Skip to content

Month: January 2021

Season 1, Episode 7

Posted in Episodes, and Season 1

Sisterhood Is Beautiful

In 1974, Brenda Weathers came across a century-old home in Pico-Union, an early Los Angeles neighborhood that had seen better days. She decided to use the rundown residence to help people like her: lesbians with alcoholism. Ever since, the Alcoholism Center for Women has served as a treatment center for women in recovery–most of them lesbian; many of them women of color, living in poverty and/or formerly unhoused. This sisterhood has faced more than the obvious challenges along the way, including an old-fashioned demolition threat with an eye-rolling resolution. In this episode, grad student Lindsay Mulcahy talks with co-host Trudi Sandmeier about the many facets of this fascinating story.

Season 1, Episode 6

Posted in Episodes, and Season 1

Building Resilient Communities Through Conservation

Pandemics, climate change, natural disasters, inequity, the perils of urbanization: cities worldwide are working to build resilience against a steady stream of existential threats. Resilience planning may include protecting historic places, but it typically overlooks the role of heritage conservation in helping communities prepare for, and recover from, the hazards they face. How does telling a community’s full story make it more resilient? Who should be at the table to make sure resilience plans include places that define and unite neighborhoods? Recent graduate Kelsey Kaline Neighbors shares these and other insights from her master’s thesis, Mobilizing Heritage Conservation as a Tool for Urban Resilience.