The Bosco-Milligan Foundation announced the appointment of Stephanie Whitlock as the nonprofit’s new executive director. She succeeds founding director Cathy Galbraith, who retired earlier this year after 25 years with the organization.

Whitlock is an architectural historian with extensive experience in the nonprofit sector. She most recently worked for 15 years at the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in Fine Arts, a prominent international funder and public programming institution in the field of architecture.

Before that she was a lecturer at the University of Chicago, and also worked in academic publishing and communications in the nonprofit sector.

The Bosco-Milligan Foundation was founded in 1987 with a mission to preserve, protect and reuse historically and architecturally significant buildings in Portland. The foundation operates the Architectural Heritage Center, which is located in the historic West Blocks Building at 701 S.E. Grand Ave. in Portland.

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More than 200 people attended a recent fundraiser for the Architectural Heritage Center, a nonprofit museum owned and operated by the Bosco-Milligan Foundation.

Guests were served dinner and wine, and bid on both silent and live auctions. Approximately $120,000 was raised, minus expenses, according to the museum’s managing director, Holly Chamberlain.

“We had about 175 items for the silent auction and 20 items for the live auction,” she said.

The top prize was a home renovation package from Portland design-build company WILLCO, Chamberlain said. However, many other businesses contributed items and services.

Val Ballestrem, education manager for the center, said that most of the dollars raised will go into the nonprofit’s general fund with some devoted to programs such as tours and exhibits. More information is available at .

The center’s next walking tour will be Nov. 7, from 10 a.m. to noon. It will showcase the Piedmont and Walnut Park areas, and show examples of Queen Anne, Arts and Crafts, Byzantine, Jacobean and Prairie styles, according to the website.

The center’s current exhibit, “Strength, Utility and Beauty: Architectural Metal in the Gilded Age,” features nearly 2,000 metal artifacts used in Portland in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Many were produced locally, and were built to last, Ballestrem said.

One artifact is a six-foot wooden carving of a lute with ivy covering that formerly was installed beneath the cornice of the old Allen Music store – where the World Trade Center is now near the foot of Salmon Street.

The next program hosted by the center will be a lecture: “Ancient Walls: Structural and Decorative Stone in Downtown Portland Architecture.” It will take place Nov. 10, at 7 p.m., at the center – 701 S.E. Grand St.

The museum sponsors only one major exhibit per year, and the next one will focus on the history of Portland’s many former door and window manufacturers, Ballestrem said.

“We will display an amazing collection of stained glass and leaded glass windows and also talk about window manufacturing, which was big business in Portland in the last (of the) 19th and early 20th centuries,” he said. “For us it’s a story that hasn’t been told before. In fact, we had companies all over town called fashion door companies that made all sorts of windows, from plain to fancy Povey Brothers stained glass.”

Povey Brothers Studio operated from 1888 to 1928 and was known as “the Tiffany of the West,” producing windows for homes, churches and commercial buildings throughout the West. The new exhibit will open next spring.

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A hearing before Portland’s Historic Landmarks Commission on the proposed redevelopment of the Grove Hotel has been extended to Nov. 9, according to Mark Vanderzanden, creative director of Surround Architecture, the project’s designer.

The hearing was held over from Oct. 12 because of a letter from retired history professor Jacqueline Peterson Loomis. She wrote on behalf of the Bosco-Milligan Foundation, which she serves as a board member.

Loomis wrote that the foundation objects to the location of the hotel entrance on Northwest Fourth Avenue and the size of the proposed electric sign. But mostly the group objects to the height of a proposed tower addition to the long-vacant three-story building on West Burnside Street.

“The proposed nine-story, 100-plus-foot hotel tower is clearly incompatible with the surrounding one- to three-story buildings of the New Chinatown/Japantown Historic District,” Peterson-Loomis wrote. “… Approval of a building higher than 75 feet within one of Portland’s downtown national historic districts would be an unheard of and dangerous precedent.”

Vanderzanden said that at the Oct. 12 meeting, commissioners seemed ready to approve the redevelopment project, and about 30 people expressed support. He said Loomis was the only person who raised an objection.

The property is being redeveloped by Naito Development in partnership with Eagle Point Hotel Partners of New York City and San Francisco-based Filament Hospitality. The group purchased the property for $630,000 after being selected by the Portland Development Commission in May 2014.

The team is planning a $30 million project to refurbish the 108-year-old ex-hotel building and add a nine-story tower to hold a boutique hotel. Retail shops, restaurants and bars are planned for the ground floor.

