activities/events archive
ECDP members promote, preserve and enhance the distinctive character of Erie through community-based planning, design and historic preservation activities.” Some projects listed below were completed prior to the official founding of the ECDP.
OP-ED by ECDP, Historic Preservation Needed to Boost Economic Development, May 2011
Read more…
OP-ED by ECDP, Top 10 Reasons to Renovate Roosevelt, September 4, 2009
In response to the Erie School District’s continued conversation regarding the possible demolition of Roosevelt Middle School, the ECDP authored a list of key preservation points that were published as an OP-ED in the Erie Times News. Read more…
OP-ED by Thomas Hylton, Renovate, don’t demolish, Roosevelt, June 5, 2009
After Roosevelt Middle School was (again) threatened with demolition, the ECDP alerted Hylton, the Pulitzer-prize winning founder of Save our Land, Save our Towns. Hylton then wrote (another) Friday Forum for the Erie Times News urging new thinking.
www.saveourlandsaveourtowns.org
Co-Founded Transportation Advocacy Group, All Aboard Erie, June 2009
Erie County Councilman Kyle Foust’s Spring 2009 Rail Summits inspired members ECDP and Envision Erie members to form a non-profit public transportation advocacy group. The new group, All Aboard Erie, is dedicated to advocating convenient, assessable transit and high-speed rail.
www.allaboarderie.com
Transit Lecture, Dr. Daniel B. Hess, May 14, 2009
An urban planner and civil engineer from the University of Buffalo School of Architecture & Planning, Dr. Daniel B. Hess was invited by the ECDP and Envision Erie as the keynote speaker at a public forum held at the Hamot Heart Center. Hess discussed impediments to ridership, and commented on transit’s ability to reduce auto dependence and sprawl.
Place Economics Lecture, Donovan Rypkema, May 9th, 2009
Rypkema was the keynote speaker on at the second annual ECDP Preservation Month lecture held at the Erie Insurance auditorium. Rypkema spoke on demolition’s economic and environmental unsustainablity. John Elliott, Director of the Economic Development Corporation of Erie County, offered a picture of the region’s challenges. In the lobby, Transit Forge and other preservation-related businesses displayed their work.
www.placeeconomics.com
Rail Summit, Erie County Courthouse, April, 2009
The ECDP and Envision Erie worked with Erie County Councilman Kyle Foust to bring Ken Prendergast, Executive Director of All Aboard Ohio, to the Erie County Courthouse offer advice regarding the high-speed-rail keystone gap between Cleveland-Erie-Buffalo.
www.allaboardohio.org
National Parking Day Event, Erie Art Museum, September 19, 2008
The ECDP participated in National Parking Day by “renting” metered parking in front of the Erie Art Museum. Four street parking spots were transformed into a temporary garden installation. ECDP members sat in lawn chairs distributing brochures and discussing the over-abundance of surface parking with pedestrians.
www.parkingday.org
OP-ED by Chris Magoc, Erie’s Self-Image Rooted in Past, May 2, 2008
ECDP Board President, Chris Magoc, suggested in the Erie Times News OP-ED that preservation is more than a nicety. He argued that adaptive reuse of our historic built environment is crucial to our regional identity and economic well being.
Read more…
Design Charrette Report, Roosevlet Middle School, May 30, 2008
During the Spring of 2008, the ECDP worked with Preservation PA to organize a design charette at Roosevelt Middle School. Supported by the Save our Land, Save our Towns, the day-long study was led by experienced architects (Jeff Kidder, Ellis Schmidlapp and Vern McKissick) who in turn worked with volunteers to consider renovation options. All three teams proposed a renovation, updates and small addition. Each plan met or exceeded contemporary educational standards while saving taxpayer dollars. The report is titled: “Erie School District, Roosevelt Middle School: Renovate or Replace?” Read more…
Preservation Lecture, Arthur Ziegler, May 9, 2008
Arthur Ziegler, founder and president of the Pittsburgh History & Landmark Foundation,
Ziegler was the keynote speaker at the first annual ECDP preservation month lecture held at the Erie Insurance auditorium. In his lecture, “The Good Works of Historic Preservation,” Ziegler outlined challenges that Pittsburgh faced in the 1960’s, and underscored the pragmatic economic rationale for preservation.
www.phlf.org
OP-ED by Thomas Hylton, Case can be made for saving schools, Aug. 17, 2007
After Roosevelt Middle School was threatened with demolition, members of the ECDP invited Hylton, the Pulitzer-prize winning founder of Save our Land, Save our Towns, to Erie. Hylton subsequently wrote a Friday Forum for the Erie Times News.
www.saveourlandsaveourtowns.org
Industrial Erie Tour, Society for Industrial Archeology, 2006
Members of the yet-formed ECDP organized a two-day bus tour of Erie industrial sites for forty visitors from as far away as California, Texas, North Carolina and Massachusetts. A report on threatened and demolished industrial structures in Erie was published in the SIA newsletter.
www.sia-web.org
Lecture: Germany’s Ruhr district: A Model for Erie?, Shannon McMullen, 2005
Members of the future ECDP invited sociologist, Dr. Shannon McMullen (currently teaching at Purdue University) to the Erie Art Museum Annex to report on Germany’s adaptive reuse of industrial buildings in the IBA Emscher Park. McMullen’s dissertation, “Post-Industrial Nature and Culture in the Ruhr District, Germany, 1989-1999” examined the process by which a “rust belt” was revitalized when “its political and cultural elites” created a new aesthetic that embraced “the material and natural and natural legacy of a century of coal mining and steel production.”
Film Screening & Discussion, Downside UP, 2005
Members of the future ECDP organized a screening and discussion of Nancy Kelly’s “Downside UP: How Art can change the Spirit of a Place” at the Erie Art Museum Annex. Kelly’s film explores how “a dying working class town” bet “its future on art.” The town of North Adams, Massachusetts, with 80% of its buildings closed, united “blue-collar locals” and “art world luminaries” to “transform economic failure into America's largest center for contemporary art.” (MASS MoCA)
www.downsideupthemovie.org
www.massmoca.org
Industrial Architecture Seminar, National Trust for Historic Preservation, 2005
Members of the future ECDP organized a seminar titled, “The Role of Historic Industrial Architecture in Erie” at the Erie Insurance auditorium. Adrian Fine of the National Trust, John Elliott, then Director of the City of Erie Redevelopment Authority, and Joe Laythe, History Professor at Edinboro University, spoke in favor of adaptive reuse and selective demolition of the historic Erie Malleable Iron site on West 12th Street.
