This article analyzes community-based organizations’ (CBOs) use of historic preservation as a means of stabilizing low-income neighborhoods. It chronicles the experience of two foundational cases— Pittsburgh’s Manchester Citizens Corporation (MCC) and Cincinnati’s Mt. Auburn Good Housing Foundation (MAGHF), which undertook nationally recognized historic preservation projects in the 1970s. The MAGHF, although a precedent for the more successful MCC, ultimately dissolved under the weight of resident dissent and financial pressures. The research discusses the complexities of using preservation in low-income areas and assesses the reasons leading to success and/or failure.
Eugenie Ladner Birch and Douglass Roby, ‘‘The Planner and the Preservationist: An Uneasy Alliance,’’Journal of the American Planning Association50, no. 2 (1984): 194-207.
2.
For more on preservation in Charleston, see Robert Weyeneth’s Historic Preservation for a Living City: Historic Charleston Foundation: 1947-1997 (Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 2000) and ‘‘Ancestral Ancestral Architecture: The Early Preservation Movement in Charleston,’’ in Giving Preservation a History: Histories of Historic Preservation in the United States, eds. Max Page and Randal Mason (New York: Routledge, 2004). Also see, Christopher Silver, ‘‘Revitalizing the Urban South,’’ Journal of the American Planning Association 57, no. 1 (Winter 1991): 69-84.
3.
Robert Hodder , ‘‘Savannah’s Changing Past: Historic Preservation Planning and the Social Construction of a Historic Landscape, 1955 to 1985,’’ in Planning the Twentieth-Century American City, eds. Mary Corbin Sies and Christopher Silver (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996); Silver, ‘‘Revitalizing the Urban South.’’
4.
Federal changes to the legislation guiding Urban Renewal (initially the Housing Act of 1949, amended in 1954) fostered the Providence and Philadelphia projects. Providence’s planners used a $50,000 grant from the federal Urban Renewal Administration to complete the College Hill plan (College Hill: A Demonstration Study of Historic Area Renewal), which mixed a new historic district, targeted demolition, public improvements, and private-sector reinvestment. Planners in Philadelphia, led by Edmund Bacon, restored the Society Hill neighborhood, marketing the area’s colonial heritage to wealthy residents. This effort involved a multistakeholder partnership between the Philadelphia City Planning Commission, Philadelphia Redevelopment Authority, Old Philadelphia Development Corporation, Philadelphia Historical Commission, and local government officials. For more on Providence, see City of Providence, College Hill: A Demonstration Plan in Urban Renewal (City of Providence, City Plan Commission, 1967) and Brian Greenfield, ‘‘Marketing the Past: Historic Preservation in Providence, Rhode Island,’’ in Giving Preservation a History: Histories of Historic Preservation in the United States, eds. Max Page and Randall Mason (New York: Routledge, 2004). For more on Philadelphia, see Philip B. Berkman, The Re-Creation of Colonial Philadelphia: Preservation in the Mid-Twentieth Century City and the Destruction of Historical Context (Philadelphia: Unpublished Senior Honors Thesis, Department of History, University of Pennsylvania, 2006) and Doug Hassebroek, ‘‘Philadelphia’s Postwar Moment,’’ Perspecta 30 (1999): 84-91.
5.
Federal policies that fostered the 1970s neighborhood movement included the Demonstration Cities and Model Development Act of 1966 (Model Cities), the 1968 Neighborhood Development Program, and the Housing and Community Development Act of 1974. These changes new policies increased cities’ ability to tailor federal funds to meet local needs. Many cities increasingly designed rehabilitation-focused programs and supported grassroots development efforts, such as those occurring via the burgeoning community development movement. Birch and Roby note the overlapping use and meaning of a range of popular terms at the time including neighborhood preservation, neighborhood conservation, rehabilitation, adaptive reuse, neighborhood revitalization, neighborhood upgrading, and area preservation. This article does not attempt to ascribe specific meaning to each of these terms and freely interchanges them. Birch and Roby, ‘‘The Planner and the Preservationist.’’
