America’s 11 Most Endangered Historic Places | Closing out May as National Historic Preservation Month

Industrial National Trust Building, Providence, Rhode Island.  Wikipedia photo.

This building was featured in "Superman" movies as the home of the Daily Planet newspaper. It's under threat due to deterioration and deferred maintenance after six years of vacancy. 

Many state, regional, and/or city preservation organizations publish an annual list of threatened properties as a way to draw attention to important properties, get support, and ideally identify interested actors or pressure property owners to save properties.

The National Trust for Historic Preservation does this on a national basis, and this is their list for 2019:

-- America’s 11 Most Endangered Historic Places

This year's list:

• Tenth Street Historic District, Dallas, Texas
• Nashville's Music Row (I wrote about this a few years ago, "Leveraging music as cultural heritage for economic development: part two, popular music" and "Development moratoriums as a way to catch up building and zoning regulations")
• James R. Thompson Center, Chicago, Illinois (I haven't written about this, but it's a good example of hard-pressed government agencies stinting on maintenance, as well as an example of the need for good capital budgeting practices -- -- as well as choosing the right partners--both the State of Illinois and the City of Chicago have big issues when it comes to spending, debt, and budgeting)
• Bismarck-Mandan Rail Bridge*, Bismarck, North Dakota
• Industrial Trust Company Building, Providence, Rhode Island
• Ancestral Places of Southeast Utah*, Southeast Utah
• The Excelsior Club*, Charlotte, North Carolina
• National Mall Tidal Basin*, Washington, D.C.
• Hacienda Los Torres, Lares, Puerto Rico
• Willert Park Courts*, Buffalo, New York
• Mount Vernon Arsenal and Searcy Hospital, Mount Vernon, Alabama

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* It occurs to me that there is another opportunity to call attention to threatened buildings, sites, landscapes, and places, at least for some categories.

For example, with regard to the Bismarck-Mandan Rail Bridge, probably by Monday I'll be publishing an omnibus piece on better promotion of railroad passenger transportation and one of the points is to revive National Train Day--started by Amtrak in 2008and cancelled as of 2015 because of lack of funds--as National Train Month, suggested for May, since that month is the anniversary of the creation of the transcontinental railroad.

The NTHP could coordinate creation of an "Endangered Places" listing for railroad sites and infrastructure to be published that month.

Excelsior Club, Charlotte, North Carolina.

The same for African-American landmarks during Black History Month in February, including The Excelsior Club; public lands on National Public Lands Day in September, and national park related sites during "National Parks Week" in April, public housing complexes during National Fair Housing Month, etc.