City planner Grace Jeffreys said she recommended that the Historic Landmarks Commission approve the project, but commissioners weren’t completely sold on the plans.

“They still had some concerns about the treatment of the north elevation (and) the replacement storefront, and they were looking for more historic detailing on the transoms,” she said.

Jeffreys said that despite those concerns, commissioners indicated that “this could be a project they could support.” The site is directly across the street from the Right 2 Dream Too homeless camp, which the city is hoping to relocate to Southeast Portland.

“I know there’s been a lot of local support for this project, and the majority of opinions were that it will be a revitalizing development for the neighborhood,” Jeffreys said. “AIA (American Institute of Architects) Portland supports it, as do a majority of the testifiers and people who submitted written testimony.”

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Tourists and Portlanders alike now can tour the city’s architectural history through their cellphones.

The Bosco-Milligan Foundation has teamed up with Tagwhat, a Colorado-based software development company, to create an application that provides information – through an interactive mapping system – on the history and location of more than 80 of the city’s historic buildings.

“We are a repository for architecture and preservation information, and we wanted a way to get some of that information out to new and younger audiences,” said Val Ballestrem, education manager for the foundation. “Whether you’re a resident or a visitor, you can stand on a street corner, turn on the application and have your own little adventure around town.”

Ballestrem said the foundation drew inspiration for the project from a survey it set up in 2009; it asked people which buildings in the city were their favorites and why. Using the information gathered, the foundation was able to decide what to insert into the application’s database.

After four months of work to figure out how to best integrate the information with the Tagwhat system, Ballestrem added the program to Android and Apple application stores, where users can now download it for free.

“My primary goal was to get us a presence in the world of smartphone tour applications without spending thousands of dollars on app development,” Ballestrem said. “We have the ability to provide content, and Tagwhat presented an affordable, fun and easy way to get that content out there for thousands of people to enjoy.”

Tagwhat works like a content-based GPS navigation system, using satellite-generated maps to showcase information about a user’s surroundings. Organizations create channels in the Tagwhat network, so that content can be added.

For the Bosco-Milligan Foundation’s channel, a map of Portland is given with icons representing the nearest architectural landmarks. When a user clicks on one of the icons, images and information are given. Users can learn when a building was constructed, who was behind its design and what it served as originally.

Use of the application in certain areas of the city can reveal treasure troves of information regarding how the area’s buildings have changed over the past century, as well as what design techniques were popular at the time. In the Hawthorne District, for example, one would find that the area formerly included a number of lavishly built homes and theater venues, including the Bagdad Theater, which was built in 1927.

“It basically tells you the hidden story of a structure,” said Dave Elchoness, co-founder and CEO of Tagwhat. “It might talk about the history of the location, but it’s not just limited to who designed it. It could be a site where a famous chief once worked, or where a movie scene was filmed.”

The Bosco-Milligan Foundation heard about Tagwhat through the National Trust for Historic Preservation, which has encouraged its members to experiment with new ways to develop interactive tour applications. Elchoness said that a number of historic preservation organizations around the country have contacted Tagwhat to create applications, but none is as sophisticated as Bosco-Milligan’s.

There is still more work to be done, though. Eventually, Ballestrem wants to have more than 150 interactive landmarks in the system. And Ballestrem said the potential of what can be done through Tagwhat (mainly video and audio) is not close to being reached. But even without video content, the application serves as a new way to discover the old.

“Instead of using the tried-and-true old methods, we wanted to go through new technologies that would allow us to broaden our reach,” Ballestrem said.

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Preservation in the Portland Plan

Two “actions” listed in the latest draft of the Portland Plan relate to historic preservation:

• Develop and implement new approaches, such as area-specific development standards or design guidance, to ensure new development and infill is both affordable and responsive to the distinctive characteristics of Portland’s neighborhoods.
• Inventory historic resources in neighborhood hubs and along civic greenways and develop a strategy to preserve key resources.

The phrase “historic preservation” doesn’t appear in the 183-page document that includes the draft . Of course, city planners note that no single issue is outlined in much detail in the plan – a broad overview of the city’s goals for the next 30 years. Nevertheless, preservationists are concerned about the future of historic buildings if more heed isn’t given to them in the city’s visioning documents.

One of the priorities mentioned in the Portland Plan calls for creating a “healthy, connected city,” in the form of higher-density, “20-minute” communities. But it’s unclear how that density would be achieved, said Cathy Galbraith, executive director of .