6.
Building on the efforts of local communities throughout the United States, the federal government adopted the National Historic Preservation Act in 1966. The key report preceding the legislation, With Heritage So Rich (1966), is rife with arguments about the need to preserve historic buildings and districts in the nation’s urban areas. Only a few cities had local preservation commissions prior to the 1970s. This phenomenon exploded in the 1970s, with states enabling cities to create and regulate local historic districts and landmarks. The oft-cited galvanizing moment for the urban historic preservation movement was the protests and subsequent discontent that occurred with the demolition of New York’s historic Penn Station. Similar grassroots protests occurred throughout the United States. For instance, see Christopher Silver’s discussion of the opposition to the Richmond Redevelopment and Housing Authority’s plans to demolish Richmond’s historic Jackson Ward neighborhood in Twentieth-Century Richmond: Planning, Politics, and Race (Knoxville: The University of Tennessee Press, 1984), 278.
7.
Phyllis Myers and Gordon Binder, Neighborhood Conservation: Lessons from Three Cities (Washington, DC: The Conservation Foundation, 1977); Silver, ‘‘Revitalizing the Urban South,’’ 70; Silver, Twentieth-Century Richmond: Planning, Politics, and Race, 313-14. See Silver for Richmond’s Fan and Church Hill neighborhoods and Myers and Binder for Cincinnati’s Mt. Adams neighborhood and Annapolis, Maryland.
8.
Silver, Twentieth-Century Richmond: Planning, Politics, and Race, 315; Silver, ‘‘Revitalizing the Urban South,’’ 80.
9.
Hodder, ‘‘Savannah’s Changing Past,’’ 373.
10.
In the 1960s and 1970s, community-based organizations ([CBOs] or community development corporations/ CDCs) established themselves as a significant force in neighborhood improvement. Early community development work focused on empowering impoverished, often African American residents who wanted increased participation and resident control over neighborhood development. For an overview of the history of community development and efforts to improve low-income neighborhoods, see Robert Halpern, Rebuilding the Inner City: A History of Neighborhood Initiatives to Address Poverty in the United States (New York: Columbia University Press, 1995); Alice O’Connor, ‘‘Swimming Against the Tide: A Brief History of Federal Policy in Poor Communities,’’ in Urban Problems and Community Development, eds. Ronald F. Ferguson and William T. Dickens (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 1999), 77-137; and Alexander Von Hoffman, House by House, Block by Block: The Rebirth of America’s Urban Neighborhoods (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003).
11.
In 1983, the Parkside Development Corporation changed its name to the Parkside Historic Preservation Corporation (PHPC). To use federal historic rehabilitation tax credits, it partnered with local preservation experts to successfully list the area on the National Register of Historic Places. In that same year, the organization re-restored the Landsdowne in a way that prescribed to the Secretary of the Interior’s Standards for Rehabilitation. During the 1980s, the PHPC structured a comprehensive rehabilitation of the neighborhood that included numerous buildings and complex financing packages. In the 1990s, the PHPC encountered financial difficulties but transitioned into a project coordinator and partner organization to sustain its presence in the community. It continues to work in the Parkside neighborhood, with recent efforts relying on a private developer (Pennrose Properties) to lead rehabilitations. In total, PHPC has restored five buildings. It also spearheaded the formation of the Parkside Historical District Commission, a collaborative effort of ten local nonprofit organizations. For more information, see the Parkside Historic Preservation Corporation’s Web site (http://www.parksidehistoric.com) and Rudy Bruner Award Silver Medal Winner: Parkside Preservation, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (Cambridge, MA: Bruner Foundation, 1999).
12.
