Significance
On December 19, 1777, when General George Washington's dispirited Continental Army marched into camp at Valley Forge, it was tired, cold and ill equipped. When they emerged on June 19, 1778 after a brutal winter of suffering and hardship, the army was transformed into a professional force with revived spirit and growing military competence that ultimately secured America's independence from the British in 1783. Few places evoke the spirit of American patriotism and independence, represent individual and collective sacrifice, or demonstrate the resolve, tenacity and determination of the people of the United States, as does Valley Forge.
In the late 19th century, the effort to preserve and commemorate the encampment at Valley Forge was initiated by private citizens and led to its designation as the Commonwealth's first state park in 1893. On July 4, 1976 Valley Forge became a National Historic Park administered by the National Park Service, whose mission is to preserve, protect and maintain the 3400 acres, 190 buildings and structures, and more than 600 archaeological sites associated with the 1777-78 encampment of the Continental Army.

Threat
Over the last two years, Valley Forge has become the poster child for historic properties under siege with listings on the National Trust's America's 11 Most Endangered Historic Places (2000) and the National Parks and Conservation Association's America's Ten Most Endangered Parks (2002).
Threats to Valley Forge include inadequate funding, commuter and visitor traffic congestion, and suburban sprawl. The park faces an operating budget shortfall of $2.2 million, keeping all but two of the historic buildings off-limits to the public. While traffic congestion increases, a long-awaited regional transportation study is being prepared to explore a number of potential solutions to relieve traffic pressure through the park. Finally, a recent attempt by a developer to build 62 luxury homes on 80 acres within park boundaries appears to have been averted; but the demands of new residential, commercial, and industrial construction surrounding the park contribute to the traffic congestion and the deterioration of the scenic environment. Strong public support and advocacy at the local, state, and, especially the national level are critical to increasing operating funds, land acquisition funds, and transportation plans to protect park resources.

Significance The Boyd Theater, located at 1908-10 Chestnut Street in Center City, is Philadelphia's sole surviving movie palace from Hollywood's Golden Era and a significant building in the Center City West Commercial Historic District. The Boyd, which opened on Christmas Day 1928, represents a period when theaters were characterized by luxurious ornamentation, enormous auditoriums with seating capacity eclipsing 2,500, and special services such as ushers and doormen. The firm of Hoffman and Henon, considered the premiere theater architectural firm in Philadelphia and responsible for almost 100 theaters in the area, designed the Boyd in an extravagant Art Deco style. The exterior, although obscured by a later marquee, still exhibits fine Art Deco details. Inside the theater, the Art Deco decorative motif is carried in full force with murals, stained glass insets, statues, and gold and black metal silhouettes celebrating the progress of women throughout the history of the world.

Threat
The Boyd Theater, currently named the "Sam Eric", is no stranger to controversy. Its 1987 historic designation by the Philadelphia Historical Commission was challenged in court by United Artists Theatres, owner of the Boyd at the time. In 1991, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled the Philadelphia ordinance invalid citing designation as an unconstitutional "taking" of private property. The ruling, which threatened the existence of local preservation ordinances throughout Pennsylvania, was reversed by the court in 1993. The second ruling did, however, hold that the Philadelphia Historical Commission had overstepped its authority in designating the theater's interior space.
In April 2002, the Commission was presented another opportunity to designate the Boyd, but the application was rejected by a vote of 7-2. Adding to a growing concern over recent Commission rulings, the decision ignored architectural and historical significance and focused on the building as "...an old, decrepit, falling-down disaster." The current owner was recently issued a demolition permit, placing the Boyd's future in doubt. A growing outcry of local support for its preservation has included editorials in the Philadelphia press, rallies in front of the theater, petition drives, and formation of a Committee to Save the Sameric/Boyd. For the latest developments in this evolving story, visit www.boydtheatre.com

Significance
Built in 1904 by the Oswego Bridge Company, the one-lane Pond Eddy Bridge is one of two surviving pin-connected through-truss structures remaining on the Upper Delaware. Listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1988, the bridge connects Pennsylvania with Lumberland Township, Sullivan County, New York. It is located in a relatively remote area virtually unchanged since the early 20th century. On the Pennsylvania side of the river, the cable-stays of a previously existing suspension bridge and a roadway used to carry bluestone from nearby quarries across the bridge to the canal basin on the New York side remain. Also on the New York side are remnants of the Delaware and Hudson Canal and an extensive ramp system which led to the previously existing suspension bridge.

