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Time Out
21-05-2025
- Time Out
These are the most endangered historic places in all of New York State
If you've ever road-tripped through the Catskills or strolled near Niagara Falls, you might have passed two of New York's most endangered cultural gems, without realizing they're on the brink of vanishing. The National Trust for Historic Preservation just dropped its 2025 list of America's 11 Most Endangered Historic Places, and two New York State icons made the cut: The Wellington Hotel in Pine Hil l and The Turtle: Native American Center for the Living Arts in Niagara Falls. Let's start in the Catskills. Built in 1882, the Wellington is a hulking, wood-frame reminder of the golden age of mountain tourism—when resorts were grand, porches were wide and urbanites fled the heat for fresh air and blueberry pie. But today, it's sagging under the weight of time, with a failing foundation and a repair bill estimated at $7 million. The hamlet of Pine Hill, population 339, can't foot the bill alone. A grassroots group of 20 locals has stepped in with big plans to revive the space as a community hub with a café, grocery store and workforce housing, but they'll need serious funding to pull it off. Meanwhile, just steps from the roar of Niagara Falls, The Turtle—a striking, turtle-shaped cultural center built in 1981 by Arapaho architect Dennis Sun Rhodes—sits eerily silent. Once the largest Indigenous arts venue in the Eastern U.S., it's been closed since 1996 and is now unprotected, painted over and eyed for demolition. A coalition of more than 1,000 advocates, Indigenous and non-Indigenous alike, is fighting to bring it back to life as a celebration of Haudenosaunee heritage. Both projects underscore this year's theme: preservation isn't just about saving old buildings, but rather it's about making space for community, identity and economic resilience. In other words, it's not about nostalgia. It's about what happens next.
Yahoo
07-05-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Turtle building added to national 'endangered places' list
NIAGARA FALLS — A grassroots effort to reawaken the building commonly known as 'The Turtle' in downtown Niagara Falls has picked up support from a 75-year-old nationwide preservation organization that specializes in saving unique places across America. The National Trust for Historic Preservation announced Wednesday that it has named the turtle-shaped former Native American Center for the Living Arts building to its 2025 list of America's 11 Most Endangered Historic Places. The group's designation describes the Turtle as a 'powerful symbol of Indigenous heritage,' while noting, 'Unfortunately, the building has been vacant for almost 30 years, and the owner previously shared plans for demolition. A coalition has formed in hopes of 'reawakening' the Turtle once again.' Sites are selected by the trust based on historical significance, architectural importance and severity of threat faced. Placement on the list can help raise awareness about a site, which can help mobilize financing and support for local preservation efforts. 'As we approach the 250th anniversary of the United States, we must acknowledge and support the Indigenous history that has so often been hidden and forgotten,' said Carol Quillen, president and CEO of the National Trust for Historic Preservation. 'The plans to 'reawaken' the Turtle would provide exactly the celebration of tribal heritage and culture that we need more than ever.' Di Gao, senior director of research and development for the National Trust, joined members of the local group, Friends of the Niagara Turtle, in formally announcing the building's designation during a press conference on Wednesday at Cataract House Park across the street from the former Native American arts center in downtown Niagara Falls. She likened the designation to 'an act of hope' aimed at spurring wider interest in the effort to preserve and reopen the Turtle. 'Over it's four decades of existence, the list has become a highly effective tool for sharing the stories of some our nation's most captivating sites and galvanizing public support for over 350 places and we're proud to say, after they've been included on this list, only a handful have been lost,' Gao said. Opened in 1981 as a center for celebrating Native American arts, the Turtle building has been closed and vacant since 1995. Northern Arapaho architect Dennis Sun Rhodes designed the building in the shape of a turtle to honor the Haudenosaunee creation story that the Earth was built on the back of a Great Turtle. The three-story, 67,000-square-foot building, located at 25 Rainbow Blvd., features a geodesic dome roof 'shell' and large porthole 'eye' windows. 