Pratt - Historic Preservation Program

Here’s a look at Trinidad Carnival through the eye of 1st year HP student, Ashley Adams!

"Carnival came back home to Trinidad & Tobago, and I was able to take a break from my first year HP studies to return home to celebrate the return of Carnival after 3 long years!

The celebration of Carnival began in the late 1700s in Trinidad and Tobago as a festival celebrated the two days before Ash Wednesday by the French elite. Although enslaved Africans were barred from participating in these events, they performed their own version through kalenda/stick flighting, juba and bélé dances, and the retelling of African folklore.

After Emancipation in 1838, the formerly enslaved people joined in the festivities, making mockery of white plantation owners, dancing, stick fighting and signaling a new version of the pre-Lenten festival.

Calypso and soca music, developed in Trinidad, were derived from West African music brought by enslaved peoples and merged with music brought by East Indian indentured labourers. The steelpan was also first created in the 1930s in Trinidad,
and is a major symbol and sound of modern day Carnival. Panorama, the major steelpan competition, is held in the weeks leading up to Carnival Monday and Tuesday.

Today, Carnival in Trinidad and Tobago is celebrated by locals and tourists alike, and the season begins just after the Christmas season ends. The major events take place on Carnival Monday and Tuesday, with J'ouvert on Monday morning, and Pretty Mas on Monday and Tuesday.

Carnival is celebrated on islands all over the Caribbean, and within the diaspora around the world. Even here in NYC during Labor Day celebrations!

At Pratt HP, we're encouraged to explore the value of intangible heritage and community history, just as much as built heritage, as these are the elements that define and embody culture and heritage. Carnival will always be a part of Trini spirit, despite the 3 year break, as it is an inescapable part of who we are!" - Ashley Adams, MSHP '24

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Save the dates and RSVP! We are thrilled to announce our Spring 2023 Lecture Series ""Counternarratives For Transformation to an Inclusive Society", presented by our 4 masters programs. March 10, March 24, and April 7 will be held in person at Pratt Manhattan campus, with April 14 virtual on Zoom. Thank you to our media partners for joining us this semester! All events are free & open to the public with RSVP. Keep an eye on this space to see speaker details.

Always at the forefront of struggles for social justice, place-based grassroots initiatives are vital to our understanding of how practice can challenge white supremacy, racialized and gendered capitalism, land grabs, erasure, and climate denial. Taken collectively, grassroots initiatives that challenge the status quo are the movement that poses a counterpoint to the rise in totalitarianism across the globe. The 2023 GCPE Spring Lecture Series celebrates and amplifies the work of justice-serving initiatives and poses questions about how the fields of urbanism can help bring this work to scale.

March 10 - Community Planning and Progress Toward Economic Democracy
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March 24 - Why Public Space Matters: A Discussion of Placemaking Theory & Practice
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April 7 - Just Transitions at the Edge: Community-Led Coastal Adaptation
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April 14 - Reclaiming History Through Heritage Preservation Practice *remote tbd
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What’s going on here? Find out about Pratt HP’s program at our Info Session! Link to register in bio.

Have you visited the MET yet? Pratt HP has a very special connection to this and many other museums within the city, which we can visit for free! Museums are an important resource for historic preservation students to see how curation, details, and narrative allow history to come alive for people. Both the permanent exhibits and the exhibitions have been crucial in helping us formulate our projects and practice, and we're always ready to return. Join us on our adventures and don't forget to check out the Carpeaux Recast exhibition on the intersection Art and Black History before it closes on March 7!

The Pratt HP community would like to welcome four amazing new students who recently joined the 2023 cohort! We're so excited to have them on board for their Historic Preservation journey. Read what they have to say about joining the program - and check out the info link in our bio if you're interested in applying!The Pratt HP community would like to welcome four amazing new students who recently joined the 2023 cohort! We're so excited to have them on board for their Historic Preservation journey. Read what they have to say about joining the program - and check out the info link in our bio if you're interested in applying!

This week, the first year HP students ventured out of the classroom to study their site neighborhood and explore local archives for their research in their Historic Documentation studio class!
This year’s studio focuses on a neighborhood in Greenpoint, just on the outskirts of a historic district. The students also visited the Center for Brooklyn History for a deep dive through their archives to learn more about the history of their neighborhood.
Stay tuned for more adventures and insights into the area!

The Sears-Roebuck building was a case study and a site proposed for adaptive reuse during our Studio II in East Flatbush last semester. The tower constructed on the edge of a corner lot just outside of CB17 caught our students eye for obvious reasons. It seemed shocking that Sears, a department, would build such a grand building. But this building style was not new for the Sears-Roebuck company which was founded in 1892 by Richard Warren Sears and Alvah Curtis Roebuck.
In the second photo, we see the Sears-Roebuck Company Complex, constructed in Chicago in 1905. A large complex with a tower, similar to the one seen East Flatbush, still stands in Chicago as it was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1978.
This complex was one of the first large jobs completed by the Thompson-Starrett Co in Chicago, who incorporated in 1899. Thompson-Starrett would go on to build such prolific buildings as The Woolworth Building (NYC), The Municipal Building (NYC) and The Field Museum of Chicago. There is often a link between the architecture of our cities, it might not seem entirely obvious at first, but with a little investigation (and expertly preserved buildings) we find it.
(Photo 1&3 Studio II Pratt, Photo 2 BluePrint Chicago)