 Hi, everyone. Welcome. We'll get started in just a minute as I wait for everyone to come in. When I'm just waiting for more people to enter before we get started. All right. I'm just going to go ahead and get started. Hi, everyone. Welcome back to the forum webinar series. My name is Priya Chhaya. I am the Associate Director for Content here at the National Transferser Preservation. And I'd like to welcome you to today's webinar on the title Basin and Context. In case you don't know, Preservation Leadership Forum is the professional membership program of the National Trust for Historic Preservation. This webinar series is made possible by members of Preservation Leadership Forum. And we sincerely thank all of you that are with us today. Today's webinar is also developed in partnership with the Trust for the National Mall and is the fourth in a series of conversations about the title Basin Ideas Lab and the changing nature of public space and the complexities of its preservation. This session will focus on the issues of funding in the public sphere. But before we begin, I have a few technical announcements for the webinar. And once I hand things off to our speakers, I'll be dropping links and this information in the chat box as well. First of all, we do have closed captioning as part of this webinar series. All you have to do is click on the CC button at the bottom of your screen and it'll get activated. We also will be taking questions from the audience during the webinar, but please send your questions via the Q&A function directly to the panelists. You're welcome to submit at any point during the webinar, but make sure you use the Q&A function and not the chat box. That way, they're all aggregated together. If you want to talk to each other during the session or if you have a problem, you can use the chat function to reach out to one of us directly. Following the program, we'll send out a link to the recording of today's webinar along with the three previous sessions directly to the email you used to register. And finally, all forum webinars are archived in our forum webinar library. Now, I'd like to introduce our other panelists for the webinar today. Donald Albrecht is an independent curator and author. His exhibitions and books have ranged from overviews of cultural trends to profiles of prominent visual and performing artists. He has worked for the Library of Congress, Wittred Design Museum, Cooper Hewitt's Smithsonian Design Museum, and the Museum of the City of New York, among other institutions. Thomas Mellons has curated exhibitions on a wide variety of architectural and cultural subjects from 400 years of residential architecture and the domestic life in America to the history of the New York Public Library. Additionally, he is the co-author of three volumes in an award-winning series of books on the architecture and urbanism of New York City. Following a brief presentation, Donald and Tom will be joined by Christy McLear, first CEO of Superblue and the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, and the Philip Johnson Glasshouse. We will also be joined by Katherine Townsend, president and CEO of the Trust for the National Mall, where all of them will have a conversation about funding in the public sphere. So now, I would like to turn over the program to Donald and Tom. Thank you very much. Each of our webinars is inspired by an online exhibition titled the Title Basin Ideas Lab, the homepage of which you see here, and it explores many aspects of the Washington, D.C. title basin, which is best known as the home of the Jefferson Memorial, the King Memorial, and other memorials, as well as the famous cherry trees, which were planted at the beginning of the 20th century. The site brings many, many strands of the title basin together, as well as new ideas of the title basin. It explores the contemporary and future challenges as well as the history of the title basin. Could I have the next image? The site has been the focus of many, many, many facets, engineering advances, architectural ideas, and landscape interventions since the end of the late 19th century. At that time in the 1880s, to stop the Potomac River, which is next to it from flooding the site, gates were built to regulate the water's flow. These gates formed today's title basin. Could I have the next image? For decades now, these gates have been inoperable and the site floods daily. The daily flooding is exacerbated by various factors. One is climate change and the rising waters of the Potomac River. The other is the sinking of Washington, D.C. due to significant geological shifts. Could I have the next image? Additionally, the site is subject to its own success. It's wildly popular for the sampling of tourists who flock to see the various memorials like Jefferson and King, as well as the famous cherry trees that blossom in the spring. Over a million people visit those cherry trees for a few weeks in the spring, and they are adding wear and tear to the site. Could I have the next image? If nothing is done, the site will be largely inaccessible and under water within decades. In response to those challenges? I think we want the next image. Oh, I'm sorry. Okay, great. In response to those challenges, the National Trust for Historic Conservation and the Trust for the National Mall initiated what they called an ideas