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12 Recipients Chosen For Bergen County Historic Preservation Awards

The 2016 Bergen County Historic Preservation Awards will be held on May 5 in the historic “Church on the Green,” the First Reformed Church of Hackensack.

Tim Adriance, Bergenfield, recipient of Claire Tholl Award for Lifetime Achievement in Historic Preservation.

Photo Credit: michael fuhrman

The Bergen County Division of Cultural and Historic Affairs and Historic Preservation Advisory Board will stage the event, beginning at 7 p.m., with a reception to follow Awards will be presented by County Executive Jim Tedesco, county freeholders and advisory board members.

More than 280 awards have been presented to members of the local community in honor of outstanding historic preservation achievements by individuals, students, organizations and businesses since 1982.

This year's 12 awards:

• Restoration of the 1886 Queen Anne-style Waldwick Train Station, a preservation project supervised by the Waldwick Community Alliance.

• Restoration of the 1890 Waldwick Erie Railroad Signal Tower, a preservation project supervised by the Waldwick Historical Society.

• Preservation of the historic “Church on the Green” cemetery in Hackensack. For over 300 years the Dutch Reformed Church has continued to care for and preserve this historic site including repairing the extensive damage the cemetery received during 2012’s Hurricane Sandy. Buried there are the county’s founding families, veterans of the Revolutionary War and one of GeorgeWashington’s Revolutionary War generals.

• Preservation of the John A. Haring House Dutch Kitchen on Piemont Road in Rockleigh. The owner, Douglas Johnsen Sr., who is also Rockleigh’s municipal historian, is being recognized for his outstanding restoration of the circa-1763 Dutch kitchen and his stewardship of the Dutch barn and other buildings.

• Preservation and restoration of the late-19th century Italianate Arnault-Bianchi House and site, now the home of the Wood-Ridge Historical Society.

• Fort Lee’s Annual “Retreat to Victory,” a two-day re-enactment held every November in Fort Lee and at Fort Lee Historic Park (Palisades Interstate Park), recreating the Nov. 20, 1776 critical retreat of Washington's 3,000 troops from the attacking British forces.

• New Milford historic map preservation project and brochure. The 1867 map, “From Palisades to Paterson, New Jersey,” was discovered in the 1960s hidden in New Milford’s historic Demarest House.

• Amanda Klein, Saddle Brook history teacher, for her work involving high school students in preservation.

• Patricia Finn, of Allendale, who founded the “Save the Fell House Committee” and is first president of the “Concerned Citizens of Allendale,” a non-profit that eventually purchased the endangered home of Revolutionary War patriot and Continental Congressman John Fell on Franklin Turnpike.,

• Sophie Heymann, the former Closter mayor and a leader in historic preservation.

• Rod Leith, Rutherford's longtime municipal historian.

• Tim Adriance, Bergenfield (Claire Tholl Award for Lifetime Achievement in Historic Preservation), a descendant of the some of the earliest families who first settled in Bergen County and a leader in historic preservation in New Jersey for over 30 years.

National Preservation Month celebrates the diverse and unique heritage of our country’s cities and states. This year’s theme is “This. Place. Matters.”

2016 marks the 50th anniversary of the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA), which codified the National Register of Historic Places, required federal agencies to consider the impact of new construction on historic sites and provided for public comment before a site can be altered.

The First Reformed Church is at 42 Court Street, Hackensack.

INFO: Bergen County Division of Cultural and Historic Affairs, One Bergen County Plaza, Hackensack, NJ 07601. Telephone, 9:00 - 4:30, Monday - Friday, 201-336-7267 or email jstrom@co.bergen.nj.us. 

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