SAVE THE TAVERN
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Saving a Historic Building is Not Easy
Before you commit to saving a historic building, you need to be prepared. This will be a lengthy project, involving long hours filled with thousands of meetings, phone calls, and emails. It could cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, or much more. And in the end, you might not be able to save the building from being torn down.
But, if you are successful, you will be giving new life to a beautiful historic building. You will give the gift of history, culture, and education to future generations. You will be preserving a link to the past, while improving your town’s future.
If you are committed to saving the building, here’s what you need to do:
1 Determine the Building’s Significance (Historical, Cultural, Architectural)
2 Plan a New Purpose for the Building
3 Find Partners
4 Secure Funding
But, if you are successful, you will be giving new life to a beautiful historic building. You will give the gift of history, culture, and education to future generations. You will be preserving a link to the past, while improving your town’s future.
If you are committed to saving the building, here’s what you need to do:
1 Determine the Building’s Significance (Historical, Cultural, Architectural)
2 Plan a New Purpose for the Building
3 Find Partners
4 Secure Funding
Six Methods for Saving a Historic Building
While each building, and the threat it is facing, is unique, most methods for saving a historic building fall into 1 of 5 categories.
These categories include tactics you can use to persuade developers to modify their plans, galvanize community support behind a shared vision for the building, or make a drastic move to save a structure from complete destruction. Ultimately, you should be able to find a category that fits your situation and helps you keep your building for the next generation.
These categories include tactics you can use to persuade developers to modify their plans, galvanize community support behind a shared vision for the building, or make a drastic move to save a structure from complete destruction. Ultimately, you should be able to find a category that fits your situation and helps you keep your building for the next generation.
1. Preservation
Historic preservation involves protecting and conserving the history of the building as its been used throughout the years. A priority is kept on saving original materials, which can add costs to the preservation process and limit the building’s future uses.
2. Restoration
Historic restoration is a type of preservation that focuses on returning a historic building to the way it was in a certain time period. This method includes relying on historic documents (including blueprints and photographs) and using original building materials & techniques to restore the building to the way it looked in a certain period.
This is the preferred method for museums and historic groups looking to capture the look and feel of a historic period, as it provides an immersive educational experience.
3. Rehabilitation
With a building rehabilitation, emphasis is placed on making the proper repairs and alterations to keep the building functioning and useful. Additions and upgrades are allowed, with care placed on retaining or saving the portions of the building that have historical or cultural value.
4. Adaptive Reuse
Adaptive Reuse is a method of saving a historic building by modifying its original purpose. The historic characteristics can be preserved, while the building’s internals are modified to accommodate new purposes.
The most common examples of adaptive reuse: transforming an old warehouse into upscale apartments, converting a historic house into offices, and re-purposing a factory or industrial building into retail or museum space.
5. Mothball
Sometimes the best option for restoring a historic building lays in the future. Whether it is a lack of funds, government regulations, or a lack of clear vision or purpose for the building’s future purpose, these may be signs that you cannot restore the historic building at this time. In this case, the best choice might be to pause the project and mothball the building until you can restore it properly.
This means that the building will sit unused, closed and protected from further damage or wear & tear. The goal is to keep the historic building in a state of readiness, as was the case with the Jewish Historical Society Building in Washington, D.C., until you are ready to properly preserve the building or your preparations are complete.
6. Move
There are times when a historic building cannot be saved in its original location. Whether due to forces of nature or determined developers or land owners, the only solution is to physically move the building to a new location. While some historians and community members may bemoan severing the building from its original placement, moving a historic building is a far better outcome than seeing the entire building wind up in a landfill.
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Our team of volunteers and community members spent over seven years trying to save the historic Forsyth-Warren Tavern. In that time, we accomplished securing the site, nominating it and having it listed as a historic district on the National Register of Historic Places, and launching the site as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit House Museum Chartered by the New York State Department of Education.
This hard work and accomplishments were cut short however by the Town of Cambria: the municipality in which the historic district sits.
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The Town of Cambria first used a blockage in its Building Department to prevent the Museum and property owners from obtaining any of the permits necessary to carry out work at the site.
And so the Museum and the site's owners got creative and hosted a variety of outdoor fundraisers and community engagers within the parameters allowed by the site's three zoning variances.
This angered the Town of Cambria and so in its second attack, it charged the property's owners with several crimes and used a threat of jail time to force a plea deal that would shut down the Museum and give all property rights to the Town of Cambria.
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When the property owners said "no deal" and asked for a trial by jury, the Town of Cambria dropped all accusations against them.
Then in its third attack, the Town of Cambria met in a secret meeting and revoked the three zoning permits that allowed the historic Forsyth-Warren Tavern to operate as a Museum and demanding that we (collectively) start all over again.
and so we have!
We need your help to continue this fight, reopen the Museum, and continue our mission of saving this integral piece of history!
The Restart
Former Museum Brochure
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The first hurdle that we have to overcome is the local government corruption and we hope to achieve that by thinking systemically and working collectively. We want the public to be educated on the issues, offer total transparency, and then we ask the public to demand answers from their public officials.
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Then comes the relaunch.
Our research and years of boots-to-the-ground work has led us to believe that this historic site will be best served under the governorship of a Museum; and we spent an exuberant amount of time and money to make that happen. To do it again, we need help.
Our research and years of boots-to-the-ground work has led us to believe that this historic site will be best served under the governorship of a Museum; and we spent an exuberant amount of time and money to make that happen. To do it again, we need help.
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Right now, our greatest expense continues to be legal defense. We are continuing to battle the Town of Cambria in the Supreme Court of New York State where the Town's only strategy against justice has been, and continues to be, Delay. The Town of Cambria knows that every delay that they request costs us money. Lots of money. And they have an endless supply of tax dollars at their disposal. Have you ever heard the saying, "only the rich get justice?" Well, our little Museum was far from rich and unfortunately the money that we raised to save this historic site has instead had to go into defending it.
After justice will come the reconstruction.
The Museum has never been allowed to open and has languished throughout this ordeal. Some of the Museum's board members moved away, and a few of them left to avoid the negative accusations of the Town of Cambria's board members.
In order to reopen it again, we need volunteers. We need to find excited community members willing to join our board and help the non-profit continue its mission of saving this historic site now and into the future.