lab to spark thoughts and proposals for the future of the title basin area. Next slide, please. They reached out to five landscape architects, prominent firms nationwide. They specifically were drawn, the trusts were drawn, to work with landscape architects as opposed to other professionals because landscape architects tend to think on a very large scale, both geographically and temporally. They're not just thinking about the immediate future of a specific site, but they're really often thinking regionally and 100, 200 years out. That kind of perspective seemed particularly appropriate for the title basin. The trust specifically did not hold a competition, a traditional design competition, where there would be a single winner. The notion of the ideas lab was that the firms could work more collaboratively, in a sense, less competitively, and that this different kind of process would inspire a range of responses from very practical to highly speculative. Here, for example, we see an aspect of the proposal by the D-Land firm, which is headed by Susanna Drake. It's a complex proposal, but what we're looking at right here is the creation of a new peninsula landmass into the title basin off of the Lincoln Memorial and moving the Martin Luther King monument. Now, there are two reasons for this change. One is to, has a practical dimension of bringing the monument to higher ground to protect it from rising waters, but the other is a conceptual dimension, which is to create a kind of imagined dialogue between Lincoln, the great emancipator, and King, the great leader of the modern civil rights movement. Next slide, please. Here we see a proposal by G.G.N., headed by Catherine Gustafson, and she took the lead at this particular project, and they focused on the specific vegetation of the area. And in addition to moving the cherry trees, again, sort of out of harm's way, they created a whole series of new forests and meadows often using native plants, including native flowering trees. And their proposal was staggered to be completed over a long period of time, a 70-year time span. Next slide, please. Reed Hildebrand, under project heads Gary Hildebrand and Eric Kramer, focused on site circulation as well as creating places for congregation. And they proposed a series of pathways, some of them at the level of the title basin and some of them elevated. And here we see both examples of both types of circulation systems, and they dubbed this proposed new elevated walkway, Independence Rise. Next slide, please. Walter Hood took a decidedly different approach, and he was interested in the narrative aspect of the site, and he imagined what he called a novella in four parts. The major interventions had to do with signage and different methods of uncovering the hidden histories of the site, and particularly of relevance to African-Americans and other groups that have not necessarily been able to see themselves reflected in the site. This particular image that we're looking at focuses on the notion of the Hush Harbor. This was a term that Donald and I were not familiar with, but it refers to areas of tidewater plantations where enslaved people were able to enjoy or exercise a slightly greater degree of autonomy, and were able to congregate and speak to each other, albeit in hushed voices. And it's in these wetlands that the Black Church originates in America. Okay, and the next slide. And the last of the proposals was by James Corner Field Operations, and they actually presented three different proposals of varying degrees of intervention from a more traditional preservation approach to a radical approach of letting the site actually flood and letting some of the monuments be submerged. What we're looking at here is the kind of in-between proposal where the site would partially flood or be allowed to flood and that it would be transformed into an archipelago with many of the monuments now occupying their own island. Next slide, please. In addition to presenting these, what we found to be really exciting proposals and provocative proposals, one of the principal goals of the exhibition of the site is advocacy, is to get the public engaged. And there are multiple ways of doing that in the exhibition throughout. There are surveys that one can fill out, as well as additional surveys at the end. There are opportunities to post pictures that people have taken documenting their experience of the tidal basin. You can submit written descriptions of your experience, and of course you can contribute financially. So now we are going to turn to our guest speakers and have them draw on their own experience and present some case studies reflecting their experience of funding public space. Catherine? Actually, it's Christy. I'll go first. Hi, everybody. I'm going to talk about four experiences I've had, and they're cases that relate directly to projects that have shoreline. Sometimes they have a public park aspect to them, and sometimes there is private funding overlays. So I actually thought I would speak a little bit about how you want to structure the consideration of your fundraising before I talk about fundraising sources. So the first case is actually in Chicago, and this is a project I worked on where we moved Lake Shore Drive to create this lakefront park. It's called the Museum Campus, and what's interesting about the