Threat
A proposal to build a $13 million 3-span continuous concrete bridge and demolish the historic bridge - which now carries fewer than 80 vehicles each day - has brought an outcry from citizens concerned about the impact of the project on both historic and environmental resources. According to Friends of the Pond Eddy Bridge, a group formed to save the bridge and the historic character of the area, the project would destroy not only the historic bridge, but also the canal and earlier suspension bridge remains on the New York site; and the suspension bridge remains, river bank, and rockface on the Pennsylvania side. Further concerns are that a new bridge will open the area to increased public and private development, and that its construction would raise the flood plain upriver threatening additional properties. Calling for a full public review of the new bridge proposal, advocates are encouraging preservation of the historic bridge as a way to reinforce the strategic importance of Pond Eddy as an extraordinary historic and scenic environment within the Upper Delaware Corridor and development of the area as a rich point of public interaction with the river and its community history.

Significance
When it opened in 1961, Pittsburgh's Civic Arena was the world's largest domed structure with a diameter of 415 feet, a movable stainless steel roof, and seating capacity of 18,000. Nicknamed the "Igloo", it was built as part of the 1960's redevelopment of Pittsburgh's Lower Hill. Problems with modern theater rigging and stage requirements doomed the building's original use by the Civic Light Opera; but the arena quickly proved to be a successful venue for concerts and sports events. In recent years, the Arena has been home to the Pittsburgh Penguins. Hailed for its architectural and engineering innovation at the time of its construction, the Arena is a significant 20th century landmark that has defined the Pittsburgh skyline for almost half a century.

Threat
The Pittsburgh Penguins have proposed to build a new arena nearby, claiming that the old arena is no longer viable as a hockey venue and citing the need for increased revenue-producing amenities such as luxury boxes. Although the historic arena would not be torn down until the Penguins finance and build a new facility, the process of deciding on the future of the Civic Arena will take place within the next year. Local preservationists and concerned citizens have mounted a campaign advocating reuse of the building. Possible reuses being discussed include a hotel, cultural center or maglev station. Reuse of the structure is, however, opposed by the Penguins and some city officials.

Significance
In the early 1990s, as part of Pennsylvania's first state-sponsored survey of African American historic resources, three hundred sites important to African Americans over two centuries in Allegheny County were discovered and documented. Ranging from the New Granada Theater, the Ellis Hotel, and the John Wesley A.M.E. Zion Church in Pittsburgh's Hill District, to the lesser known Horning Historic Mining District in Baldwin Township and the "Hollow" district in Elizabeth Borough, these sites chronicle the African American experience in and around Pennsylvania's second largest city.
A notable example of the sites included in the survey, the New Granada Theater was built in 1927 as the Pythian Temple, a black social hall for a group of black construction workers known as the Knights of the Pythian. In the 1930s, under new ownership, it became the New Granada Theater. Both a movie house and live performance venue, it drew major international talent such as Ella Fitzgerald and Duke Ellington, and featured an extravagant ballroom with indirect lighting, wall murals, and a revolving crystal ball on the second floor.