SCIDpda acquired its first property, the historic Bush Hotel, in 1978 and rehabilitated it three times (in 1981, 1997, and 2007) as low-income apartments, affordable commercial space, and social service offices. It also adaptively reused the historic New Central Hotel (in 1983, 1986, and 2004) and Bush Annex (1986). By the late 1980s, it shifted from adaptive reuse projects to managing about 15 percent of the neighborhood’s residential units, including those in the historic Jackson Apartments, NP Hotel, and Eastern Hotel. More recently, it became an active partner in neighborhood planning, started a vacant buildings awareness campaign, and facilitated private and public sector improvements via IDea Space-a community development resource center designed to facilitate additional preservation and development activities. For more information, see SCIDpda’s Web site (http://www.scidpda.org).
13.
Hodder, ‘‘Savannah’s Changing Past,’’ 377.
14.
Von Hoffman, House by House, Block by Block, 202.
15.
James R. Cohen, ‘‘Combining Historic Preservation and Income Class Integration: A Case Study of the Butchers Hill Neighborhood of Baltimore,’’ Housing Policy Debate 9, no. 3 (1998): 665.
16.
Richard Moe and Carter Wilkie’s, Changing Places: Rebuilding Community in the Age of Sprawl (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1997) briefly mentions ongoing preservation efforts in a number of low-income, African American neighborhoods including Farish Street (Jackson, Mississippi), Sweet Auburn (Atlanta, Georgia), Ransom Place (Indianapolis, Indiana), Betts-Longworth (Cincinnati, Ohio), and Peak’s Suburban and Tenth Street (Dallas, Texas), 139-140). Additionally, see the work of the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s Community Partners Program, which formed in 1994 to find support and develop partnerships between the preservation and community development sectors. For a comparison of more recent success and failure in preservation-based neighborhood revitalization that in many ways parallels the divergent outcomes of the Manchester and Mt. Auburn efforts, see Elise M. Bright, Richard L. Cole and Sherman M. Wyman, ‘‘Central-City Revitalization: The Fort Worth Experience,’’ in Urban Revitalization: Policies and Programs, eds. Fritz W. Wagner, Timothy E. Joder, and Anthony J. Mumphrey Jr. (Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE, 1995). The authors discuss the successful revitalization of Fort Worth’s Magnolia Avenue neighborhood, where the City partnered with community leaders to plan and target investments in the area. By the 1990s, the effort had reversed decline, created a network of support for development, stabilized adjacent areas, and led to the formation of Historic South Side, Inc., an organization that continues to spearhead revitalization and preservation. In another case, the authors discuss the failed attempt to restore the Polytechnic Heights neighborhood. Here, the city partnered with local power players, but a lack of citizen engagement, ineffective leadership, and unclear goals ultimately led to the project’s demise. By the 1990s, many of Polytechnic Heights’ buildings that were vacant in the mid-1980s were once again unoccupied.
17.
Elise M. Bright, Reviving America’s Forgotten Neighborhoods: An Investigation of Inner City Revitalization Efforts (New York: Garland Publishing, 2000), 114.
18.
18.
19.
Roberta Brandes Gratz, The Living City: How America’s Cities Are Being Revitalized by Thinking Small in a Big Way (New York: John Wiley,1989); Moe and Wilkie, Changing Places.
20.
Manchester: A Neighborhood Sketchbook (Pittsburgh: The Heinz Architectural Center, Carnegie Museum of Art, 1998), 6, 16.
Carter, ‘‘Neighborhood Agencies Promoting Self-Help;’’ Ron Suber, ‘‘URA Expects to Break Ground in Hill and Manchester Areas,’’ Pittsburgh Courier, January 25, 1975; Renee Wilson, ‘‘Urban Planners Questions Critics of Housing Plan,’’ Pittsburgh Courier, August 31, 1974.
See James D. van Trump, 1300-1335 Liverpool Street, Manchester, Old Allegheny, Pittsburgh (Pittsburgh: Pittsburgh History and Landmarks Foundation, 1965); Moe and Wilkie, Changing Places.
Ursula Cliff , ‘‘Arthur Ziegler: Prophet of Preservation for the Poor,’’Design and Environment6 Summer (1975): 31.
34.
