Advisory Council on Historic Preservation

The ACHP met for spring business April 4 in Washington, D.C. Members discussed a variety of wide-ranging topics and laid the foundation for the full-time chairman’s arrival.

The ACHP celebrates National Volunteer Month this April supporting the tireless volunteers who help keep America’s historic places open for the public to learn from and enjoy year round. One such group of volunteers works at Newark, New Jersey’s famous Essex County Branch Brook Park.

The park was named a Preserve America Steward in 2012 for the volunteer effort aimed at restoring and preserving this historic park, conceived of by legendary landscape architect Frederick Law Olmstead Sr. and designed by his sons. Branch Brook Park, America’s first county park dating  to 1895, provides 360 acres of green space in one of New Jersey’s most densely populated cities.

Terry Guen, FASLA, Advisory Council on Historic Preservation expert member and  landscape architect, principal & founder of Chicago-based Terry Guen Design Associates.
 

The Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., made from white Colorado marble, was dedicated on Memorial Day 1922. Eight million people visit the memorial each year. Members of the staff of the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation toured the undercroft of the Lincoln Memorial on March 28 prior to the start of a major rehabilitation project that is expected to take about 20 months. The National Park Service expects the project will be completed by the 100-year-anniversary of the opening of the memorial in 2022.

As Women’s History Month winds down, the exhibit, “Votes for Women: A Portrait of Persistence,” will open March 29 at the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C. The building is one of Washington’s oldest, opened in 1836 to house the U.S. Patent Office. Red Cross founder Clara Barton worked in the National Historic Landmark as a clerk to the Patent Office commissioner.