Museum Campus is it was a precursor to a new model that was going to be explored for Millennium Park. So it was a park service land. It involved a sea dot and eye dot. It involved the Army Corps of Engineers, and it involved the three museums that rested on the park service land. So it's actually a fairly complicated partnership, but what was significant was all of these representatives from these organizations sat in the mayor's office once a week and worked through the construction and even the funding. So the infrastructure was funded through public funds, federal, state, and local, in addition to museums in the parks, and there was an additional overlay of private funding, which enhanced the ongoing operations, the programming, and the enhancements. So when you look at Millennium Park and you look at the amazing public art, that also was a public private partnership that brought additional funding to sort of enliven this lakefront park. If you'll go to the next slide. So that's an example of a really public case, and I'm going to show you two slides. This is a little bit more of mostly public, but some private. So this is the Philip Johnson Glass House. This is a 47 acre site where there are 14 buildings, and I'm sure a number of you have actually been there. And this, even though it is publicly accessible, a lot of the funding that we had to seek was private funding through fundraising, grants, foundations, and then we did get some federal funding and state funding for the basic infrastructure to open. If you go to the next slide, you'll see the sculpture garden, which was one of the, this is a building that was built in the 1970s. They recently refurbished the glass ceiling, which you can imagine was a major project. And what's encased in the boxes is the art. So here's an example of where the building requires state and local funding in addition to whatever they fundraised privately, but the art itself had to actually take a different fundraising approach, which required foundations, the artists themselves and the artist foundations, and then private funding as well. So there were several layers based on whether it was a building, part of the National Trust, or whether it was part of the art collection. If you'll go to the next slide. Just briefly, a project that's interesting that I worked on was the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation. We inherited from Rauschenberg. We brought into the foundation another about 50 acres down in Captiva, Florida, all of which was private. So all of the adaptive reuse we did to the structures there, we used private funds for. This particular house was the landmark house. It's called the Fish House and it was considered a landmark, but it also involved the Army Corps of Engineers because it was out into the water. So this required a different partnership than the rest of the renovation and restoration that happened on the residential campus. So this involved a much more complicated agreement. If you go to the next slide. And the last project I wanted to show you also included an interesting partnership and it included legal documentation. So this is the church in Sag Harbor. I worked with the artists Eric Fischel and April Gornick and we purchased this historic structure and we spent a long time trying to identify the right approach for this partnership. They invested their personal funds to renovate and restore this church. You can flip to the next slide. You'll see the interior, which is meant to be a public cultural asset. And in this, they formed a nonprofit that they established an operating agreement and the ongoing use will be operated through the nonprofit that is able to raise its own funds and be separate from the private funds that they invested in this structure. So I hope that this just goes to show you that there are a lot of different ways in which you might want to approach public funding, private funding, particularly if it relates to shorelines or parks or even enhanced public and private use. Thank you. So I'm going to turn it over to Catherine now. Thank you, Christie. So I'm going to talk a little bit about the National Park Service and our work with mobilizing both public and private funding. So just to start, the Trust for the National Mall, we're the leading nonprofit partner, a philanthropic partner of the National Park Service. We've been a partner since 2007 and we are one of, we are a partner of a park National Mall Memorial Parks Division of the Park Service. As some may know, there's about 423 parks across the country and there are a number of philanthropic partners who partner with the parks because park service knows that they have limited resources, government funding, and capital improvements, and innovation can only go so far. And so these philanthropic partners come in and can fill the gap. And the role of the philanthropic partners are not just about mobilizing public and private funding, it's also about bringing in-kind resources, expertise in subject matters, and innovation ideas, and just being a thought leader. And as the Trust, we work very closely to do restoration and sustainability projects, capital improvements to safeguard and restore the assets on the National Mall. We also do work with our volunteer program with the park service and do educational enrichment, civic engagement activities, and