This hospital gives us the creeps, but apparently it's worth saving.

Plants and animals aren’t the only things that are endangered—buildings are, too! Or so says the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

And although the number of endangered historic buildings is nowhere close to the whopping 2,000 endangered plant and animal species, endangered anything is never a good thing, which is why the Trust releases a list of the top 11 endangered historic buildings each year.

Since the annual list was started 25 years ago, only seven New York sites and buildings have been classified as endangered—thanks to the city's Landmarks Law, in part—though that seventh was just added this year.They are: Brooklyn’s industrial waterfront, the Hudson River Valley, John Coltrane’s Huntington ranch house, the Peach Bridge Neighborhood in Buffalo, certain turn-of-the-century buildings in Harlem, the Lower East Side, and this year’s addition, the Ellis Island Hospital Complex.

But this isn’t the first time that the Ellis Island Hospital Complex has made it on the list: in 1992, the complex and its surrounding buildings were crumbling and falling apart. The listing caught the attention of the National Park Service which then stepped in to stabilize the buildings. But now the complex faces another threat: lack of funding.

Today, the buildings, which have been off-limits to visitors since the 1950s, are unused, empty, and no doubt teeming with the ghosts of former quarantine patients. And while the Observer certainly has no interest in visiting these creepy digs—described on the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s website as having a “haunting beauty”—some people are.  “Preservation experts and historians feel strongly that they must be protected and opened to the public,” the website says.  

So what needs to happen this time to get these historical buildings off the endangered list? Funding.

The goal, the website says, is to rehabilitate and refurbish the buildings so that they can be opened for public visitation. And by “refurbish,” we hope they mean Ouija Boards are provided.

http://observer.com/2012/06/the-war-on-landmarks-moves-to-defcon-2-big-real-estate-forming-big-coalition-to-challenge-preservation/

Winner! Congregation Beth Elohim Will Get New Windows. (congregationbethelohim.org)

In a competition for preservation cash, four historic sites have proved themselves most beloved—at least among the social media savvy—netting the most popular votes in a battle that spanned five boroughs and 40 historic sites.

Two of the winners—the Brooklyn Public Library and Congregation Beth Elohim—are in Park Slope, which is quite a coup, especially coming on the heels of the much-expanded historic district, for the neighborhood that everyone loves to hate.

The Brooklyn Public Library fetched the most votes (9 percent), winning $250,000 to restore the main entrance doors. Right behind was Congregation Beth Elohim (8 percent), which will also get $250,000 for new stained glass windows.

But the Bronx also made a strong showing. The New York Botanical Garden (7 percent) will be awarded $250,000 to restore its rock garden and the Bartow-Pell Mansion Museum, also in the Bronx, will receive $155,000 to help restore its gardens.

"The gardens are quite lovely, but also quite time-worn," Bartow-Pell executive director Ellen M. Bruzelius told The Observer. "They've lost their definition and crispness."

Ms. Bruzelius said that the funds would be used to regrade the original hills of the formal walled terrace garden (built in 1916) that had been slowly stamped down by visitors' feet, replace long-lost flower beds, install irrigation, and fix the horse chestnut alée that leads to the 18th-century Pell family cemetery.

So how did her small museum (two full-time staff, four part-time) win the hearts of the city's history buffs?

"We reached out to everyone we knew," said Ms. Bruzelius, who ticked off the techniques: facebook campaign, daily emails, printing flyers, standing at train stations.

Besides the grant, she noted, they'd also tripled their Facebook likes.

The other 36 sites in Queens, Manhattan and Staten Island apparently failed to capture the public's imagination in quite the same way, but not to worry, another $2.1 million will be doled out in June based not on popular votes but on an advisory committee's decision and preservation leaders.

The competition was sponsored by the National Trust for Historic Preservation and American Express; it asked the public to vote online daily on what historic site was most important to them for a little over three weeks.

"It has been exciting to watch this program bring people together to show their pride in the places that matter to them," wrote Stephanie Meeks, president of the National Trust for Historic Preservation. "Partners in Preservation highlights how everyday citizens' preservation efforts are critical to saving places that are important to us all."

“These four sites did a stellar job getting out the vote and their communities to support these important preservation projects,” said Timothy J. McClimon, president of the American Express Foundation.

And, of course, besides cash, awareness and exposure is the other point of the exercise. Who knew that Astoria Pool, which is hoping to repair its high dive, hosted the performances of a group of neighborhood boys in the 1940s, who went by the name the Aquazanies and performed choreographed swimming routines with music, backdrops props and sometimes dogs?

kvelsey@observer.com

(Amex Foundation)

It's the battle of the brownstones, balustrades and bulkheads!

Forty New York City landmarks across all five boroughs are vying for a $3 million prize courtesy the American Express Foundation. From today through May 21, anyone can visit Parnters in Preservation and vote for sites ranging from the Coney Island carousel to the Lower East Side's Tenement Museum to the Mind-Builders Creative Arts Center in the Bronx.

“We are proud to join the National Trust for Historic Preservation in spotlighting the need to sustain New York City’s many important landmarks, which in turn expands economic vitality and growth,” Amex CEO Kenneth Chenault said at the Metropolitan Museum (a classic not on the list) earlier today. “The 40 selected sites reflect the awe-inspiring range of landmarks that makes New York the city it is today.”

The Amex Foundation is embracing social media for the campaign—you can vote once a day, but not ISP ballot-stuffing, please—as well as urban media: Preservation Station vehicles will travel around the city, raising awareness and allowing passersby to vote.

Now if only we could decide between the Tug Pegasus & Waterfront Museum Barge and the Greenpoint Manufacturing and Design Center. We would have voted for the Guggenheim, but do they really need the money?

mchaban [at] observer.com | @MC_NYC