“It really ignores the abundant historic and vintage but unprotected resources in those neighborhoods,” she said. “If we don’t pay attention … how many properties are we going to lose?”

Galbraith and other preservationists are concerned because the city’s historic resources aren’t identified fully. The last major update of the city’s historic inventory occurred in the early 1980s, and at that time many east Portland neighborhoods were excluded altogether.

When developers follow goals included in the Portland Plan, a historic building could be torn down rather than preserved, Galbraith said.

“You have to know what you have before it can be protected,” she said.

Eric Engstrom, a principal planner for the city, said that preservationists aren’t the only ones concerned about the Portland Plan’s contents.

“We’ve been hearing a lot of, ‘What does it mean to be or not be in the plan?’ ” Engstrom said. “We’re trying to address that.”

People have spoken up for youth, seniors and disabled persons. Others want to know about planning for emergencies, such as a large earthquake, Engstrom said. He expects the plan to change before it is finalized by City Council next spring, but not every bit of testimony can be addressed.

It makes sense for groups to lobby for inclusion in the Portland Plan, however, Engstrom said. The plan will form the basis for an update of the city’s comprehensive plan, which will spell out in more detail the plans for “physical” changes to the city over the next 30 years.

Galbraith understands that process completely, she said.

“It’s much harder to pick up and add issues (in the comprehensive plan) when they’re not mentioned in the Portland Plan,” she said. To Galbraith, historic preservation is “as important as water resources and open space.”

“(Historic buildings) are a non-renewable resource; they just happen to be a resource that was built over time, by people,” she said.

The is compiling comments to suggest that preservation be a high priority, according to attorney Carrie Richter, the commission’s new chairwoman.

“In a perfect world, we would love to inventory the entire city,” Richter said, noting that many city officials would advocate for such a goal if financial resources were available. “But that’s an expensive endeavor. It makes sense to be strategic.”

Richter hopes the city will lay out a plan to prioritize the inventory of historic resources in areas where high-density goals are established.

“The areas that make the most vibrant neighborhood hubs are historic areas, like Hawthorne, Division and Belmont. And those are areas where inventories are inadequate,” Richter said. “We don’t want to increase density to the detriment of the resources that are there.”

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Douglas Magedanz, curator of collections for the Bosco-Milligan Foundation, spends his working hours in a warehouse filled with pieces of old buildings.

“Anything worth preserving is worth preserving in the best possible economically feasible manner,” Magedanz said as he gestured toward plywood boxes labeled in pencil with a jumble of letters and numbers. Each box holds a piece of plaster that once adorned the exterior of a historic Portland building.

Magedanz is cataloging the Bosco-Milligan Foundation’s entire collection of architectural items. He started the task when he was hired four years ago, and he is far from finished.

The foundation has thousands of architectural fragments stored among a handful of places around town: the Architectural Heritage Center on Southeast Grand Avenue, a stockpile under one of the city’s bridges and two secret warehouses – visitors must promise not to divulge their locations. Staffers half joked about blindfolding journalists before letting them tour one of the buildings.

“Some of our collections are vulnerable to theft, and it would be so easy for someone to sell a piece of architectural fragment,” Magedanz said. “We have to have something cataloged before we know we have it. It could be days before we notice something is missing.”

Magedanz was reluctant to estimate the potential amounts that items could fetch; he cited training in the museum field that discourages talk about artifacts’ values. However, he did say that some of the foundation’s stained glass windows are worth thousands of dollars. And he added that those pieces are now stored in a lockable, museum-quality preservation space in the foundation’s main building.

In a warehouse, shelves hold stacks of disassembled light fixtures, mantelpieces and boxes of plaster trimmings. One space is lined with doors – interior, exterior and even one from an old streetcar. In between shelves are bins full of thin strips of wood that once adorned walls of historic Portland homes that were demolished.

“I sometimes theorize that we could reconstruct the Knapp House,” said Allen Denison, a former president of the Bosco-Milligan Foundation. The Knapp House was built in 1882; its demolition in the 1950s is credited with increasing awareness in the historic preservation movement. A prominent stained-glass window and some interior trimmings from the building are in the foundation’s collection. Some other pieces of the house were saved by Architectural Heritage Center members. One has the house’s mantelpiece in his basement, Denison said.

Jerry Bosco and Ben Milligan were historic preservationists who in 1987 formed the foundation to care for their large collection after their deaths.