then we also work to innovate. So part of what the title based ideas lab is really around that theme of how do we bring expertise to the table and innovate. We know that we can't raise this fund through private funding, but we can help mobilize the public funds around this. So next slide. This just illustrates just our work since 2007. I'm not going to go through all these projects, but just to show you, since 2007, the amount of money and effort that the federal funds have been put in for capital improvement projects. This is not part of a line item for the park service. They have to actually, these kinds of projects take time. There's a federal appropriations process. There's, you know, their line item within the park service. And they have to basically on a list with all the other parks around the country. So under their general operations of management, if they can't get the funding, then it goes on a deferred maintenance list. And as we all probably recently heard, you know, and learned over the years that that deferred maintenance list has gotten up to $12 billion across the country, the national mall has the highest, one of the highest at over 600 million plus. So we know that there's going to be incredible need and not partners like the trust come in and help fund that. So you can see the list of private funding projects that we have done and also some of the joint federal and private together projects that we've done. So next slide. And also, I just wanted to say, and I'll say this in a second, but so this just illustrates some of those projects, the Washington Monument after the earthquake repair, after the earthquake damage. This was a combination of the donor and government funding coming together to help expedite this project. The Lincoln reflecting pool, the Jefferson Seawall repairs, the DC War Memorial, and most recently, the George Mason Memorial. These were all combinations of either solely private, a combination of public and private for all public. So I want to share that. So next slide. So this is I'm going to die deeper into a couple case studies. So this is obviously a pretty remarkable and significant project for a couple reasons. One of these iconic panels that are known across the world. So it was critical that these these have been suffering from just just the turf has been suffering for decades. And it really that was significant that it was part of the stimulus 2008 stimulus package that they actually contributed $40 million over a couple phases to get these panels done. And, you know, these were this was the ground, as you can see on the left is is was like cement, even at the ground breaking, they couldn't get the shovel in the ground. So it was a combination of public funding to get the work going. But the trust was able to inspire a number of experts from the Major League Baseball, National Football League, golf course, experts to put together about a million dollars in in time design work to really help create a more sustainable space going forward. So this isn't just turf rolled out. There is a whole system here of gravel and cisterns that are that are underneath for down four feet that collect rainwater about a million gallons of rainwater to support the irrigation efforts. There's also five different or multiple seeds to make the grass just sustainable going forward. So it was a really collective effort of strong expertise of public and private sources coming together. And it took about nine years. I mean, it was definitely something that was being advocated for before the stimulus came along. And then post that it took about nine years from start to finish to get those panels done in 2016 and their people. Next slide. And this is another example, the Law Keeper's House. This was a beautiful building today. It was a beautiful building, I'm sure, when it was built back in 1833. It's the oldest structure on the National Mall. It was the entry point to the city from the the Potomac into the Washington Canal that ran along Constitution Avenue. And it was the entry point for commerce. That's how commerce was initiated in the district. So it played a very important role. And then over the years just kind of faded away. And so for 40 years it was sitting empty, dilapidated and needed a complete overhaul. But it wasn't on the top priority list. So the trust came along, fully funded it with private funding. And what's unique about that with the trust is that we agreed that where we can manage the design and construction of this project. So we took it on 100%. And we were able to expedite it. So that's the strength with that opportunity and working very much in partnership with the Park Service to get this project completed. So we moved at 36 feet away from the dangerous corner, opened it up, created a beautiful opportunity for exhibits, which in October they'll be permit exhibits and ready to be opened. And it's really an opportunity now to preserve history and to now be used to tell the stories of the National Mall and the history of the National Mall and Commerce in the district. So we're really, really proud of that project. Next slide. So as we look to the future, it's really important, especially we're looking at the title base and ideas lab is what's going to happen next. And as for many don't know, the Great American Outdoors Act was passed in August of 