'The Turtle is a powerful symbol of Indigenous heritage and was once a hub for fostering education, cultural preservation and community healing,' Gao said. 'We've included the Turtle on the endangered list because it has now been vacant for nearly 30 years and is not yet a locally designated landmark. Yet these walls hold community memories and promise for future generations.' The building is currently owned by the private company, Niagara Falls Redevelopment, which previously opposed efforts to have the building designated by the city as a local landmark. NFR did not immediately respond to a request for comment, however, the company has previously indicated through its spokesperson that any potential for future renovation would depend entirely on the proposed use and that the company has not received 'viable interest' in redeveloping the site since it acquired it from the city in 1997. The local non-profit group Friends of the Turtle was formed in the wake of the Niagara Falls City Council's decision to reject a request by the city's Historic Preservation Commission to have the building designated as a local landmark. The Friends are receiving support in their efforts to 'reawaken' the Turtle from Preservation Buffalo Niagara, a local group that works to preserve historic and culturally significant sites across Western New York. Supporters of the preservation effort say the building embodies the self-determination and preservation of the Haudenosaunee who, in the mid-1970s, embarked on the Turtle's construction as part of an effort to preserve their arts and culture after the negative impact of the Indian boarding schools and centuries of the United States Government controlling nearly every aspect of tribal life. They also view the building as a prime and exceedingly rare example of a cross between Postmodern and Indigenous architecture. Preservationists say the building's design blends Postmodern approaches to anthropomorphism in conjunction with meaningful Haudenosaunee symbols and practices embodied in the function and form of the building. Friends members say their coalition includes more than 1,000 Indigenous and non-Indigenous people and that they have engaged extensively with the Haudenosaunee Nations and other Indigenous communities who are interested in revitalizing the building as a cultural resource. Plans for the building could include re-establishing it as a cultural center offering exhibitions, dance and music performances, and educational experiences highlighting Native American heritage, culture, and languages. Shaun Wilson, a member of the Mohawk and Turtle Clan who serves as the chairman of the board for the Friends of the Niagara Turtle, said he believes the Turtle could come alive and thrive once again as a center for celebrating Indigenous culture and arts, partly because times have changed a lot since the building closed in 1981. Wilson believes a new group of operators would greatly benefit from something the earlier operators did not have: Access to the world through marketing and promotion on the internet. He said he believes operators of the building would be in a much better position today to attract visitors and support for an Indigenous cultural center inside a unique building that would be unlike any other attraction of its kind, not just in New York but in the United States. 'I think, historically, the Turtle was, looking back on it, it probably could have been welcomed by the community more,' he said. 'It was a different time when it did operate. It was the first building of its kind and something like this here in New York state could have the Indigenous community re-learning its culture in this building. We have the community today that could operate this building.' Wilson said his group is working with local architect John Baptiste from Anowara Architecture as it moves forward with the preservation initiative. He said a key step in the process will likely involve a walk-through that would allow for a closer examination of the building's condition, which Wilson said Friends of the Turtle members have been unable to do to date. While he acknowledged the potential cost of renovation may be high, Wilson said Friends members are hoping that by increasing the public's understanding of the significance of the Turtle, they will be able to put together a 'viable' plan that the building's owners have said no one has been able to produce. 'We had to start somewhere, so we started with community awareness and that there's potential to save the building,' Wilson said.
