City of Greensboro issued the following announcement on Aug. 6.
The City’s Planning Department has been awarded a $40,000 National Parks Service's African American Civil Rights grant to move forward with nominating a portion of Benbow Park neighborhood to the National Register of Historic Places.
A proposed historic district has been placed on the National Register Study List, a preliminary step to listing on the register, due to Planning’s 2019-20 architectural survey of east Greensboro. That project, which was funded by a federal Historic Preservation Fund grant, documented Greensboro buildings designed and constructed by Black architects.
The City has now published that project’s documentation in storymap form, titled “Modernism and the Civil Rights Movement.” The storymap, reports in pdf format and more info about that project can be found on this City Web page.
According to Mike Cowhig, City senior planner, the latest federal grant will be used to hire an architectural historian to prepare the nomination paperwork and to conduct additional oral history interviews and document sites of significance to the Civil Rights Movement in Greensboro.
Cowhig explains that the Benbow Park area is historically significant for several reasons including the many examples of Mid-Century Modern homes and churches designed and built by Black professionals and the area was home to leaders of and participants in the Civil Rights Movement
Also, the Planning Department has received another $14,000 in Historic Preservation funding to update its Downtown Greensboro Historic District National Register nomination. The original nomination was prepared in 1982 and amended in 2004. Downtown was then re-surveyed in 2017 and its district boundary was expanded. The area was then added to the National Register Study List.
This grant’s funding will be used to hire an architectural historian to prepare new nomination documentation to reflect the last survey.
“National Register listing is primarily an honor without any restrictions on private property,” says Cowhig. “But it does make owners of historic properties potentially eligible for federal and state rehabilitation income tax credits. Tax credits are a financial incentive to encourage preservation of historic structures.”
Original source can be found here.
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