LEO Weekly recently gave a great shout out to the efforts of Louisville’s grassroots preservation organization, Preservation Louisville, and it’s well worth a read. We heavily rely on the efforts of Preservation Louisville and its director Marianne Zickuhr. In recent years, the group has helped landmark the Whiskey Row site, along with the Bauer’s Restaurant in Mockingbird Valley and Colonial Gardens at Iroquois Park.
Zickuhr feels strongly that one of the nonprofit’s main jobs is to educate the public. “Hands on History” is a series that focuses on education in how to solve historic building problems, such as fixing the roof or windows. Many participants are interested in how to make a historic home “green.”
…
“What the preservation community needs to do, in a way, is to make the topic sexy,” Weeter says. “The environment movement, the green movement, is on everyone’s brain—it’s been branded. Preservation is not on the same level of consciousness to the public. There are huge parallels between the preservation movement and the environmental movement. Somehow, though, the environmental movement has done a much better job of getting their message out. It makes sense to use what we have. A lot of people are preservationists but don’t know it.”
Zickuhr urges everyone who supported saving Whiskey Row or other historic properties around the city to consider joining Preservation Louisville. Individual memberships are only $35 (and students get in for just $15!), but the funds go a long way toward helping to preserve Louisville’s irreplaceable history.
Read the entire article at LEO Weekly.
While I share the approval of the new kid on the block, Preservation Louisville, for all its fine efforts, let’s not forget the other organizations in Louisville which have been working on preservation matters: Louisville Historical League (founded 1972), Neighborhood Planning and Preservation (founded 2003), and OPEN Louisville.
The effort to preserve Whiskey Row was indeed a joint effort between all of these organizations. When we work together, avoid turf battles, and don’t work for credit or awards but instead for shared progress, amazing things can happen.
Good point, Steve. Louisville is fortunate to have several groups dedicated to preserving the city’s great history.