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Full-Text Articles in Arts and Humanities
Losing Its Way: The Landmarks Preservation Commission In Eclipse, Jeffrey A. Kroessler
Losing Its Way: The Landmarks Preservation Commission In Eclipse, Jeffrey A. Kroessler
Publications and Research
New York City’s Landmarks Preservation Commission has an admirable history of protecting the city's historic character. Increasingly in recent years, the commission has backed away from proactively designated sites of historical, architectural, or cultural significance as city landmarks. At the same time, the commission has shown greater deference to the owner of a property when deciding whether to designate, and to the wishes of the owners of designated properties in matters of regulation, notwithstanding that owner consent is nowhere in the landmarks law. At the same time, the commission has introduced new definitions, such as “period of significance,” contributing/non-contributing, and …
Institutional Theory And The History Of District-Level School Reform: A Reintroduction, Judith R. Kafka
Institutional Theory And The History Of District-Level School Reform: A Reintroduction, Judith R. Kafka
Publications and Research
In this chapter I make my case for the utility of institutionalism for historians of education, first by explaining institutional theory and how it has been applied to, and shaped by, the study of schooling, and then by applying new theoretical developments to district-level historical research using examples drawn from earlier chapters in this volume. Ultimately, institutional theory may help us to interrogate Tyack and Cuban’s notion of institutional change in schools, by elaborating on their construction of the change process through specific, embedded, settings, and by rethinking how we determine what “counts” as change in schools and districts.
One Staff, Two Branches: The Queens Borough Public Library And New York City's Fiscal Crisis Of The 1970s, Jeffrey A. Kroessler
One Staff, Two Branches: The Queens Borough Public Library And New York City's Fiscal Crisis Of The 1970s, Jeffrey A. Kroessler
Publications and Research
During the fiscal crisis of the 1970s, New York City imposed deep budget cuts on the three library systems: the New York Public Library, the Brooklyn Public Library, and the Queens Borough Public Library. As the city cut budgets, the public demanded that libraries be kept open, and elected officials struggled to do both. The Queens Library’s staff was reduced from over 1,100 to barely 700, with branches open only two or three days a week, with one staff serving both. New buildings remained vacant because the library lacked funds to operate them. When the library proposed closing some branches, …