Ron Suber , ‘‘N. Side Group Demands Probe,’’Pittsburgh Courier, January 21, 1978; Ron Suber, ‘‘URA to Decide on Manchester Plan,’’Pittsburgh Courier, February 25, 1978.
35.
Ulish Carter , ‘‘Can Manchester Area Remain Black?,’’Pittsburgh Courier, November 11, 1978.
36.
Ron Suber , ‘‘MCC Formation Sets National N’hood Example,’’Pittsburgh Courier, January 5, 1980; Ron Suber, ‘‘URA OK’s M’chester Rehab Plan,’’Pittsburgh Courier, August 11, 1979.
37.
‘‘More New Homes in Manchester,’’Pittsburgh Courier, April 18, 1981.
38.
Robert H. McNulty and Stephen A. Kliment, Neighborhood Conservation : A handbook of methods and techniques ( New York: The Whitney Library of Design, 1976), 177-78; Randy Shipp, ‘‘Revitalizing America’s neighborhoods by conservation,’’Christian Science Monitor, May 14, 1981, 17; Suber, ‘‘N. Side Group Demands Probe.’’
39.
Carter, ‘‘Can Manchester Area Remain Black?’’; Robert Flipping Jr., ‘‘Pittsburghers Speak Out-‘What’s Your Reaction to the Manchester Redevelopment?,’’’Pittsburgh Courier, March 18, 1978.
40.
‘‘MCC Appoints Director,’’ Pittsburgh Courier, November 6, 1982. Lowe went on to work in Pittsburgh’s housing and community sector for many years, before becoming the Vice President of Community Revitalization for the National Trust for Historic Preservation in the 1990s, a position he held until 2009.
41.
Jennifer Baron, ‘‘Manchester Citizens Corporation spearheads redevelopment efforts, receives grants,’’ Pop City, http://www.popcitymedia.com; Bright, Reviving America’s Forgotten Neighborhoods, 118-19; Manchester Citizens Corporation, ‘‘Manchester Citizens Corporation,’’ http://www.manchestercitizens.org; Pittsburgh History and Landmarks Foundation (PHLF), ‘‘Landmarks Partners with Manchester Citizens Corporation in Neighborhood Transformation Initiative,’’ http://worldpress.phlf.org/wordpress/?p=299.
42.
James Adams, ‘‘Many Frustrations inHousing Field,’’ The Post & Times Star , April8, 1969; James Adams, ‘‘Old Dwellings Revamped in Mt. Auburn,’’ The Post & Times Star, March 17, 1969; Ellen Schmitz, ‘‘A Dedicated Group of Residents Spearheads Mt. Auburn Rebirth,’’ The Cincinnati Post, March 30, 1978 .
43.
The home of William Howard Taft, located 2038 Auburn Avenue, is now owned and operated by the National Park Service. Gale Brooks, ‘‘Mt. Auburn Historic District,’’ National Register of Historic Places Inventory-Nomination Form (Washington, DC: United States Department of the Interior, National Park Service, 1972).
44.
James Adams, ‘‘‘The Man with a Pipe’ Struggles to Plant Hope in ‘Dead End’ Area,’’The Post & Times Star, September 4, 1967.
45.
Carleton Knight , III, ‘‘Saving Proud Neighborhoods,’’The Cincinnati Post, October 21, 1977; George McCue, ‘‘Preservation for the People,’’Historic Preservation24, April-June ( 1972): 30-43; Neal R. Peirce, ‘‘Success in Mt. Auburn,’’The Cincinnati Post, December 28, 1976.
46.
Adams, ‘‘Many Frustrations in Housing Field’’; Adams, ‘‘Old Dwellings Revamped in Mt. Auburn’’; Mt. Auburn Community Council, Mt. Auburn-Corryville-No. East Basin News (undated); Mt. Auburn Community Council, Neighborhood Services Project News (1967); Mt. Auburn Community Council, The Mt. Auburn House (undated); Urban Conservation Project, Quarterly Report, The Citizens’ Committee on Youth/Urban Conservation Project (March 1969).