Threat
Many of the properties identified in the African American Historic Sites Survey of Allegheny County, 1760-1960, which was published by the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission in 1994, are threatened with demolition by neglect, ignorance, loss of context, and lack of investment. For the New Granada, which was closed as a theater by the 1960s, the prohibitive costs of renovation threaten the building's reuse as part of planning currently underway for a major renovation of Centre Avenue by the Pittsburgh Redevelopment Authority. Many of these sites, however, suffer because they are located in neighborhoods in dire need of private investment and are without a strategic plan for redevelopment. Most are not even identified with historical markers that could focus attention on and appreciation for their historic significance. Without planning and reinvestment in these neighborhoods and without greater recognition for these important sites, many of them will be lost.

Significance
Located along the banks of the Delaware River at Delaware Avenue and Lewis Street in Philadelphia, the Richmond Power Station is a monument to the production and marketing of electricity in the early twentieth century. Designed for the Philadelphia Electric Company by architect John Windrim and engineer William C.L. Eglin, the coal-fired electrical generation plant was placed into service in 1925.
The station's Neoclassical Revival design was used by the company to reflect permanence, stability and responsibility in the face of considerable public scrutiny directed at electric utilities at the time. The station was also a technological marvel, housing the world's largest Westinghouse turbo-generator added in 1935 to supply current to the newly completed electrification of the Pennsylvania Railroad from New York to Washington. In addition to its grand exterior, the station's interior is defined by massive open spaces, which include the cavernous Turbine Hall, illuminated with curved skylights along the cruciform ceiling 130 feet above the floor.

Threat
After 60 years of operation , the station was taken off line in 1985. Although the transformers on the 15-acre site remain in use, the station continues to stand empty and deteriorate, especially the framework for the vaulted ceiling. In May 2002 the complex was introduced to the Philadelphia Historical Commission for designation as a historic building. Although the complex met 7 of 10 criteria, the Commission rejected designation on the basis of economic hardship due to the physical condition of the building and the perception that there is no viable use. Preservationists, however, point to a similar 1919 Neoclassical Revival power station in Chester, also designed by Windrim and Eglin, which is being rehabilitated as office space under the federal Rehabilitation Investment Tax Credit program. Advocates for the Richmond Power Station are working to have the historic designation reconsidered and are seeking a developer interested in rehabilitating the complex.

Significance
Described in a 1909 Philadelphia publication as having "...educated more governors, more senators, more judges, and more public men...than any other school in Pennsylvania", the Bellefonte Academy is one of the last remaining examples of the academy school movement that flourished in Pennsylvania in the late 18th and 19th centuries. Until the late 19th century, public education was mainly confined to elementary instruction. Secondary education was furnished by various local academies with support from state subsidy, public subscription, and tuition. In 1805, the state Assembly chartered Bellefonte Academy and in the following year granted $2,000 to construct a 2-story, four-bay limestone building. With the success of the academy, a Queen Anne-style headmaster's house was constructed and the main building underwent continued expansion until a fire swept through the second story in 1904. Rebuilt in the Neoclassical style, the imposing 210-foot long building took on a formal, classically inspired appearance with the addition of a colossal portico supported by six Tuscan columns, a third story , and a full entablature. The impact of the Great Depression led to the Academy's financial collapse. The main building and headmaster's house were sold for apartment use in 1946.

Threat
Although still an imposing presence in Bellefonte, the academy building is a shadow of its former self. The 50-plus years of residential use and lack of maintenance have taken a toll on the physical condition and architectural character of the building. In 2000, a fire destroyed the pyramidal hipped slate roof with massive gable dormers on the headmaster's house. Under authority of the local preservation ordinance, the Bellefonte Historical Architectural Review Board required the owner to replace the hipped roof, albeit without the gabled dormers. The main building continues to suffer from neglect and deferred maintenance, ranging from outdated mechanical systems to a problematic roofing system. Members of municipal government, including the historic preservation officer and code official, are working with the property owner to upgrade the condition of the building and residential units.

