Group announces winners of Long Island historic places program

Regional preservation advocacy nonprofit Preservation Long Island has announced the winners of its Endangered Historic Places program for 2021.

The program teaches participants how to use tools such as landmark designation, tax incentives and public outreach to achieve their preservation goals.

The program does not provide funding for projects on the list but can offer help in finding resources such as grants.

Cold Spring Harbor-based Preservation Long Island introduced the program in 2010 and so far it has helped 27 historic structures in Nassau and Suffolk counties. This year the selected sites were culled from a record 20 submissions, said Sarah Kautz, preservation director.

The nominated sites should fulfill three eligibility criteria: it must be historically, culturally, or architecturally significant and may encompass individual buildings, landscapes, structures, or any grouping thereof; the existence and/or integrity of the site must be seriously threatened from such things as planned demolition, a pattern of neglect or exposure that will inevitably lead to loss; and that being on the preservation list will have a positive impact on efforts to protect the nominated site.

"The selected sites were really compelling because there’s a really strong group doing the local advocacy, which is the core of the program," Kautz said.

The 2021 list includes the Sag Harbor Hills, Azurest and Ninevah Subdivisions Historic District in Sag Harbor, over concerns of demolition and intensive redevelopment of one of Long Island’s most significant Jim Crow- and Civil Rights-era historic districts. The Rogers/Remz Grain & Feed Building in Port Jefferson Station is an example of an early industrial farming structure and is threatened by demolition and urban renewal. John Mackay III's "Happy House" is one of the few remaining Gilded Age country houses in the Village of East Hills and is threatened by demolition and subdivision.