Congratulations to Northeast’s Historic Kansas City 2020 Historic Preservation Award winners!

The Lykins Neighborhood Association won the Richard Nadeau Award for use of Missouri’s Abandoned Housing Act to reclaim and rehabilitate dilapidated homes. The award recognizes outstanding achievement in preservation activities by a group, business, municipality, neighborhood or organization.

Also in Lykins, Into the Light, an art glass installation, won an award for neighborhood stabilization. The award is given to a project, individual, business or group that has greatly contributed to the revitalization of a historic neighborhood or reclamation of abandoned or poorly maintained property or structure. Into the Light is by Architect Hasna Sal, General Contractor Charles Tietgen, Structural Engineer Raymond Okuagu, and Habitat for Humanity.  Into The Light was installed in Lykins Square Park (4115 E. 7th St.) in 2020.

“Mount Washington Cemetery: In Search of Lost Time” by Bruce Mathews and Judith King received the George Ehrlich Award for outstanding publication in preservation, history, urban design or a related topic.

During most of 2020 when the rest of the world was on lockdown, Mathews enlisted the efforts of dozens of local, amateur historians and family members of people buried at Mt. Washington Cemetery to produce Mt. Washington: In Search of Lost Time, a book dedicated to the lives, great and unknown, of people buried in the pastoral grounds of Mt. Washington Cemetery. 

Proceeds from the sale of the book went to the restoration of the stunning William Rockhill Nelson Chapel located on the Mt. Washington grounds. 

“We are in this for the long haul,” Mathews said. “The building is structurally sound after over 100 years and we’ve been told by professionals that by getting the water stopped from entering the building, there is every reason to believe it will still be around for another 200 years, given the proper [tender, loving care] it deserves.”