10 minute read
Takeaways from the Historic New England Summit
by KATHERINE POMPLUN, Institutional Giving Officer for Preservation at Historic New England
The second annual Historic New England Summit, held November 2 and 3, 2023, attracted more than 630 participants via Livestream and in person in Providence, Rhode Island. The audience represented more than 200 organizations with a shared passion for preservation and improving the communities they serve. Here are takeaways from some of the outstanding leading voices who took the Summit stage.
Be Local, Think Bigger: A Call to Action
Reflecting on decades of leadership in the corporate and nonprofit worlds, Susan D. Whiting, chair of the National Women’s History Museum, opened the Summit with a discussion of the rapid technological changes that have impacted how cultural institutions deliver on their missions, engage with their audiences, and build communities of support. “The shift from place-based things – things you do in a physical location – to a more virtual world has been very significant,” she said, describing her work with the National Women’s History Museum – an online museum that honors women’s contributions to American history by partnering with other organizations to host virtual and physical exhibitions and public programs. Whiting challenged the audience to envision their own organizations as conduits for ideas that can resonate beyond traditional boundaries.
Meaningful Approaches to Access
Betty Siegel, director of the Office of Accessibility and VSA at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, engaged a dynamic panel in exploring the transformative potential of inclusive design. “We’ve been thinking about accessibility through the wrong lens,” she said, urging attendees to understand that universal design principles seek to address inherent problems within our society and our built environment – not within individuals who are disabled.
“The goal is to find things that facilitate not just getting in the door, but experience,” said Valerie Fletcher, executive director of the Institute for Human Centered Design. “We need to preserve our historic built environment… it nurtures our souls. But it’s got to work for everyone. It is just not okay if that element of delight in our lives is lost to people who can’t get in.”
Heidi Swevens, director of community partnerships at Inclusive Arts Vermont, described her experience as a legally blind person engaging with an inclusively designed arts exhibit for the first time as transformative, “because I was so used to spending energy making sure that my access needs were met so I could participate in the world.” The feeling of being free to enjoy the experience inspired her to create spaces “where people can come as they are, where disability and access are ordinary.”
Charles G. Baldwin, access and inclusion program officer at the Mass Cultural Council, emphasized the idea of budgets as a moral compass. “If you haven’t budgeted intentionally for inclusion, then you’re intentionally leaving people out.”
The Summit also explored themes of access to shared and public landscapes. Thomas Woltz, principal and owner of Nelson Byrd Woltz Landscape Architects, argued that cultural landscapes contribute to a sense of identity and belonging. He introduced research-driven design practices that reveal the stories of a landscape and enable individuals to make personal connections to a shared space. Woltz urged attendees to "eliminate from our collective vocabulary words like open space, empty space, green space" and recognize that the "land is full" of stories of people and cultures responding to "ecosystems over time.”
Institutions, Trust, and the Future of Cities
Elected officials, cultural leaders, and university presidents all took to the Summit stage to reflect on their work to address the urgent challenges facing cities across New England and beyond.
Memphis River Parks Partnership CEO Carol Coletta and City of Providence Mayor Brett P. Smiley discussed livability and quality of place through the lens of opportunities and accomplishments in the Summit’s host city. In Providence, city leaders are working to maintain the delicate balance between safeguarding the city's character and fostering its growth while implementing a nationally recognized climate justice plan, incorporating neighborhood voices, and advocating for housing and innovative transit solutions.
Providence’s strong sense of place “includes and is intricately linked to our historic building stock,” said Smiley, but it also extends beyond the built environment “to the intangibles of interconnectedness.” He identified the city’s arts and cultural institutions as essential assets that make Providence a place people want to live. But supporting the arts is not only about facilitating shared experiences and strengthening community pride. “There is an equally compelling case,” he argued, “from a purely economic standpoint, that the arts and the humanities are critical to the workforce of tomorrow.” Introducing students to theater, music, and literature can spark their curiosity, “and it’s how we broaden their lens to become the problem-solvers of tomorrow.”
Smiley’s impassioned support of the arts and humanities paralleled ideas shared earlier in the day by David Leonard, president of the Boston Public Library, in his keynote address on the evolving concept – and relevance – of the public library.