2020. And it was the biggest investment in national parks in over 65 years. So I'm not going to go into each of these bullets, but the main takeaway, it's funding restoration funds for parks and Bureau of Land and Water Management and Fish and Wildlife Service, Bureau of Indian Education Schools, and also fully funded Land and Water Conservation Fund. But the key for the national parks is 6.65 billions going to be going into national parks over the next five years. So it's very exciting opportunity. And as you can see the National Mall, we have the highest deferred maintenance. We have an opportunity for some significant investments from this bill, from this law to actually fund many, many improvement projects gearing up to the 250th anniversary on July 4th. So as we look at the title basin, it's really important to actually, we've got to get the next steps is taking these incredible designs that are going to help feed sort of the process of the master planning process. So there's going to be a whole new process with the park service to get that plan in place for the title basin in the future of it. And it'll probably be another couple of years as we start to develop the different funding pools. So it's not all going to come from the Great American Outdoors Act. Some of it might come from transportation funding. Some might be lined out in park service funds. Some is going to be potentially some private funding depending on the projects and some other funding as well. So this is going to be an area that we will be looking at with the park service to look at the different funding streams in order to get the title basin project underway for both short term fixes and for long term innovative design. So that's where I think I'll just end is that on the last slide, just as a repeat, is that when we feel the trust and other partners with public lands, I have an opportunity to really do more than just help advocate for public funds, which we do a lot of and we will do for the title basin, but also bring private resources to the table both private and in kind. And then subject content expertise or design expertise. These design teams did an incredible job bringing innovation to the planning process and to help spark innovation in this area, which is going to be critical and obviously thought leadership. I mean, nothing can really happen. I think not to say nothing, but it's really important that organizations play a role in bringing change to public lands that can both preserve and protect and enrich. So we're excited to be a part of that process with the National Park Service and feel like we have some great success in the past and we have a lot of opportunity and going forward as we build towards making the National Law an incredible space for the 250th and beyond. So I'll end there to go to your questions and next steps. Thank you. That was wonderful. Thank you to both Christie and Catherine. I have so many ideas, so much information. I'm going to ask the first question. Yeah. Let me see. Okay. We hear a lot tonight and in the general media, the term public private partnership. And my question is, has it been with us since the building of the pyramids? Is it an ancient concept or is it one that has changed over time? And how has it changed? And what about the proportion between the public and private partnership idea? Can you give us the trajectory of this concept as it relates to funding the public sphere? So I guess I'll start and Christie, please chime in. I always start my presentations when I am introducing what the trust does and what's going on in the National Mall. Did you know that nearly every monument memorial in the National Mall has been funded in part by private philanthropy and people have this aha moment because they feel that government has always funded every monument memorial and therefore they need to continue to fund the monuments memorials. The number one example we can give is Washington Monument, which was, it actually is a visible example because the different shading, the first 152 feet of the Washington Monument was built by private philanthropy and then the rest was finished by the government to get it completed. There's a great ad that was going on in the early 1800s where when you go to the voting booth, put a dollar in to raise money for the George Washington Memorial. So the Washington Monument, the Washington Annual Monument Society is the organization that was started back then to actually raise money and that's the case across all the monuments memorials. They get, Congress passes a law that allows a commission to get started and then the commission is going on, goes off and raises money for the monuments memorials and they have to. So each of the monuments and memorials on the National Mall have a beautiful story about why that was kicked off with, like Martin Luther King was given 10 million to kick off the fundraising effort, but they raised 100 million to finish the project where we're choose the opposite. It's like 65 million in private sources and another 100 million in public sources. They're just different variations. The new Eisenhower Memorial the same. So there's always been a role for private philanthropy in public spaces and it's incredibly important. The government funding will not do it alone and they will not maintain it alone. We're actually moving