Visually striking with dignified columns and a sprawling auditorium, the Trenton War Memorial is this year’s host for the New Jersey History and Historic Preservation Conference. Jointly organized by the Friends of NJ Heritage, New Jersey Historic Trust, New Jersey Historic Preservation Office, and New Jersey Historical Commission, the event takes place in the Patriots Theater at the War Memorial, a performing arts center in New Jersey’s Capitol Complex.
“Building a Place for History: Rediscovery and Renewal 2022” is an all-day affair on Friday, June 3, from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. that features a choice of nine educational sessions, historic tours, a marketplace, lunch, and a closing reception for networking back at the War Memorial.
The annual conference is for professionals, volunteers, and students with interests in the areas of history and historic preservation — a few of the audiences directly addressed in the full agenda at njpreservationconference.org/agenda are historians, architects, planners, archaeologists, nonprofit heritage sites and museum managers, as well as government officials.
Tickets are $90 per person, with student tickets costing $50 per person, and tickets only for the closing reception are $25 per person.
All of the tours are an additional $5 per person. Currently, attendees can go on a tour of the State House, the archaeology at the State House, and a tour of the Old Barracks Museum. The War Memorial exclusive behind-the-scenes tour and downtown Revolutionary War walking tour are sold out, but a waitlist option is available online at Eventbrite. If a space opens up on either tour, organizers will contact and choose another person to take the slot.
Tickets and tour additions can be purchased online via Eventbrite at eventbrite.com/e/building-a-place-for-history-rediscovery-and-renewal-2022-tickets-247307542517 or with cash or check only for walk-ins at the door. For more information, visit the conference page at njpreservationconference.org.
The sessions include subjects like documenting underrepresented histories, how three museums navigated the coronavirus pandemic, the lasting impact of Superstorm Sandy on the 10th anniversary of the natural disaster, and tactics for preserving historic character.
Dorothy P. Guzzo is executive director for the New Jersey Historic Trust, which furthers statewide preservation efforts through funding and government support. Before her current position, Guzzo was the NJ Deputy State Historic Preservation Officer with one of the other hosting organizers, NJHPO, for 13 years.
NJHPO is the “hub” of preservation activity, according to Guzzo, with their department overseeing the nomination and application processes that preserve historic properties under the New Jersey and National Registers of Historic Places.
Both the NJ Historic Trust and New Jersey Historical Commission were started in 1967, with the latter state agency spearheading a grant program.
The last of the four sponsors is the Friends of New Jersey Heritage, an educational nonprofit started in 2015. Focusing on stewardship, collaboration, and outreach, the organization, Guzzo says, is the “prime sponsor and organizer” for the conference — but for an event of this magnitude, “it takes a village” between the partners.
Except during the two years during the height of the pandemic, the conference changes locations around New Jersey annually to share a variety of success stories and challenges related to state preservation efforts, Guzzo says.
“It’s an opportunity for people to see a different side of Trenton,” she adds, noting that she hopes attendees unfamiliar with the area “take advantage” of the tours. “Because we are a capital city, there’s a lot of history that’s here…it’s not a city that I think a lot of people visit unless they’re here for government business.”
The day starts with registration, breakfast, and the marketplace, followed by welcoming remarks from New Jersey Lt. Governor Sheila Oliver and Trenton Mayor Reed Gusciora.
At 9:15 a.m., keynote speaker Dr. Erica Avrami, an assistant professor of historic preservation at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation, will explore the long-term sustainability of preservation.
Avrami, who is also the 2022 recipient of the Preservation Alumni Leadership Award, is presenting her research, “Reckoning and Reimagining: Justice Imperatives in Preservation Policy” to set the conference in motion.
“The preservation community, like every other community, has had a huge upheaval in the past 10 years or so. COVID was one issue that affected the nonprofits, but we also have things like climate resiliency, and looking at future preservation in the context of the changing world that we’re in right now,” Guzzo adds of Avrami’s insights.
After a short break, the choices for sessions begin. Guzzo explains that the second option is about how to utilize the federal Historic Tax Credit program, as well as the new state Historic Property Reinvestment Program, that “encourage private sector investment in rehabilitation and re-use of historic buildings,” the agenda states.
Guzzo is moderating two sessions, “Tools and Techniques — Preservation by Other Means” about “preserving historic character,” and “Legal Framework for Preservation.” In the latter discussion, she is joined by Dr. Patty Gerstenblith, the director at the Center for Art Museum & Cultural Heritage Law at DePaul University, and Janine Bauer, a partner at Szaferman Lakind.
Gerstenblith has worked internationally with preservation laws, what they entail, and “what happens when there’s a catastrophe or disaster looming,” Guzzo says. That will be juxtaposed against Bauer “talking about the National Historic Preservation Act and the regulations that our country has put into place to protect our heritage.”
