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The Dallas Heritage Village
invites the community to an evening dedicated to historic preservation,
Wednesday, November 20, 2013, 6 - 8 p.m., Dallas Heritage Village, 1515 S.
Harwood St., Dallas, TX 75215. Award winning documentary filmmaker Mark
Birnbaum will premiere his new documentary short, Pilot Grove Church -
an Education/Restoration Project, on the restoration of Dallas Heritage
Village’s own Pilot Grove Church. The film will be followed by a panel
discussion on the importance of historic preservation and the efforts of Dallas
Heritage Village featuring Birnbaum along with Mark Lamster,
architecture critic for the Dallas Morning News and professor at UTA, David
Preziosi, executive director of Preservation Dallas; and Ron Siebler,
residential remodeler and historic preservationist. Bart Weiss,
associate professor at UTA, award-winning independent film and video producer,
and co-founder of the Dallas Video Festival, will introduce Birnbaum and the
short film. The panel will be moderated by Evelyn Montgomery,
Ph.D, curator of Dallas Heritage Village.
The documentary short about Pilot
Grove Church was filmed during its March restoration, spearheaded by contractor
Ron Siebler. This restoration project, generously funded by The Hoblitzelle
Foundation, The Straus Charitable Trust and Valspar Paint, presented an
interactive educational experience and living history demonstration of late 19th
century and early 20th century carpentry tools and techniques.
Dallas Heritage Village visitors stopped at the site to watch and learn from
carpenters dressed in period costumes, utilizing historically informed methods
and hand tools while making repairs to the lower level of the church.
“It was such a fun, interactive and
educational experience for our visitors who were also able to safely try out
these circa 1910 handtools, such as a bit and a brace plane, hand saws, and
other like implements that are no longer commonly employed by the trades,” said
Melissa Prycer, interim executive director, Dallas Heritage Village.
“When we saw Mark Birnbaum’s documentary of this project, we were inspired and
wanted to share with others. Historic preservation fosters education by
providing the atmosphere and the structures that teach us about the past.
It is our hope that this fun and informative evening can inspire new
educational experiences throughout Dallas, while teaching the importance of
preservation.”
Event is free but RSVPs are required, lsimpson@dallasheritagevillage.org
or 214-413-3662.
Dallas Heritage Village, located
at Old City Park, is a nationally accredited history museum, depicting life in
Dallas from 1840-1910. It is one of only five museums in the Dallas area to
have this distinction. The grounds showcase 38 historic structures, including
log cabins, the pre-Civil War Millermore home, a Victorian Main Street, a
railroad complex, an 1860s farmstead with livestock, a 19th century
church, school and more. Visitors discover how crops were grown, animals
cared for and how family living progressed from log cabins to grand manors and
Victorian homes. Dallas Heritage Village is supported, in part, by the
City of Dallas Office of Cultural Affairs and the Texas Commission on the Arts
as well as individual and group donations. Dallas Heritage Village was nominated
in 2011 and 2012 by D Magazine as one of the top Dallas-area family
attractions. It is located at 1515 South Harwood, one block south of Farmers
Market in Downtown Dallas. Hours of operation are Tuesday – Saturday, 10 a.m. –
4 p.m. and Sunday, noon – 4 p.m. The Village is closed the months of January
and August. Regular admission is $9 for adults, $7 for seniors 65+ and $5 for
children ages 4-12. Children under 4 and members of Dallas Heritage
Village are admitted free of charge. For more information call 214-421-5141 or
visit www.DallasHeritageVillage.org
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