47.
Andy Marein , ‘‘Beauty Transplant Urged for Glenco,’’The Post & Times Star, July 24, 1972.
48.
City of Cincinnati, City Planning Commission.Glencoe Place General Plan (Cincinnati , May 1964).
49.
James Adams , ‘‘$3 Million Project: Mt. Auburn Slum to be Rebuilt,’’The Cincinnati Post, December 24, 1975; Carol Pucci, ‘‘Glencoe Landlords to be Choosy: Refurbished Row Houses Beckon New Tenants,’’ The Cincinnati Enquirer, January 23, 1977.
50.
Adams, ‘‘$3 Million Project: Mt. Auburn Slum to be Rebuilt.’’
51.
The federal funds were frozen in January 1973 by the Nixon administration but were released by the end of that year. Gerald McBride, ‘‘Anger, Hope Mark Glencoe Renewal Job,’’ The Cincinnati Enquirer, July 17, 1973; Adams, ‘‘$3 Million Project: Mt. Auburn Slum to be Rebuilt;’’ City of Cincinnati, Neighborhood Development Program Activity Summary for Action Year 1970-71 Including Extension Activities (Cincinnati, June 1971); Pucci, ‘‘Glencoe Landlords to be Choosy.’’
52.
City of Cincinnati, Department of Urban Development. Glencoe Place (Cincinnati, undated, 13).
53.
Ibid, 62.
54.
Marein, ‘‘Beauty Transplant Urged for Glenco.’’
55.
Knight, ‘‘Saving Proud Neighborhoods;’’ Dave Krieger, ‘‘Two Cincinnati Urban Projects Win Federal Design Awards,’’ The Cincinnati Enquirer, February 19, 1980; Schmitz, ‘‘A Dedicated Group of Residents Spearheads Mt. Auburn Rebirth’’; Richard L. Williams, ‘‘Cincinnati Keeps Fighting to Retain Urban Heritage,’’ The Cincinnati Enquirer, January 21, 1979.
56.
Lower Mt. Auburn and Liberty Hill were the historic names used by the city’s residents to refer to this part of Mt. Auburn, but the new, higher income, predominantly White residents renamed the area ‘‘Prospect Hill.’’ Mt. Auburn rests atop one of the hills surrounding downtown Cincinnati, with its lower portion-Prospect Hill-located on the face of the hill, with spectacular views of the city. Prior to the 1960s, Prospect Hill was home to working class families, but by the end of the 1970s property values soared as gentrifiers sought out the historic homes with city views. Brooks, ‘‘Mt. Auburn Historic District;’’ Jayne Merkel, ‘‘Westmoreland’s Ciudad Renovates Row Houses on Auburn Terrace,’’ The Cincinnati Enquirer, April 1, 1979; National Park Service, ‘‘William Howard Taft Administrative History: Chapter 10: The Taft National Historic Site and the Community,’’ National Park Service, http://www.nps.gov/archive/wiho/adhi/adhi10.htm; Ed Rothenberg, ‘‘Sound Investing in the Inner City,’’ The Cincinnati Post, June 13, 1981; Carl Westmoreland, ‘‘West End’s ‘Negro Removal’ Comes to Mt. Auburn,’’ The Cincinnati Post, September 21, 1978.
57.
Kay Brookshire, ‘‘Mt. Auburn Remains Split on Renovation,’’ The Cincinnati Post, September 9, 1980; Peggy Lane, ‘‘Profit Takers Threaten Plan for Mt. Auburn,’’ The Cincinnati Enquirer, June 1, 1978; Laurie Petrie, ‘‘Tempers Flare over Historic Preservation,’’ The Cincinnati Post, August 12, 1980; Jim Sluzewski, ‘‘Westmoreland Hits Prospect Hill Plan,’’ The Cincinnati Enquirer, August 12, 1980.
58.
