Preservation League Awards Technical Assistance Grant

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The Preservation League will present a grant for a structural engineering survey at of the 1829 Brethren's Workshop at Mt. Lebanon on Tuesday, 4/15 at 6:00 p.m. at the University Club in Albany.

ALBANY, NY (04/14/2014)(readMedia)-- The Preservation League of New York State will award a Technical Assistance Grant (TAG) to a group directly engaged in the stewardship and public use of a historic building in Columbia County on Tuesday, April 15 at 6 p.m. at the National Register-listed University Club of Albany, 141 Washington Avenue. The $3,000 grant to the Shaker Museum | Mount Lebanon in Columbia County will be presented at a talk on preservation efforts at the Shaker Museum | Mount Lebanon hosted by the Society of Architectural Historians, Turpin Bannister Chapter.

The grant will support the cost of an engineering structural analysis of the 1829 Brethren's Workshop, a 13,000 square foot brick building at the North Family site at the Mount Lebanon Shaker Village. Built with a 2-story internal waterwheel, this was the most important industrial building at the site. It was connected to a network of ponds and aqueducts and powered an array of machinery throughout the building. The Brethren's Workshop supports the interpretation of the museum's large collection of tools, machinery, and products made in this building and others like it.

In 2013, the organization began a project to repair and restore the roof and related drainage features, funded by the New York's Environmental Protection Fund (EPF) with assistance from the Preservation League's Endangered Properties Intervention Program (EPIP). During preliminary work, a major support column was found to have failed, and structural movement of the building was found to have damaged roof repairs completed just two years earlier.

TAG funds will support structural analysis of the column and define the next phases of the building's stabilization and preservation. Structural engineering firm Ryan Biggs Associates of Clifton Park will complete the project.

"The Museum is delighted to receive this grant from the Preservation League," said David Stocks, President of the Shaker Museum | Mount Lebanon. "Funding for this kind of technical work in preservation is critical to identifying preservation solutions, and this grant will help us understand in detail the structural failure that has taken place, and to map out the next phase of preservation on this large building, which is so important to the history of early craft and industry pioneered by the Shakers at Mount Lebanon."

The Preservation League of New York State launched the Technical Assistance Grant (TAG) program in 2012 to support discrete projects that preserve New York State's cultural and historic resources. With this round, TAG will have disbursed over $108,000 in grants, funding 40 projects across New York State. Grants of up to $3,000 are available to not-for-profit arts and cultural groups and municipalities managing historic sites, museums, arts facilities and other culturally important institutions that are located in historic buildings and structures open to the public.

"In a very competitive grant round, applicants sought funds for technical studies to be carried out by preservation and design professionals which included building conditions surveys, engineering and structural analyses, and feasibility and reuse studies," said Erin Tobin, the League's Regional Director of Technical and Grant Programs in eastern New York. "The Preservation League is delighted to help advance the efforts of the Shaker Museum at Mount Lebanon with this grant."

Guidelines for application for the second of two grant rounds in 2014 will be available on the League's website in July. Applications must be received by Monday, August 25, 2014. A total of $15,673 is available statewide for the fall funding cycle, and funded work must be completed by the end of the calendar year. Each grant recipient must provide a $500 match and the cost of the project may not exceed $3,500.

The Preservation League of New York State is a private, not-for-profit organization that works to protect and enhance the Empire State's historic buildings, landscapes and neighborhoods. The Technical Assistance Grant Program is made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.

"The TAG program builds on the record of excellence the League has established with the similarly NYSCA-funded Preserve New York Grant program," said Jay DiLorenzo, President of the Preservation League. "Our TAG program fills a significant funding gap. It is tailored to provide support to worthy projects in New York that may be ineligible for grants from oher sources, or may not have the scope or scale to compete at regional and national levels."

The following received TAG support in the first funding round of 2014: Chenango County: Earlville Opera House, Inc.; Columbia County: Shaker Museum | Mount Lebanon; Greene County: Athens Cultural Arts Center; Hamilton County: Sagamore Institute of the Adirondacks; Livingston County (2): Livingston County Historical Society; Town of Portage; Oswego County: H. Lee White Marine Museum; Rensselaer County: Arts Center of the Capital Region; Schoharie County: Town of Blenheim; Wayne County: Sodus Bay Historical Society.

For more information on the League's Technical Assistance Grant program, please call 518-462-5658 or visit the League's website at www.preservenys.org.

Contact For Shaker Museum | Mount Lebanon

David Stocks, President

518-794-9100; dstocks@shakerml.org