Tag: Buffalo

Buffalo Mass Mob Wins Preservation Advocacy for the 2024 Preservation Awards!

It is time to announce the winners of the 2024 Preservation Awards!

We have 12 awardees this year that span across preservation advocacy, preservation craft, residential restoration, commercial restoration, emerging preservation leaders, 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 Thursday, May 30th at the Buffalo History Museum. You can get your tickets here. 

Preservation Advocacy, Erie County

Our Erie County Preservation Advocacy winner goes to Buffalo Mass Mob!

Buffalo Mass Mob was formed 10 years ago by Christopher Byrd, Danielle Huber Murtha, and Greg Witul (and former members Alan Oberst and Arthur Kogutowski) to bring awareness to our grand churches throughout Buffalo and Western New York.

About Buffalo Mass Mob: Due to declining attendance, area churches are closing at an alarming rate. Mass Mob aims to increase attendance one church at a time to raise awareness and appreciation for these grand religious works of art while also raising money so congregations can do critical repair work to maintain their buildings. Since inception, there have been more than forty places of worship visited including those that are not Catholic. Buffalo Mass Mob has hosted other fundraisers to help with much-needed repairs, such as the BuffaLovejoy fundraiser to help St Peter and Paul Orthodox Church get a new roof.

An advocacy idea for others – Mass Mob was such a popular idea, that it even spread to other cities such as Cleveland and Detroit. For those looking to start their own Mass Mob, on their website, there is a “start your own mass mob” section that details how to make one happen.

From our Executive Director, Bernice Radle:

Our sacred spaces are in crisis. We get calls daily to assist with research, the need for funds to repair their buildings, and more. We love what Buffalo Mass Mob is doing specifically because it is a direct-action effort by the community. The “mob sheet” on their website inspires other communities to take the lead, too! I love it when a small but mighty idea comes to ligfe – bringing significant resources to these churches. I hope Buffalo Mass Mob will continue for many years to come! Thank you to all the team for their hard work and dedication to our sacred spaces!

For more information on Buffalo Mass Mob, check out : https://buffalomassmob.org/

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Lifetime Preservation Achievement: Ed Healy of Visit Buffalo Niagara

It is time to announce the winners of the 2024 Preservation Awards!

We have 12 awardees this year that span across preservation advocacy, preservation craft, residential restoration, commercial restoration, emerging preservation leaders, 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 Thursday, May 30th at the Buffalo History Museum. You can get your tickets here. 

Lifetime Preservation Achievement

We are starting with announcing our Lifetime Preservation Achievement Award which will be going to the one and only, Ed Healy at Visit Buffalo Niagara!

Throughout his life and career, Edward Healy has been a champion of Buffalo and its beautiful, historic buildings. Professionally, Ed has worked, and succeeded, in establishing Buffalo and Erie County as a destination for cultural and architectural tourism for more than 20 years. We included a highlight reel of his work below – just so you can take in the amount of work he and his team have done.

A note from Bernice, our Executive Director:

Ed is someone everyone seems to know and love. His entire life has been focused on telling Buffalo’s story – a story that is founded on preservation and our remarkable historic architecture. Back in 2010, Ed helped to launch the Buffalo: This Place Matters video which focuses on the legacy that we have inherited at a time where not everyone seemed to realize what historic gems we had.

Ed and his team focus on local: local shops, local restaurants, local historic sites and beyond to create an experience that has put Buffalo and Niagara Falls on the map as a destination to visit. He took the lead with bringing the National Trust for Historic Preservation to Buffalo – a conference that personally changed the trajectory of my life and so many others who used the conference as a launch pad for their careers. People started to truly believe in Buffalo as a result of that conference! Ed directed the effort in the video Buffalo: America’s Best Designed City with John Paget which highlighted our historic city in so many ways.  I believe this video really helped to change the minds of people who did not believe in Buffalo. The good news is, the hard work is paying off! We see over 600 million dollars that come to Erie County for heritage tourism and almost 25% of all tourists coming for two things: family and architecture.

May we all be as fortunate as Ed to look back on our lives and see such a positive impact from our efforts.