into a lot of maintenance funding and creating maintenance funds so that we are a source going forward to keep for maintenance. And this is a, it's a, and I don't want to say uniquely, but this is a characteristic of American philanthropy, the public-private partnership, right? Yes. We hear that, I mean, when we talk to folks, now, you know, there are other countries that support projects in the United States. There has been historic examples of that. Statue of Liberty, 9-11 Memorial, things like that. But to the concept of philanthropy is really unique to the United States in some ways. And that there's not many other countries, but some countries it's just not a natural, it's just not a natural for citizens to feel they give back to public spaces. I don't know, Christy, if you had any experience with that. Well, I wanted to say that, you know, my earliest experience when I was in Chicago, it, so this was in the early to mid 90s. And it felt, it felt innovative to the city to have a public-private partnership to restore the lakefront and to enliven it with, you know, the Geary Man shell and the, you know, the Anish Kapoor bean, et cetera. But Chicago was very proud. It's a very, it's a city that has a really strong civic leadership. And, and if you contrast that to like Eric and April's project in Sag Harbor, which is very intimate, it's a very intimate project in a very small town. And both of these, you know, radically different sized projects required leadership at both levels to have a very personal engagement. And for there to be very clear boundaries in terms of what would we be contributing to the community? And what would the community be investing in? And that always kept the balance of power to be fair. And I think that's one of the critical things, whether it's a huge, you're moving a freeway and creating a park, or you're restoring a church for the community. And so that's one of the underlying factors that's, I think, defined success. Also, Christy, when we talked earlier, you mentioned that there is a difference between funding infrastructure and cultural funding. And the title basin is both. I mean, it's both water retention and it's major monuments. It's cultural and infrastructural. And it has been that way for decades. Yeah. So there's probably a little bit of this. What's the challenge? What is the unique challenge behind that hybrid model of culture and infrastructure? Yeah, I think even three parts. You have shoreline, climate change, park service, monuments and preservation. So you've got, when there's culture, there's very specific funding streams and projects that are infrastructure projects. And the more clear they are, the more expeditiously it can be funded and managed. And similarly, culture has its own funding buckets and its own patronage. And when you have these hybrid models, again, it requires like six parties at the table. And everybody's got to have this vision, this common vision in mind in order to manifest this destiny. Otherwise, it would be too easy to assume that somebody else was going to take the reins of responsibility for that. The title base, and I was just going to add, you said monuments and memorials. We also have the cherry trees. So the cherry trees are this symbol of friendship and rebirth and just this energy of positive springtime that just millions come down or 1.5 million come down to visit, at least pre-pandemic. But you know, we have to figure out how do you preserve that cultural. And also, what Tom and I found interesting in curating the online exhibition, what makes the title basin really distinctive is that combination between the permanent monument and the ephemeral landscape, which isn't just trees, but it's trees that flower for two, three weeks. So that's extreme permanence and extreme ephemerality that gives it its unique character. Yeah, that's interesting. And we're just happy we're being able to, this ideas lab has brought such attention to this area, not beyond just visiting it for the cherry blossoms, making people really realize the scope of what's happening to this area that people don't understand and need to understand and need to be addressed. So it's been a very, very important project. I actually thought that all of these tensions were illustrated pretty well in all of the projects that people came because there were all sorts of ideas, whether it was like how the shoreline was realigned or down to the programmatic experience. Some people just focused on that aspect of it. So the projects really did a great job of highlighting that complexity. Some people did broad gestures, building jetties and moving land masses and statues, and other people kind of largely kept the site and worked within the context through and to change with vegetation and the gestures were less infrastructural. But the range is fascinating and they each mix in their own way a very interesting, individually they're interesting mixes and taken as a group. They're interesting to see the menus that are possible, the menu items that are possible. Right, right. Yeah, and I think that's the results from the surveys are really helpful to the park service because it's really helped, they're taking elements and thinking about these elements. And even to the point where it's to fund this, it's not just going to be one big, you know, check from the