Significance
Built on a steep slope along the Allegheny River, St. Nicholas Catholic Church was the second church constructed for the first Croatian parish established in America in 1894. Designed by architect Frederick Sauer and completed in 1900, the Byzantine-inspired building's onion domes and turrets are commanding features of the historic hillside landscape that defines Pittsburgh's North Side. The church and its surrounding neighborhood contribute to the rich ethnic fabric of the city, continuing the traditions and culture brought first by 19th century Croatian immigrants and, more recently, by refugees from war-torn Croatia and Bosnia-Hercegovina who have also settled in the community.

Threat
The reconstruction of Route 28 long the Allegheny River is one of a number of major highway projects threatening the physical character of western Pennsylvania hillsides and the historic buildings and neighborhoods located on them. St. Nicholas Church is scheduled for demolition as part of the Route 28 widening. This project, as well as the construction of the Mon Fayette Expressway, are indicative of the incremental degradation of these hillsides and their scenic vistas by increasingly massive highway projects. Local preservationists are advocating for alternative approaches to transportation planning in the region. These include mass transit, more environmentally sensitive urban boulevards and legislation that would require protection of scenic view corridors.

Significance
Listed in the National Register in 1977 and certified as a National Engineering Landmark, the Kinzua Viaduct has been described as the "8th Wonder of the World". The 301-foot high, 2,033-foot long structure spans the Kinzua Gorge along the Route 6 Scenic Byway. It was originally constructed in 1882 by the Phoenixville Bridge Company for the New York, Lake Erie and Western Coal Railroad to transport coal, timber and oil resources. At the time of completion it was the longest and highest railroad bridge in the world. When the original structure became obsolete due to increased locomotive weights and transport loads, it was replaced in 1900 with a structure of identical overall dimensions. The viaduct remained part of an active freight line until 1959. In the 1960s it was purchased by the Commonwealth, and the Kinzua Bridge State Park opened in 1975. The Knox, Kane, and Kinzua Railroad now offers excursion rides from Marienville to the park giving visitors a spectacular scenic view of the gorge and the viaduct.

Threat
Despite ongoing efforts to keep the viaduct open, the one hundred year old structure is beginning to show signs of serious structural deterioration, including severe rusting in the lattice bracing, columns and main girders and the spalling of concrete piers. The Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, which owns and operates the Kinzua Bridge State Park, has joined with the McKean County Commissioners and Planning Commission, the Lumber Heritage Region, Allegheny National Forest Vacation Bureau and the Kinzua Bridge Foundation to apply for a Transportation Enhancement grant of $690,000 to address immediate structural concerns and strategic planning for future repairs and maintenance. Long term preservation of the viaduct will, however, require significant additional funding and support.

Significance
As the first and largest of the post WWII planned suburban communities, Levittown is nationally significant as a prototype endeavor and embodiment of the American Dream for middle class families throughout America. The creation of Levittown involved the mobilization of local and national government resources, the coordination of engineering and building technologies, and the deployment of modern real estate marketing in ways that shaped mass suburbanization and sprawl during the latter half of the 20th century.
The result of William Levitt's vision was 17,000 affordably priced homes with modern amenities such as radiant floor heating and modern kitchen appliances, located in neighborhoods with shopping centers, churches, schools, parks, and swimming pools. The Levittown Public Recreation Association (LPRA) building, which first served as construction headquarters for William Levitt & Sons during planning and construction of the community, features a 16,000 sq. ft. auditorium, meeting rooms and an outdoor amphitheater. The building ultimately became the focal point for cultural and social activities for the Levittown community.

Threat
As Levittowners begin to reflect on the community's 50th anniversary, the Levittown shopping center and LPRA building are in a state of transition. The once thriving shopping plaza and adjacent community center are proposed for demolition for construction of a large chain box store. The owner of the shopping center and the LPRA have an agreement of sale on the community building, but local activists and the Tullytown Borough Council want to save the LPRA building. Advocates for the building propose to use it as home for the 50th Anniversary Committee and the future site of a museum interpreting the importance of Levittown as a landmark suburban development.