The Historic Districts Council is pleased to announce a new annual advocacy program, “Six to Celebrate.”

Each year, HDC will solicit submissions from neighborhood groups and individuals that feel their neighborhoods are worthy of preservation. The purpose of this program is to provide strategic help to the chosen neighborhood groups at a critical moment so that they can reach their preservation goals. The program will help local residents learn to use tools such as documentation, research, zoning, landmarking, publicity, and publications to advance a local preservation campaign. The selected groups will receive HDC’s hands-on help strategizing and implementing all aspects of their efforts.

From our long experience helping neighborhoods campaign for preservation attention, HDC will coach neighborhood leaders on:
• how to establish defensible district boundaries that recognize a neighborhood’s special character
• how to involve other community members
• how to formulate an argument for preservation and present their case convincingly
• how to create campaign goals and make plans to meet them
• how to develop education programming and public outreach, and
• how to secure the support of elected officials and other key decision-makers

A word about eligibility: the neighborhoods submitted for consideration must be distinct areas - not individual parks or structures. They must be located in New York City, and be architecturally, historically or culturally significant. Both organized groups and individuals may apply. Deadline for the 2012 round is November 2011.

If you have any questions about this program, please don’t hesitate to call us at 212 614-9107 or contact Nadezhda Williams, HDC’s Director of Preservation & Research at nwilliams@hdc.org.

Finally, don’t worry - we’re not going away. HDC will continue to assist all our neighborhood partners in the efforts. This is just another way that we can help.

Six to Celebrate is generously supported by The New York Community Trust.