Preservation Is... An Awards Recap

Since you're on this web page, you probably have an interest or curiosity about historic preservation. Maybe you're a volunteer, historic commission member, a professional, student or just someone who ended up clicking through from Facebook or Instagram.

So what "is" preservation? If there is anything that we have seen over the past 30+ years of advocacy and education work, it is that preservation is constantly changing. While we may deal in material aspects of the past (ie: historic buildings, landscapes, cemeteries, mill complexes) the message and the "why" is constantly changing. From the bulldozer standoff's in the 60's to the economic drivers of the 2000's and 2010's... preservation proves to be many different things to many different people.

The 2019 Preservation Awards centered around projects, people and organizations that demonstrate the potential, the impact, the "many faces" of preservation and how they all make the places we live, work and play, special.

Preservation Massachusetts was pleased to honor 25 awardees on Wednesday, May 8 at the incomparable Fairmont Copley Plaza Hotel in Boston. Over 400 attendees gathered to celebrate these awardees and help raise funds for our advocacy and education work statewide.

We were also joined by three mayors of the Commonwealth, who spoke about what preservation is to them and their communities. Many thanks to Mayor Driscoll (Salem), Mayor Mazzarella (Leominster) and Mayor Rivera (Lawarence) for joining us. And as always, we were very grateful to be joined by Mrs. Angela Menino.

We also debuted a new award: the People's Preservation Choice Award, to amazing results (nearly 300,000 votes cast!). We look forward to announcing next year's theme very soon.