A website has been launched to preserve the history of Danvers State Insane Asylum. The Asylum, which opened in 1878 in Danvers, MA (site of the Salem Witch Trials) and closed in 1992, was featured in the horror movie Session 9, and may have been the inspiration for HP Lovecraft's Arkham Asylum. Its Kirkbride Wings, which once held the institution's living quarters, now house a 400+ unit apartment complex. [more inside]
posted by zarq on Jun 30, 2009 - 35 comments

Randall's Lost New York City Collection "documents the destruction of many of New York City's 19th century tenement and other buildings, so that we can mourn the lost [and] appreciate the endangered." Gallery 1, 2. [more inside]
posted by dersins on Sep 20, 2007 - 31 comments

Want to live for free (sort of) in a historic home? Maryland, Delaware, and Massachusetts all have resident curatorship programs, in which you can live rent-free in a historic home, provided you spend your own time and money renovating it. Contact your state's historic preservation office to see if there's a program like this near you...
posted by dersins on Sep 6, 2007 - 14 comments

Terra-cotta (Italian for "earth-cooked") was once a versatile material for architecture ornamentation. (A short video about the process) [QuickTime] It was generally used to supplement brick and tiles of similar colour in late Victorian buildings. The Natural History Museum in London has been called architect Albert Waterhouse's Terracotta Menagerie. (Take the Terracotta Tour.) Examples of architectural terracotta in America: Buffalo, NY, St. Louis, MO, Washington State, and many, many buildings in NYC (including 200 Gargoyles and Chimera salvaged from lost buildings). Just when you thought the past might be vanishing a little too quickly, terra cotta is coming back in new ways. See also: Understanding and Concerving Terracotta and The Preservation of Historic Glazed Architectural Terra-Cotta.
posted by spock on May 31, 2007 - 8 comments

Shame Cam - 2 Columbus Circle.
posted by xowie on Nov 16, 2005 - 47 comments

The Yerkes Observatory owned and operated by the University of Chicago, and home to the world's largest refracting telescope, is in danger of being sold to a real estate developer. Find out what is being done to save this national treasure and how you can help.
posted by achmorrison on Sep 14, 2005 - 9 comments