Leonard described today’s “loud library” as an institution that connects to history but provides a modern approach to the information needs of our population. This mission is reflected in both the library’s architecture and its initiatives, and the emphasis throughout is on access – to welcoming spaces, to opportunities for civic engagement, to technology, and to the world of ideas. The library’s collection of almost 23 million items provides incredible opportunities to glean modern insights from historical perspectives, and “must not only be preserved but activated and brought to life for today’s population.”
Boston Public Library has taken innovative steps to ensure that contemporary challenges do not limit free access to knowledge. As a partner in the Books Unbanned initiative, the library grants digital access to students affected by book bans, regardless of their geographical location. “We can be at the same time contemporary and historical, and we must not squander the trust that libraries engender and that the public has in our institutions.”
Dr. David Fithian, president of Clark University, and Dr. Joanne Berger-Sweeney, president of Trinity College, echoed the importance of trust in their conversation about strategies and partnerships higher education institutions can pursue to strengthen their communities and create educational opportunities. Berger-Sweeney emphasized that “what we do is supposed to make society better,” and building trust between communities and institutions hinges on an institution’s ability to demonstrate that value.
Fithian described a growing commitment at Clark University to offering tuition-free scholarships to academically qualified Worcester residents. Trinity College has developed partnerships with neighboring institutions to convert a vacant bus depot into the “Learning Corridor” – an educational complex adjacent to Trinity’s Hartford campus that serves more than 1,000 students in preschool through Grade 12.
Affordable Housing and Historic Preservation
Communities of all sizes and demographics are confronted with extreme housing shortages and the need to address historic patterns of housing inequity.
Angela D. Brooks, director of the Illinois Office of the Corporation for Supportive Housing and president of the American Planning Association, moderated a panel on inclusive development and opened with a pointed question: “Can the preservation community, instead of being viewed as a hindrance to affordable housing, be seen as a partner in providing solutions?”
Rosanne Haggerty, president and CEO of Community Solutions, reflected on the accomplishments of the Built for Zero campaign, a comprehensive, community-based approach to end homelessness. “The preservation community is needed at that community table, in this community process.” She called for the restoration and revival of historically important forms of housing, “because we need more ways of using the infrastructure we have, of densifying neighborhoods, [and] of creating a variety of housing types so that more people’s housing needs can be met.”
Carrie Zaslow, executive director of the Providence Revolving Fund, described the success and continued evolution of her organization’s Neighborhood Loan Fund, a long-standing program that provides property owners in Providence historic districts with lowinterest home repair loans. “What we are finding more and more is that there are homeowners who are on tremendously fixed incomes,” who struggle to maintain their historic homes or rental units but are unable to take on the cost of a loan. The Providence Revolving Fund worked with other community partners to develop a program that offers grants – not loans – to homeowners in exchange for placing affordable housing deed restrictions on their rental units. “It’s creating affordable housing in historic homes,” Zaslow noted, “and it’s helping that homeowner create household wealth for their family.”
Sarah Marchant, the New Hampshire Community Loan Fund's chief of staff and vice president of ROC-NH, shared examples from the Granite State, including a Nashua project that converted a vacant historic school building into a shelter, apartments, and a community center. The project raised $9 million in donations and leveraged federal and state tax credit and grant opportunities – but the catalyst for the project was the Nashua Soup Kitchen & Shelter’s successful effort to obtain a 100-year lease for the building at $1 dollar per year. “I think the story for all [of these examples] is these are all community projects, and none of them would have happened without partnerships. That’s the only way we get affordable housing done.”
Cultural Leadership and Climate Action
Miranda Massie, director and founder of the Climate Museum, spoke about her organization’s mission to harness the power of arts and culture to expedite a cultural shift toward meaningful climate dialogue and action. The need to do so, she advised, “could not possibly be more urgent,” as the climate crisis threatens our safety and exacerbates existing social inequities. A summer day in New York City provides startling evidence of this: in historically redlined neighborhoods, where a lack of shade trees is indicative of decades of disinvestment, the temperature of the sidewalk can be thirty degrees hotter than it is only ten blocks away.
Massie explained that our cultural reticence to engage in conversations about the climate stems from a widely held misperception that most Americans don’t support aggressive climate action. "A bipartisan supermajority of adults supports very, very ambitious action for climate justice and for clean energy,” she said, and “museums and other cultural sector institutions have an incredible power to invite people into taking action together.”
Discover More
You can engage with Summit content year-round. Visit summit.historicnewengland.org for 2022 and 2023 session recordings and information on the 2024 Summit.