As preservationists – they also were called “scavengers” and “scrap dealers” – Bosco and Milligan promoted saving historic structures, but also actively rescued pieces from buildings and homes slated for demolition. They also reproduced plaster from historic models and made crafts of their own.

“They were not only hands-on scavengers but craftsmen and artists. You’ve got to respect them for doing what they loved,” Magedanz said.

The foundation also looks after other collections, including a large stash of cast-iron pieces owned by the Portland Development Commission. However, Magedanz estimated that about 90 percent of the foundation’s collection came from Bosco and Milligan.

Magedanz catalogs each piece of the collection by taking a digital photo and then identifying the piece as well as possible. Some pieces of plaster or cast iron were stamped by the manufacturer, and some pieces can be matched with historic photographs.

Magedanz and others also have found some labels that correspond with index cards that Bosco and Milligan used to code pieces in their collection. Unfortunately, those labels can be pretty obscure.

“A ‘B’ might be for ‘bench’, and a ‘D’ means something was part of the historic Dolph House,” Magedanz said. “And there are missing index cards.”

Volunteers, foundation staffers and grant-funded researchers are helping Magedanz identify and categorize the pieces. Some could be used to create exhibits in the Architectural Heritage Center; others could be used to create reproductions for new projects or restorations.

Some of the PDC’s cast-iron pieces could be reused in the Skidmore/Old Town area, if a developer or designer were interested and presented an appropriate proposal, according to Cathy Galbraith, executive director of the foundation.

Most of the foundation’s collection will stay in storage or be removed only for educational exhibits. The pieces are saved, salvaged, recorded and displayed “largely for purposes of education and historic preservation,” Magedanz said.

“We are a museum of architectural pieces, but we’re more than a museum,” he said. “The root word of curator is ‘to care.’ That’s what I do.”

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Related

» New firefighters’ memorial reduced in scale

Shortly after 7:45 a.m. on June 26, 1911, an alarm rang out at East Salmon and Water streets. On the east side of the Willamette River, Portland’s Union Oil distribution plant was burning. But Portland fire chief David Campbell arrived quickly and entered the burning structure to see what could be saved. Shortly after, the building exploded with Campbell still inside.

Today, a bas-relief of Campbell stands at Portland Firefighters Park, a stone memorial and small triangular park dedicated to Campbell in 1927 at Northwest 18th Avenue and Burnside Street.

The memorial is not quite a park and not quite a building, but Portland preservationists nevertheless believe it should be saved. So, the Bosco-Milligan Foundation is working to secure the property’s listing on the National Register of Historic Places. But that is easier said than done.

“It’s a tricky property because it’s a piece of land out in the middle of the street,” said Val Ballestrem, education manager with the Bosco-Milligan Foundation, which hasn’t located any city records of the property. “Now we have to fill in the blanks.”

The memorial has received little maintenance over the years. Graffiti covers one of the memorial’s Caen stone surfaces, and a blanket and food recently were visible underneath a historic fire bell. Though the land the memorial sits on is owned by the city of Portland, it isn’t maintained by Portland Parks and Recreation.

Rather, the David Campbell Memorial Association oversees its maintenance; however, firefighter David Corah said it has little money to do so.

Architect Bill Hawkins said memorial upkeep should not require much effort.

“The areas of responsibility around the park are unclear,” Hawkins said. “But this is really a small park that is easy to maintain. There could be a little bit of restoration performed at a time.”

Hawkins said the property is particularly significant because it is the only part of Portland featuring the design of notable Pennsylvania architect Paul Cret.

Campbell’s death certainly touched the city: more than 150,000 people packed downtown streets for his funeral. No funeral in the city since has drawn such a crowd.

“He was a special guy,” Hawkins said. “The city obviously paid a top-notch architect to build a special monument. Paul Cret was the finest memorial architect in the country.”

The memorial remains important to Portlanders today. When it was announced that some of the memorial’s pieces, such as two lanterns and a bas-relief of Campbell, would be removed for a new firefighter’s memorial planned for the Eastbank Esplanade, neighbors, the Portland Historic Landmarks Commission and historic preservationists were adamant that it should be preserved. One man, Leland Hanson, even started an online petition to keep the city from dismantling the Campbell memorial.

“When it was mentioned they had plans to take the lanterns and the plaques from the old one, it really upset me,” Hanson said. “The whole thing felt slightly odd without having any public input. I’m glad they have decided to keep it. I’ve always admired and have been intrigued by this beautiful gem.”

