It is time to announce the winners of the 2024 Preservation Awards!
We have twelve awardees this year that span across advocacy, craft, residential restoration, commercial restoration, emerging preservation leadership, lifetime achievement, and more. We will be highlighting each of the awardees over the next few weeks – to entice you to attend our award ceremony on May 30th at the Buffalo History Museum. Come and celebrate the preservation wins with us! You can get your tickets here.
Neighborhood Preservationist: Scott Glasgow
This year, this award goes to the one and only Scott Glasgow. Scott Glasgow (BRHS Founding Trustee & Preservation Committee Member) is a lifelong advocate and historian of Buffalo’s Black Rock neighborhood, whose family history in Black Rock spans seven generations.
Scott served on the BRHS Board of Directors and is currently a Preservation Committee member. As a founding trustee, he played a significant role in the petition to receive the Society’s original charter from the University of New York Education Department as an education corporation.
Scott’s work in preservation, at the individual property level and neighborhood level, has spanned over 35 years. He is not only an advocate for preservation but has also completed an award-winning restoration of his home – the circa 1830-1835 Jacob Smith House and Tavern is located at 71 Amherst Street. At his own expense, he saved one of the oldest structures in Buffalo from demolition as well as faithfully restored and reconstructed both its exterior and interior.
Scott was instrumental in the evaluation, nomination, and certification of the Market Square Historic District in the National Register of Historic Places, the first such designation in the Northwest Buffalo. Today the district, which includes the Jacob Smith House and Tavern as a contributing resource, remains a focal point of community pride and activity within the historic Village of Black Rock.
In 2023, Scott’s scholarly research, writing, and evaluation were also instrumental in the local historic landmark designation for the Lower Black Rock Historic District – a twelve-building local district on Niagara Street that represents the only extant Canal-era streetscape in the city of Buffalo. He is currently hard at work advocating for the nomination and certification of this district in the State/National Register.
Scott has done extensive research on the history of Black Rock including the neighborhood’s abundance of Civil War-era structures. Scott has been an active and informative speaker for the Black Rock Historical Society’s Fall Speaker Series discussing with knowledge and confidence about both pre- and post-Civil War era building methods and materials.
Scott can often be spotted scouring construction sites in Black Rock from where has gathered an extensive collection of artifacts which he uses in his teaching activities. He has worked in collaboration with the University at Buffalo on grants including a National Battlefield Grant for the War of 1812 Battle of Scajaquada Creek Bridge. He has also hosted archaeologic digs in the neighborhood including Market Square and is recognized as a subject matter expert on several topics including Scajaquada Creek and the Erie Canal.
It is not a rare occurrence that when questions about historic people, places or events are raised at the BRHS Museum they are eventually answered by Scott Glasgow. Through his diligence and scholarly rigor, Scott has helped to illuminate Black Rock’s place within Western New York’s history and will work as an invaluable asset in the upcoming planning for the Erie Canal Bicentennial and events at the canal’s legendary “Black Rock Stop.”
Scott Glasgow’s lifelong commitment to the history of Black Rock and its key role in local, state, and national history makes him the perfect candidate for the recipient of the PBN Neighborhood Preservation.
Please check out the Blackrock Historical Society for more details here: https://blackrockhistoricalsociety.com/