One of our favorite recent articles that shows the passion Ed feels for our community can be found here: https://www.visitbuffaloniagara.com/the-rebirth-of-buffalo/

Here are some of Ed’s achievements and highlights throughout his career:

  • Worked to bring the National Trust for Historic Preservation Annual Conference to Buffalo in 2011, which arguably sparked Buffalo’s recent resurgence and increased attention to our architecture. During the conference, Visit Buffalo Niagara even trained cab drivers on the historic details of Buffalo’s historic buildings to make sure they were equipped to discuss and point out these places to attendees. You can read about its impact here. 
  • Ed and Visit Buffalo Niagara helped to bring the Congress for New Urbanism to Buffalo in 2013.
  • Served as Executive producer on John Paget’s short film, Buffalo: America’s Best Designed City, which was released in 2014. You can watch it here. 
  • Established a marketing campaign, The Unexpected Buffalo, which rolled out in 2017 and called attention to Buffalo’s overlooked aspects, including architecture and Buffalo’s unique brand of restoration and adaptive reuse of historic buildings. The campaign won an ESTO Award in 2018.
  • Worked to pitch and host hundreds of travel writers, architecture critics, and preservation journalists to write and highlight stories of Buffalo’s architecture, design, adaptive reuse, and resurgence.
  • Serves as board member of the Lipsey Architecture Center.
  • An avid photographer whose work has been featured in CEPA Gallery exhibits. A majority of Ed’s photography focuses on Buffalo architecture and buildings.
  • During Ed’s tenure at VBN, Buffalo has been named one of the National Trust’s Dozen Distinctive Destinations, America’s Friendliest City by the readers of Travel & Leisure magazine, one of 52 Places to Go in 2018 by The New York Times, a Top Ten Value Destination for 2020 by Lonely Planet, one of the Best Places to Travel in 2021 by Travel & Leisure magazine, and, most recently, one of the top 22 places to travel to in 2022 by Architectural Digest. The “Unexpected Buffalo” advertising campaign developed and implemented by my team was named the Best Branding and Integrated Marketing Campaign in the nation at the U.S. Travel Association’s ESTO Conference in August 2018 in the $1 million to $2.5 million budget category

Congrats to you Ed! This is an award we cannot wait to present to  you and your family and friends on May 30th. Well deserved, truly!

From Ed’s bio on Linkedin: Ed Healy is the Vice President of Marketing for Visit Buffalo Niagara where he is responsible for VBN’s destination marketing strategies. Ed’s portfolio includes overseeing all marketing communications, including the production of an annual touring guide, web sites, e-newsletters, social media, videos, podcasts and consumer advertising, as well as media and public relations. 

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2024 Preservation Awards Announcement

It is time to announce the winners of the 2024 Preservation Awards!

We have 12 awardees this year that span across WNY in preservation advocacy, preservation craft, residential restoration, commercial restoration, emerging preservation leadership, lifetime achievement, and so much more. Each awardee was nominated directly by the community and was reviewed and selected by the PBN Nominating Committee. You can also see our past winners from 2023 here and you can read about our criteria and awards details here.  

This slideshow below is a teaser for you! We will be highlighting the stories of each one of the awardees over the next few weeks – to entice you to attend our award ceremony on May 30th at the Buffalo History Museum.  Our awardees span across WNY and are doing the hard work – putting the blood, sweat, and tears into leading by example. Because the celebrations are too few and stress is so high, must take time to celebrate and express gratitude. Come and celebrate the preservation wins with us!  You can get your tickets here. 

To all our winners – thank you. You’re doing great work and we all appreciate you. WNY is better because of your dedication and love for your work. We cannot wait to celebrate with you on May 30th at the Buffalo History Museum!

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A Big Win For Winspear! Buffalo’s Newest Historic District!

If you live or work in the Winspear Extension area of Buffalo,  you may have heard about the good news… Your neighborhood has been designated as a National Register Historic District! When we received notice from SHPO, Bernice Radle commented “It isn’t everyday we get a new historic district to celebrate – the standards are high and Winspear meets them.” Our Executive Director also displayed gratitude to the folks working behind the scenes on this project, saying  “Thank you to everyone who worked very hard to make this a reality!  This is a big day for Buffalo!”

The Winspear Extension is a neighborhood with a rich history and architectural heritage, featuring hundreds of homes in a variety of styles, including: Bungalow, American Foursquare, and Colonial Revival. The neighborhood was designed for the city’s emerging middle class by a sole-developer in the early Twentieth Century, and it reflects the social and economic changes that shaped Buffalo in the 1920’s and 30’s. The historic district encompasses the properties along Winspear Avenue and Highgate Avenue, along with portions of Suffolk Street, Orleans Street and Rounds Avenue. Now, the Winspear Extension district is joining the ranks of over 95,000 historic places across the country that represent the nation’s diverse and shared history.

If you live in the Winspear Extension District, you have a great opportunity to save money and preserve history at the same time. How? By taking advantage of the historic tax credits that you now qualify for on the state and federal level. These tax credits can cover up to 40% of the costs of repairing and restoring your historic home, while keeping its unique character and charm. If you’d like to learn how you can save 20% to 40% on your next home renovation project, sign up for Preservation Buffalo Niagara’s free Historic Homeowner Tax Credit Workshop.

Would you like to learn more about the Winspear Extension District? Click here.