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Vote for Shaw: $150K in Funding to Restore Ivy & Coney's Building at Stake in National Campaign, Now through 10/31/17!

FORGING THE FUTURE IN SHAW: SHAW MAIN STREETS IS COMPETING FOR A $150,000 GRANT TO RESTORE A HISTORIC FORMER BLACKSMITH SHOP BUILDING!

Only Main Street Group in the DMV Invited to Participate in  Partners in Preservation: Main Streets Campaign

Your Vote Counts: Top 10 Vote Getters out of 25 Main Streets Nationwide will Get Funding

Exciting news: From September 25, 2017 through October 31, 2017, the public is able to vote daily to support the restoration of an “Ugly Duckling” building in Washington, DC's Shaw neighborhood, built in 1881 as a blacksmith shop, as the project competes for $150,000 in funding, as part of the Partners in Preservation: Main Streets campaign, presented by American Express and the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

Supporters can go to http://voteyourmainstreet.org/DCMetro daily and vote five times every day during one visit to support the DMV’s only contestant in the Partners in Preservation contest. Voting is free, and registration using a valid email address is required.

 

Partners in Preservation is a community-based partnership, created by the National Trust for Historic Preservation and American Express, to raise awareness of the importance of preserving historic places and their role in sustaining local communities.

 

Detail of photo of east side of 1500 block of 7th Street, NW in 1947, showing 1537 7th Street, NW at center. Wymer Collection, Courtesy Historical Society of Washington, DC.

The two-story building in Shaw, winner of the 2016 Great American Main Street award, was built in 1881 by James Hughes as a blacksmith shop. The façade is currently covered in stucco and vinyl siding. The preservation project would remove these materials to discover what original elements are present and restore the building to its historic appearance, or build an appropriate period facade, if the existing materials are too compromised.

 

 

The building at 1537 7th Street, NW, is home to Ivy & Coney (www.ivyandconey.com), a Chicago and Detroit-themed sports bar known for its hot dogs prepared in the styles beloved by those two cities. The bar features a retractable roof deck at the rear, built with support from the Washington, DC government’s Great Streets Small Business Capital Improvement Program. The ground floor retail space is currently vacant.

Partners in Preservation: Main Streets will award $2 million in grant funding from American Express to Main Street districts in need of preservation support across America. The public will determine which sites will receive funding by voting for their favorite main streets through October 31 at VoteYourMainStreet.org, the online voting portal hosted by National Geographic Travel.

“The Partners in Preservation program is an exciting opportunity to explore a little known part of our past and hopefully get the resources to turn our ‘ugly duckling’ into a source of pride for our community,” says Alexander M. Padro, executive director of Shaw Main Streets, which has been leading the renaissance of Washington’s historic 7th and 9th Streets, NW commercial corridors since 2003. “We can’t wait to share more information about the building’s past as the campaign continues and the excitement builds during the month of October. We’re uncovering more and more history every day.”

The winners of the Partners in Preservation: Main Streets grants will be announced on November 2, 2017.