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2024 February Preservation ePost

Celebrating and Seeking Excellence!

On behalf of Governor Gavin Newsom, the Office of Historic Preservation (OHP) is pleased to announce the recipients of the 2023 Governor’s Historic Preservation Awards. The six awarded projects and organizations represent exemplary work in historic preservation. This is California's only state-sponsored preservation awards program and celebrates community-focused, often grassroots efforts to preserve the places, stories, and traditions that enrich our collective California heritage.

Awards will be presented on February 27, 2024, at a ceremony in Sacramento and will be livestreamed on the OHP Facebook page and YouTube channel, beginning at 1:00pm PST. Join us virtually as we celebrate these 2023 preservation achievements! In the meantime, please visit our website to view the list of 2023 Award Recipients and learn about their accomplishments.

The celebration doesn't end there! We are now accepting nominations for the 2024 Governor's Historic Preservation Awards. Nominees can include, among others, resource restoration and preservation; civic efforts or organizations that preserve, interpret, and educate about community history; and companies and public agencies that go above and beyond expected mandates. Efforts to address the challenges of climate change will be considered as well. Individuals whose passion for preservation has made a difference and saved numerous cultural, historical, and archaeological treasures may also be nominated. Visit our Awards page for nomination forms and instructions. Application deadline: April 24, 2024.

Updates from the National Register

In 2013, the National Park Service first published standards for digital photos accompanying National Register of Historic Places nominations. In the digital world, a decade is a long time, so the 2024 photograph policy update is welcome! Minimum and recommended resolutions and sizes for photos have not changed, but there are new policies and recommendations about maximum file sizes, aerial drone photography, accessibility, copyright, and dates of photographs.

To quote the document itself, “Focus on Results, Not Equipment”! The update includes useful advice on how to correctly document buildings, architectural sites, and districts, and how to lay out photographs within a National Register nomination.

Not all the advice in the policy update applies to applicants; the public won’t have to worry about uploading files to the National Park Service CRSP system (that is done by OHP staff). Applicants submitting nominations to the OHP should do so using a flash drive accompanied by a printed copy of the nomination on regular printer paper. Whether nominating to the National Register or a California program, be sure to consult the appropriate OHP Checklist for Submission, found in the Registration Programs pages of our website. When in doubt, do not hesitate to contact Registration Unit staff directly for guidance.

Funding to Support Preservation

National Fund for Sacred Places grants provide support to repair and preserve historic houses of worship and sustain their history and place within their communities.

Letter of Intent Deadline: February 29, 2024.

California Humanities Grant Programs (California Humanities) support a variety of efforts by nonprofits and public agencies to preserve and educate about California's richly diverse heritage.

Upcoming deadlines, February through November 2024, for a variety of grant programs.

T-Mobile Hometown Grants (T-Mobile, Main Street America, and Smart Growth America) provide funding to towns with a population of 50,000 or less, to support community revitalization projects such as adaptive reuse of historic buildings or creation of community gathering spaces, among others.

Application Deadline: March 31, 2024.

Partners in Documentation Program (Historic Preservation Education Foundation and Heritage Documentation Programs) is accepting proposals for grants to expand learning opportunities for students through the recording of historic structures and landscapes according to the standards of the Heritage Documentation Programs: Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS), Historic American Engineering Record (HAER), and Historic American Landscapes Survey (HALS).

Proposal Deadline: May 1, 2024.





Image courtesy of Carol Highsmith Collection.

One of the California properties nominated toward the end of 2023 for National Register of Historic Places listing was the Watts Happening Cultural Center in Los Angeles. The property was established as a cultural center for predominantly local Black artists, writers, musicians, filmmakers, and dancers who played an important role in the community following the Watts Uprising of 1965.

In the months after the uprising, young people in Watts opened the Watts Happening Coffee House in an old furniture store, becoming an incubator for artistic expression, an ad hoc community center, and a home to the Mafundi Institute, a Black cultural academy. When the old building was not permitted to contain more than 50 people due to its unreinforced masonry construction, organizers received a grant in 1970 to build a new facility, designed by Black architects Robert Kennard and Arthur Silvers. The building is wood-framed and stucco-sheathed with two main intersecting wings that house offices, classrooms, workshops, the Coffee House, and a multipurpose space with a stage for theatrical performances. The building may have been officially called the Watts Neighborhood Center, but it was proudly known as the Watts Happening Cultural Center by the users and participants of the center, including the Mafundi Institute, who moved into and operated the facility from 1970 to 1975.



The Watts Happening Center was one of the most prominent cultural centers in Los Angeles in the early 1970s, and the only cultural center of its kind in any Black community in Los Angeles. The Center closed in 1975, and the building was taken on by a succession of new owners and new purposes. Today, the building continues to serve as a community art space and as one of the few tangible remnants of cultural expression grown from the aftermath of the Watts Uprising. The Watts Happening Cultural Center achieved National Register listing on October 23, 2023, and was one of the inaugural recipients of a Conserving Black Modernism grant.

Photo courtesy of Stephen Schafer.

State Historical Resources Commission

The State Historical Resources Commission (SHRC) meets quarterly each year. Commission meetings are open to the public and live-streamed through the Cal-Span network. Meeting dates, times, and agendas are posted to the SHRC Meeting Schedule and Notices page of the OHP website.

For upcoming nominations, visit the Pending Nominations page. Nominations already heard by the Commission are listed on the Actions Taken page, and video recordings of SHRC meetings are posted to Meeting Recordings & Summaries.



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