B&B Carousell in need of votes

By | May 8, 2012

The historic Coney Island B&B Carousell in Brooklyn, N.Y., needs your votes in a program that spotlights preservation.

The B&B Carousell, the last of Coney’s historic carousels, was set to be dismantled and auctioned off until the New York City Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC) stepped in and bought it for $1.8 million. It’s now being painstakingly restored in an Ohio workshop.

The B&B Carousell is one of 40 historic properties in NYC that have been selected by the National Trust for Historic Preservation to participate in Partners in Preservation (PIP), a community-based program which provides preservation grants for local historic places.

Fans of this historic carousel are urged to vote online through May 21, 2012 — one vote per day is allowed. The top four vote-getters, to be announced May 22, are guaranteed to receive grants for their preservation projects. A Partners in Preservation advisory committee of community and preservation leaders, will select sites that will receive the rest of the $3 million in grants. Votes can be submitted at www.PartnersinPreservation.com or on the Partners in Preservation Facebook page.

Partners in Preservation is a program in which American Express, in partnership with the National Trust for Historic Preservation, awards preservation grants to historic places across the country. American Express has committed more than $15 million to Partners in Preservation, helping historic sites in six cities to date, which includes preservation projects in San Francisco, Chicago, New Orleans, Boston, Seattle and Saint Paul/Minneapolis and has engaged more than a million people.

Through this partnership, American Express and the National Trust for Historic Preservation seek to increase the public’s awareness of the importance of historic preservation in the United States and to preserve America’s historic and cultural places. The program also hopes to inspire long-term support from local citizens for the historic places at the heart of their communities.