Boston Globe
10-03-2025
- Boston Globe
Helen Schreider, intrepid world traveler, dies at 98
Advertisement It wasn't until 2015 — 59 years after her husband was inducted — that Helen Schreider was belatedly inducted into the Explorers Club herself, once it had dropped its gender barrier. Faanya Rose, the club's first woman president, told her: 'You went exploring knowing there was no accolade for women. It was just the pure passion and the pure curiosity.' Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up Ms. Schreider, a former art student who always traveled with drawing pad and colored pencils to record her wide-ranging explorations, died Feb. 6 in Santa Rosa, Calif. She was 98. A niece, Camille Armstrong, said the cause was a stroke. The Schreiders — along with raft-maker Thor Heyerdahl, deep-sea mariner Jacques Piccard, and others — were part of a semi-golden era of exploration, when bold transits could still be plotted across a globe not entirely subdued by technology. On the often harrowing trip that the Schreiders made from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego, from 1954 to 1956, they navigated angry stretches of the Pacific Ocean and the Caribbean to skirt roadless mountains in their amphibious jeep, which they christened La Tortuga (The Turtle) and which had a propeller and a rudder. The journey was recounted in a book, '20,000 Miles South' (1957), with text by Frank Schreider and drawings by Helen Schreider, that was serialized in The Saturday Evening Post. While on a US tour with footage they had shot of their trip, the Schreiders met the president of the National Geographic Society, Melville Bell Grosvenor, who hired them as a writer-photographer team. They completed six long assignments for National Geographic magazine from 1957 to 1969, beginning with a second trip by amphibious jeep along the Ganges River in India. Advertisement They followed up with a 13-month journey through the Indonesian archipelago, which they recounted in their book "The Drums of Tonkin" (1963). Trips by Land Rover followed: first in the Great Rift Valley of Africa and then along a 24,000-mile route from Greece to India in the footsteps of Alexander the Great. Their last expedition, in 1969, was to map the Amazon River from its headwaters in the Peruvian Andes, which they navigated in a small boat they built themselves. Their National Geographic book 'Exploring the Amazon' (1970) made the disputed claim that the Amazon, not the Nile, is the world's longest river. (The Schreiders added the Para River in the Amazon's mouth to its overall length, although others considered the Para part of another system; most cartographers today agree that the Nile is longer.) That same year, 1970, the couple parted ways with the magazine. They divorced a few years later and pursued individual careers. Frank Schreider became a freelance writer and crossed the Atlantic Ocean in his 40-foot sailboat, Sassafras. He was on a lengthy cruise of the Greek islands in 1994 when he died of a heart attack at the age of 79 aboard his sloop. Helen Schreider joined the National Park Service as a museum designer. She created exhibitions within the Statue of Liberty for the US bicentennial in 1976 and at Yellowstone National Park. Advertisement Throughout her life, she painted portraits and landscapes in oil, inspired by her travels, which were shown in several solo exhibitions. She was included in the book "Women Photographers at National Geographic" (2000). 'She was voracious to discover the world and the beauty,' Armstrong said in an interview, adding that she always had her drawing supplies close at hand. 'She could literally with 10 swipes of the pencil get the whole drawing. She could capture the moments right as they were moving through villages.' Helen Jane Armstrong was born May 3, 1926, in Coalinga, Calif., in the Central Valley, to Breckenridge Armstrong, who managed water districts, and Ina Bell (Brubaker) Armstrong, a farmer and artist. She earned a bachelor of fine arts from UCLA, where she met Schreider, an engineering student. They married in 1947 while they were still undergraduates. She is survived by a brother, Donald B. Armstrong, and her partner of 25 years, John Ryan, a retired professor of geography at the University of Winnipeg. A second marriage, to Russ Hendrickson, ended in divorce in 1983. The Schreiders' plans for a delayed honeymoon road trip grew more and more ambitious, until Frank Schreider suggested driving all the way from the Arctic Circle to the tip of South America. Helen Schreider agreed, and the couple departed from Circle, Alaska, in the treeless tundra, on June 21, 1954. Along for the journey was their German shepherd, Dinah. Because the Pan-American Highway had not yet been completed over some mountain ranges in Central America, the Schreiders rebuilt an amphibious Ford jeep that had been manufactured during World War II, which Frank Schreider described as a 'bathtub with wheels,' to take to the sea. Advertisement The ungainly La Tortuga first entered the Pacific Ocean in Costa Rica in 10-foot surf, a terrifying experience for the couple that nearly ended their journey. 'La Tortuga reared like a horse, Helen grabbed for the dash, Dinah was thrown to the back, and I held grimly to the wheel,' Frank Schreider wrote in '20,000 Miles South.' The jeep later passed through locks of the Panama Canal to the Caribbean, where the Schreiders steered south, provisioned with a month's supply of Army C-rations. They island-hopped for 250 miles, coming ashore onto pristine beaches where children covered La Tortuga in flowers. After 30 seagoing days, they landed in Turbo, Colombia, where a customs official asked, "Is it a boat or a car?" 'It's both,' Ms. Schreider replied. At the southernmost tip of the continent, there was a final amphibious crossing in a 10-knot current of the Strait of Magellan to Tierra del Fuego, where they completed their journey Jan. 23, 1956. Back home in the United States, Helen Schreider told a newspaper reporter that she had been 'game for anything.' This article originally appeared in