‘‘City Planners Delay Mt. Auburn Vote,’’ The Cincinnati Post, September 19, 1980; Sharon Moloney, ‘‘District Split Sought,’’ The Cincinnati Post, September 26, 1980; Jim Sluzewski, ‘‘County to Split Historic District with City,’’ The Cincinnati Enquirer, September 27, 1980.
59.
The City eventually granted local historic district status to Auburn Avenue in 1988. ‘‘Auburn Proposal Scrapped,’’ The Cincinnati Post, April 8, 1981.
60.
Meg Kissinger, ‘‘Historic District Divided,’’ The Cincinnati Post, April 21, 1981; Dorothy Weil, ‘‘The Rush to Preservation,’’ The Cincinnati Enquirer Sunday Magazine, May 31, 1981.
61.
Kay Brookshire and George Lecky, ‘‘Mt. Auburn Rivals Tangle at Meeting,’’ The Cincinnati Post, February 23, 1982; John Eckberg, ‘‘Charges Continue to Fly in Mt. Auburn Housing Fight,’’ The Cincinnati Enquirer, April 22, 1981; Scott Johnson, ‘‘Mt. Auburn Meeting Cancelled, Argument Taken to the Streets,’’ The Cincinnati Enquirer, April 21, 1981; Ron Rollins, ‘‘Westmoreland Claims City’s Report Exonerates Him,’’ The Cincinnati Enquirer, August 12, 1981.
62.
John Eckberg, ‘‘Good Housing Foundation Faced with $11,755 Federal Tax Lien,’’ The Cincinnati Enquirer, March 6, 1983; John Eckberg, ‘‘Two Officials Resign from Mount Auburn Good Housing Foundation,’’ The Cincinnati Enquirer, August 9, 1983; Steven Rosen, ‘‘Foundation’s Debt Payment Strategy Averts Utility Shutoff in Mt. Auburn,’’ The Cincinnati Enquirer, June 29, 1984; Steven Rosen, ‘‘Housing Group Shoulders Debt of $700,000,’’ The Cincinnati Enquirer, June 28, 1984.
63.
Although as a nonprofit, the MAGHF was exempt from federal income tax, it had other tax obligations, including federal employment taxes and certain state and local taxes. As a real-estate entity, the organization owned and operated not only housing, but a few commercial and office properties, compounding the complicated nature of its tax liability. It is beyond the scope of this article to investigate the specific structure and amount of this liability and future research should explore the nature and impact of tax burdens on nonprofit community development and affordable housing entities.
64.
‘‘Debt Forces Building’s Sale,’’ The Cincinnati Post, September 25, 1984; David Ivanovich, ‘‘$250,000 Mt. Auburn Utility Bill May Mean Shutoff,’’ The Cincinnati Post, June 26, 1984; Rosen, ‘‘Housing Group Shoulders Debt of $700,000’’; Steven Rosen, ‘‘HUD Aid Sought to help avoid Utility Cutoffs,’’ The Cincinnati Enquirer, June 27, 1984.
65.
Kay Brookshire , ‘‘HUD Cites Debt,’’The Cincinnati Post, July 18, 1984.
66.
Laura Goldberg , ‘‘Tenants Sue HUD, Say Building Unsafe,’’The Cincinnati Enquirer, April 18, 1997.
67.
B.G. Gregg, ‘‘Naming Rights,’’Cincinnati Magazine , August 1, 2004.
68.
Little documentation of the MAGHF exists after 2000, although according to the CDC Association of Greater Cincinnati, there is currently a group of Mt. Auburn residents attempting to resurrect the organization. City of Cincinnati, Roxanne Qualls, Councilmember, ‘‘Budget Policy Motions,’’ June 9, 2008; City of Cincinnati, Milton R. Dohoney Jr. (City Manager), ‘‘Glencoe Hotel and Condominiums,’’ unpublished memorandum (February 4, 2009); Cliff Radel, ‘‘Glencoe ‘Hole’ now Historic,’’ The Cincinnati Enquirer, January 26, 2004.
