Thank You For Voting!

Thank you to everyone who voted in the Partners in Preservation program! Without further ado, the winners:

• Brooklyn Public Library received 9% of the popular vote and has been awarded $250,000 to restore the main entrance doors.
• Congregation Beth Elohim, located in the Park Slope neighborhood of Brooklyn, received 8% of the popular vote and has been awarded $250,000 to restore the building’s stained glass windows.
• New York Botanical Gardens, located in the Bronx, received 7% of the popular vote and has been awarded $250,000 to restore the rock garden.
• Bartow-Pell Mansion Museum, located in the Bronx, received 7% of the popular vote and has been awarded $155,000 to restore areas within the museum’s gardens.

If you do the math, that’s only a portion of the overall $3.1 million in grant money. An additional $2.1 million will be awarded to the remaining sites based on an advisory committee’s recommendations. So if your favorite location didn’t win, there’s still a chance!

The winners of the Scouting NY AmEx $50 gift card giveaway are:

• philip@*******works.net
• tawees**********ail.com
• caroline.go*******ail.com
• sweetli**********ail.com
• trixli************link.net

I’ve sent out emails to the winners. If for some reason I can’t get in touch with someone after a reasonable amount of tries, I’ll pick a replacement winner.

Finally, special thanks to Partners in Preservation for involving me in this year’s program and allowing me total access to all the sites I requested. It was a pleasure visiting the abandoned hospital complex at Ellis Island, Hangar B at Floyd Bennett Field, Cleopatra’s Needle in Central Park, and Erasmus Hall High School in Brooklyn, and I really hope all four end up receiving much-needed grant money.

-SCOUT

PS – I really wanted to do a post on the Coney Island B&B Carousel, but it’s currently in Ohio being restored, set to return in 2013. Stay tuned…