make every effort to promote preservation

Attention Youngstown City Council and existing downtown landowners and future ones, Randy at GLUEspace has some things to tell you:

"A new era in urban living is beginning to emerge, and even our most distressed central cities are becoming attractive places to live again. They have certain inherent qualities that the hottest Sunbelt cities can never match: solid, beautiful and abundant historic urban fabric. Because cities such as Pittsburgh, Saint Louis, Baltimore and many others boomed prior to the Automobile Age, they were built for people first, and their architectural traditions reflect their distinguished, established legacies.

It is imperative that cities of the Rustbelt make every effort to promote preservation of their aging infrastructure, as these features are their greatest competitive edge."

drawings win national award

Mahoning Valley Historical Society’s Arms Family Museum is documented; Drawings win national award

"The Mahoning Valley Historical Society is proud to announce that architecture students from Kent State University have won the national Charles E. Peterson prize for their work in documenting the former Olive and Wilford Arms residence, now the Arms Family Museum of Local History, for the National Park Service’s Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS)."

great post. read more (with picture) here.

to stay, or not to stay? - the state's façade

I Will Shout Youngstown presents an overview of the possible demolition of the State Theater and what really is behind the historic façade.

"It might be hard to see, but there are whole buildings behind the Davis and Armed Forces Buildings, but very little behind the façade of the State Theater.

Similar to the the set of any theater around the world, the façade is almost like a piece of set design. It's a 1920s advertisement to draw people off the main drag and into the theater."

Design alternatives to tearing down the façade (with pictures) are provided here.