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If you've ever road-tripped through the Catskills or strolled near Niagara Falls, you might have passed two of New York's most endangered cultural gems, without realizing they’re on the brink of vanishing.
The National Trust for Historic Preservation just dropped its 2025 list of America’s 11 Most Endangered Historic Places, and two New York State icons made the cut: The Wellington Hotel in Pine Hill and The Turtle: Native American Center for the Living Arts in Niagara Falls.
Let’s start in the Catskills. Built in 1882, the Wellington is a hulking, wood-frame reminder of the golden age of mountain tourism—when resorts were grand, porches were wide and urbanites fled the heat for fresh air and blueberry pie. But today, it’s sagging under the weight of time, with a failing foundation and a repair bill estimated at $7 million. The hamlet of Pine Hill, population 339, can’t foot the bill alone. A grassroots group of 20 locals has stepped in with big plans to revive the space as a community hub with a café, grocery store and workforce housing, but they’ll need serious funding to pull it off.
Meanwhile, just steps from the roar of Niagara Falls, The Turtle—a striking, turtle-shaped cultural center built in 1981 by Arapaho architect Dennis Sun Rhodes—sits eerily silent. Once the largest Indigenous arts venue in the Eastern U.S., it’s been closed since 1996 and is now unprotected, painted over and eyed for demolition. A coalition of more than 1,000 advocates, Indigenous and non-Indigenous alike, is fighting to bring it back to life as a celebration of Haudenosaunee heritage.
Both projects underscore this year’s theme: preservation isn’t just about saving old buildings, but rather it’s about making space for community, identity and economic resilience. In other words, it’s not about nostalgia. It’s about what happens next.