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MISSION AND ACTIVITIES

Charlestown Preservation Society Mission and Activities

The Charlestown Preservation Society (CPS) was founded in 1967 to stop the destruction of the town’s most historic buildings when Boston urban renewal planning gave little thought to heritage, community and posterity.  These efforts saved the post-Revolutionary houses of Thomson Triangle, beginning a new era of civic pride and commitment to preserving Charlestown’s unique architectural heritage. CPS remains committed to preservation, as well as extending our mission beyond architectural preservation to enhancing the lives and opportunities of Charlestown residents and the visitors who come to Charlestown.
 

Today, our mission is to preserve Charlestown’s historic character by protecting our historic architecture and landscapes, advocating for preservation, guiding responsible development and educating people about the unique character of our community. We focus our annual planning and budgeting process around supporting these four goals.
 
Advocate: A new Charlestown building boom is underway, with developments proposed throughout town.  CPS attends all public meetings, submits comments to appropriate organizations and publishes letters and position papers in the local newspaper and on our website.
 
Protect:  CPS launched a new Task Force entitled Protect Historic Charlestown (PHC). The mission of the Task Force is to help protect the historic character and the architecture of Charlestown in partnership with the City of Boston. The team’s key goals are initially to focus on modification of zoning laws and review processes to create a more supportive environment for preserving and protecting historic properties. Our first project, entitled “Know our Town,” has documented the inventory of our historic streets and properties. The beginnings of this database can be found on this website.
 
Guide: The Design Review Committee (DRC) works with the BRA (now BPDA) to review requests for commercial and residential requests for property changes in Charlestown. The DRC is a strategic committee within CPS and is admired widely in Boston and Charlestown for its keen efforts to preserve and protect our historic community and its architecture. The Committee is led by William Lamb a well known Preservation Architect who has contributed his talents for over 40 years to the Charlestown Community
 
Educate:  CPS is committed to increasing the awareness of the historic nature of Charlestown as one of the oldest neighborhoods in Boston.  Our strategy includes a biennial Historic House tour, lectures on historic sites and figures, an active website, neighborhood walking tours as well as regular communication with our members through mailings, Facebook and Twitter.  We publish articles in the community newspapers on advocacy topics.   

 

The Charlestown Preservation Society’s Resource Information System (CPS-RIS) was created in order to store information on Charlestown’s historic properties and areas. It is a work in progress, users of the database should keep in mind that it does not include information on all historic properties and areas in Charlestown, nor does it reflect all the information on file on historic properties and areas. Information will be actively added as time and funds become available.