“We met with (the landmarks commission), and I’m glad we did,” Corah said. “We decided if we were to use elements of the original memorial, it would be better to make copies and not take away from the old site.”

It will be several months before the National Register of Historic Places process concludes, but Corah said he hopes fundraising efforts for the new $2.4 million Portland Fallen Firefighters Memorial could yield extra money to pay for maintenance of the original memorial. In the meantime, the David Campbell Memorial Association continues to perform upkeep on the structure when it is able.

Hawkins said aging monuments shouldn’t be neglected.

“The city’s growing up around it, but so did Rome, and all of (its) memorials are still around,” Hawkins said. “These older monuments may get tired as time goes on, but I think that can be a graceful thing.”

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After five years of work, Portland Parks and Recreation and a citizen’s advisory committee are closing in on a plan to locate a community center within or next to 86-year-old Washington High School on Portland’s east side. But preservationists are not happy with the two options that the groups have come up with, saying one will destroy the building’s historic integrity, and the other will put the building at risk of demolition.

In 2004, the city of Portland purchased 4.5 acres of property on the Washington High School site at Southeast Stark Street and 12th Avenue with the intention of developing a community center, something the neighborhood has lacked for years.

Now, plans for the building have been narrowed to two options designed by SERA Architects. The first plan, Option A, proposes construction of a new four-story structure next to the high school. The second, Option C, proposes gutting and stripping the building, leaving a shell in which to locate the community center.

But Cathy Galbraith, executive director of the Bosco-Milligan Foundation, says Option C is unacceptable. She feels Portland Parks and Recreation is rushing toward a decision in order to have the project included in a 2010 parks bond measure.

“Retaining a shell is not a way to preserve a building,” she said. “(Portland Parks and Recreation) seems to favor Option C. That is not historic preservation. Rushing is never the best way to make the right decision.”
Preservationist Peter Meijer, whose firm was hired to perform a condition assessment of the school, says Option A could be detrimental to the building as well.

“There are concerns that doing nothing with the high school will allow it to continue to decay and not be occupied,” Meijer said. “We would never really bring the building back to life. If it’s just sitting there, there is always a potential for demolition. Its exterior and interior are in good condition.”

Galbraith was in support of a third possibility, Option B, presented by the committee. Option B would have located the community center in the lower floors of the building and located some facilities, such as a pool, in a new, separate building. That option was no longer on the table at a final open house for the project on Thursday.

“(Portland Parks and Recreation) would have needed a partner to go in with them on the community center for Option B to happen,” said Susan Lindsay, chairwoman of both the Washington High Advisory Committee and the Buckman Neighborhood Association. “Option B was our original dream. We have been working on this in order to get on the bond measure. We’re supposed to be done today with our planning and would have had to have that partner today.”

That’s not enough for Tracy Simpson, who sits on the board of directors for the Bosco-Milligan Foundation. Though she understands the advisory committee needs to get a community center planned and built, she is disappointed that the city hasn’t stepped in to help preserve an important structure.

“I think this could happen like Riverdale,” Simpson said, in reference to the historic grade school torn down earlier this year. “People thought they were voting to save the school and that didn’t happen. This building has so many potential uses and the city isn’t stepping up. It’s very frustrating that these buildings have to get in danger.”

Simpson said she’d prefer Option A to Option C, since it would leave the building untouched and available for another possible use. But as of now, Portland Public Schools has made no agreement to sell the building to Portland Parks and Recreation, or anyone else. In 2006, the building was appraised at $4.65 million. Today, that price could be lower, but no new cost assessment has been performed.

“The school board has fiduciary responsibility to sell the building at cost,” said C.J. Sylvester, executive director of operations for Portland Public Schools. “PPS has no financial resources to partner on the project.”

According to Kurt Schulz of SERA Architects, the building would be eligible for placement on the National Register of Historic Places. If the building were nominated, no one would be able to touch it until a verdict was made on its historic status. Advocates for preserving Memorial Coliseum earlier this year thwarted the city’s plan to potentially tear down the structure by applying for a listing on the register; the building is now listed.

Simpson and preservation advocate Paul Falsetto, also in attendance at the meeting, said they did not have plans to nominate Washington High for the national register, at least not yet.

The advisory committee will meet again soon to consider the remaining two options, taking into account written comments from the open house. The committee will then make a final recommendation to Zari Santer, the director of Portland Parks and Recreation, and Nick Fish, city commissioner of parks.

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