and the Trust chimed in to help match the
grant with $6,000 and $5,000, respectively. And a
private donor gave $1,000. Donations for the church,
whose full restoration could cost $250,000, are being
coordinated by the county's Ruidosa Mission Project.
Initial work may begin soon. If you'd like to
assist, call the Mission Project at (432) 729-4452.
... The President Lincoln
and Soldiers' Home National Monument has received
a $55,000 grant from United Technologies Corp. to
support "green design." The Trust historic site
in Washington, D.C., under restoration, will use the
funds to incorporate environmentally positive practices
into the rehab of one of its buildings, to become
a visitors center. The grant is from UT's Sustainable
Cities initiative, launched in October to promote
green building in urban areas and the teaching of
sustainability principles—weighing the environmental
effects of business decisions.
... Standing like a sentry in Lake Huron, the
DeTour Reef Lighthouse guides ships to and from
the busy St. Mary's River, the link to Lake Superior.
But the Coast Guard declared this and many other Michigan
lights surplus in 1997, landing them on the Trust's
1998 most-endangered list. That's when locals founded
the DeTour Reef Light Preservation Society, determined
to restore the 1931 structure. They succeeded. Raising
more than $1 million from the state (including its
preservation office), a foundation, and local donors,
the group finished the job last fall. Its next goal
is to acquire the light, which society board member
Jeri Baron Feltner says
should occur "in the very near future." (A surprising
fact: Michigan boasts 126 lighthouses, more than any
other state.)
... What could Chesterwood
and the Fontainebleau Hotel possibly have in
common? Well, each is feting a 50th. The former, a
Trust historic site in Stockbridge, Mass., that was
the studio of sculptor Daniel Chester French, is marking
50 years since it opened to the public. The latter,
in Miami Beach, Fla., made the half-century point
in December. This zesty essay in MiMo (Miami Modern),
and the youngest Historic Hotel of America, was designed
by once-maligned, now-admired architect Morris Lapidus.
Hmm ... what would French and Lapidus have had
in common?
Read more from our current
issue online, look for the March/April
2005 issue on newsstands, e-mail
us to purchase a copy, or subscribe
to the magazine by joining the National Trust.
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