Another focus of the conference is on diversity in preservation, especially related to finding underrepresented history, and its corresponding properties, that might have been obscured or hidden.
Multiple sessions address those notions of inclusivity, with the 10:45 a.m. to noon session, “Finding Hidden Truths: Researching Underrepresented Histories,” striving to craft “a more complete historical narrative.”
According to the agenda, “the presenters will use a series of quick vignettes and case studies to highlight sources and research techniques to tell a fuller story of sites and the people associated with those sites,” as well as “highlight one institution’s initiative to document all African American-related objects and documents within its archives to help future researchers discover previously hidden truths.”
This is moderated and presented by Dr. Linda J. Caldwell Epps of 1804 Consultants. The panelists from Hunter Research are vice president Patrick Harshbarger and architectural historian Rachel Craft, while the speakers from the Monmouth County Historical Association are associate curator Joe Zemla and director of collections Bernadette Rogoff.
From 2 to 3:15 p.m., “Engaging Communities in Meaningful Preservation,” is described as follows: “Protecting and interpreting historic sites requires engagement with a wide variety of stakeholders to ensure equity, inclusion, and long-term sustainability, particularly in historically marginalized communities. A prime example in Trenton is the ongoing effort to preserve and adaptively reuse the historic Higbee School and Carver Center, two immensely important Black history sites in the heart of the city’s vibrant Spring Street neighborhood.”
Bringing together “local preservation professionals, public servants, and community leaders,” the panel touches on the conference’s theme of being figuratively, as well as literally, a constructive force for the future — then, in that same spirit, the tours offer context as they cover notable buildings and landmarks.
The Old Barracks, constructed during the French and Indian War to house British soldiers in 1758, was later used in the Battle of Trenton.
According to the museum website, American forces, led by George Washington, had just won the Battles of Trenton and Princeton when their soldiers adopted the Old Barracks as a hospital. It is also one of the state’s earliest sites preserved by women.
Beulah Oliphant, alongside the local chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution, formed the Old Barracks Association, spent three years raising money, then purchased the site. Their endeavors turned the bright red colors and colonial origins of the Barracks into a fully-fledged museum keeping its historic relevance intact.
Led by two of the individuals who helped excavate and maintain the Petty’s Run Archaeological Site, the archeological tour of the State House reviews an extensive investigation that took nearly three decades to complete.
As the conference agenda explains, both Dr. Ian Burrow of BurrowIntoHistory, LLC and Dr. James Lee, the vice president of Hunter Research, worked on the project. During the uncovering and documentation process, professionals recovered the foundations of a 1740s steel furnace, “the only archaeologically excavated example from Colonial North America.”
New Jersey legislators have been convening since 1792 in the State House, which is the country’s second oldest State House still in use, according to state government resources on the history of the State House. While the building has been the heart of decision-making for centuries, it is also the subject of multiple renovations.
Representatives of the Preservation Design Partnership, the architects in charge of the current State House preservation project, are guiding the tour. The improvements started in 2017 and have an estimated completion date of 2023.
Although the Downtown Trenton walking tour and War Memorial tour are waitlist-only, the history remains easily accessible. The War Memorial opened in 1932 in honor of Mercer County residents who died in World War I. Unveiled right around the Great Depression, the structure juxtaposed “an elegant building,” as Guzzo says, against “what was happening in the world.”
“The War Memorial itself, a number of years ago, underwent a $75 million renovation, and I don’t think people realize that. It is a spectacular piece of architecture,” Guzzo adds, noting that the tours, currently sold out, reveal a moment in time through tile work and design.
The Downtown Trenton Walking Tour takes advantage of the city that Guzzo calls a “hub for the Revolutionary War,” including stops such as the Trenton Battle Monument. Spanning 10 blocks, the journey is integral to understanding the scope of Trenton’s impact.
“I don’t think people really realize how the Revolutionary War was fought in New Jersey, that it took seven years, and a lot of that time was battles over New Jersey land. George Washington spent more time in New Jersey than anywhere else during the Revolutionary War,” she says.
Guzzo anticipates that the tours will be an opportunity to show how early Trenton, even as an already developed community, was still caught in the middle of a battle — the war unfurling “in a city that most people skip over.”
As rediscovery and renewal are at the forefront of the upcoming New Jersey History and Historic Preservation Conference, Guzzo maintains that the value of being in Trenton, and its long legacy, has to be acknowledged. She lives in Burlington County, but over the last 40 years, admits that she has likely spent more time in the state capital for work.
Despite having born witness to tremendous change, Trenton is often overlooked or met with indifference. By having their event return from hiatus to a place of such historic significance, Guzzo imagines a future where that attitude might be different.
“I think people only really pay attention to it if they have some business that brings them into Trenton, I [don’t] think they really see this as a visitor destination,” she says. “That’s something else we hope to share with people is that this could be a visitor destination, and talking about the history is the first step.”
