Dear Preservation Friends,
We haven’t been in touch in a while, but we’ve been busy working to modernize our organization and improve our effectiveness in the community. My name might be unfamiliar to you. I’m Judy Norinsky, President since 2019.
As you may know, the field of historic preservation is becoming more professionalized and effective at saving historic resources by working within the system rather than protesting at the back end. No, not by selling out, but by becoming part of the solution. Doing so means we become key players who are better positioned to participate in decision-making about our city. In turn we become more effective in saving historic resources and planning for their future. In Stamford, we are now being offered this very opportunity.
Recognizing that this involves being more inclusive and raising awareness about preservation, we have added board members who represent Stamford’s communities, such as Sue Halpern, from the South End and Dianne Walker, from Strawberry Hill. To stabilize and guide us toward a steady financial future, we welcomed Dave Devin, a Certified Public Accountant as our new Treasurer and Emily Derr, an MBA who works in fine-jewelry marketing and also sits on the board of the Stamford History Center. Both Dave and Emily bring knowledge of digital marketing, social media and other things electronic.
We are working closely with Stamford’s Land Use Bureau Chief, Ralph Blessing, on a number of initiatives intended to strengthen safeguards for historic resources. He has proposed:
- More effective carrots and sticks for Stamford’s preservation ordinance;
- An historic preservation trust fund to provide more financial resources for preservation; and
- Development of a digitized Cultural Resource Inventory (CRI), which will incorporate a publicly accessible digitized, interactive map.
Necessary to safeguarding historic resources is identifying and documenting them. The National Register stipulates that to be considered historic, a building must be at least 50 years old. That would make many buildings in Stamford potentially eligible.
In October we testified at a hearing of the Historic Preservation Council of Connecticut hearing in an effort to stop Building and Land Technology’s bulldozer from razing the internationally significant Blickensderfer Typewriter factory. The fate of this old factory and two multi-family houses nearby is still unknown as of this writing.
We have begun the process of digitizing and updating our 1970s survey and are seeking grant money to survey as-yet undocumented historic resources in Stamford.
We also established a community partnership with Stamford’s historic Avon Theatre, with our future sights set on other local institutions as well.
Last but not least, we are going to establish an annual preservation award in the name of our founder, Renee Kahn. We had begun planning for this when Covid19 hit and our public plans went to hold status. With the prospect of vaccinations beginning, we hope to resume this effort in 2021. By the way, Renee is alive and well and quite busy in her home studio, working on her distinctive large-canvas paintings.
HNP is building a new website where we can share our progress on all these endeavors. My background is in social science and community journalism, and includes a Masters in Historic Preservation. I will be blogging about local preservation issues on HNP’s Facebook page and, eventually, on our new website.
As you can see, we have great ambitions, but to succeed we need partners and resources. Please consider making a donation to honor Renee and help us build our efforts into the process of saving old buildings, and if you have specialized knowledge that you think might be useful to our preservation efforts, please consider volunteering.
Sincerely,
Judy Norinsky