government, right, it's going to be a combination of sources from different, this is going to be a really interesting funding model, different from what we've done in the past to actually see this vision through. And there is going, what's nice is that there will be a private element potentially to it, depending on those elements, so that individuals can really be a part of it because they care so much about this area. Well, to go back to that issue of public private and to sort of take a step back and maybe discuss it, address it in a slightly different way. Some people have argued that the term public-private partnership is in some way misleading because it de-emphasizes the central role of government in really jump-starting public projects. And so the question is, do you think that such partnerships diminish, in a sense, our democracy by diluting the government efforts? Or, in fact, do they do the opposite? Do they strengthen our democracy by decentralizing power and allowing for multiple voices and perspectives? Or are they doing both things at once? And that's a question for both of you, Catherine and Christie. Yeah, I'm a believer in the latter. Obviously, I mean, I think that that project I had in Chicago was the most similar to this. And in many ways, it distributed the ownership of the outcome. And I think that in Chicago, particularly, you know, when people really wanted it to be world-class because Chicago, that was the civic mindset of that project. You know, it wasn't going to be a, you know, a Geary Banshell wasn't going to be a public park service choice, but it was the private choice in order to make a cultural statement. And so, you know, that was ownership. Yeah. I would just add to that. I agree. And I, you know, these are national treasures, right? These are public spaces and parks and their symbols of connection, right? And the national, just as an example of the National Mall, it's just people need to, you know, once they know, then they're like, wow, I can participate. I can give. I can feel connected. It creates connection. And there's so many different ways. It doesn't have to be just about money. There's different ways for people to help and support. And just in my background and other things I've done besides the trust for the National Mall, it's once you can, it's the excitement about mobilizing people to get engaged and get involved. It's more meaningful. You get them hooked in long term and you get incredible change. The impact is much greater, I guess I would say. So sometimes it gets sparked by the government. They seed it, but then, or it might have to be started by a private effort and then it's finished by government. We've seen different examples on the National Mall. It's beautiful either way because the outcome is what we want. We want, we want change. And, you know, the Lockkeeper's House is an example. It's nothing no one cared about it. It just sat at the bottom of an heavy, heavy maintenance list. And how are you going to tackle it all? There's $12 billion in deferred maintenance. Most of that is infrastructure challenges in parks and hopefully money, this additional money from the Great American Outdoors Act can help support that, but it's not going to end the, end the challenge. You know, they're still going to be public. There's still going to be needs from the private, from private citizens and private organizations coming together to help leverage that federal money to make, to make a difference in the public spaces. You know, another thing is, I think you could call it partner, partner, partnership, you know, instead. And because I also think some of these, yeah, the, you know, in, in Sag Harbor, there are a lot of partnership, cultural partnerships that are, that are happening in order to defer or defray some of the operating costs. So this is really about strengths and community and what, what the end goal is. So, you know, those external partnerships were super important also. Right. Yeah. And in fact, what we're doing too is we're not just building some of these spaces, we're actually helping to maintain them now to, and to help with programming and to make sure there's a volunteer energy and core there that's sustainable, not just, oh, we had money today, we don't have tomorrow, but like, what can we create that creates these public spaces that are more sustainable and enriching going forward? That seems critical to me. Yeah. So we are at about 6.15 and we want to leave time for questions. Yeah. Should we, should we ask a final question or do you want to go right to questions? You've been keeping the questions. So we, we actually just have one in the Q&A box right now. So remember, if you have any questions right now, feel free to jump them in, drop them in to the Q&A box on your control panel at the bottom of the screen and I'll ask them. But this first question is in particularly about funding, but it's about process, which I think we've touched on a little bit, but it's from John and he wants to know, you said the cherry blossoms in the title basin are very special to all of us who live in DC and all of us who care about our relationship with Japan. Some of the ideas, lab concepts understand that, but others want to change it completely. Who will make the decision about what to do and what is the process? Yeah. That's, that's, it's a great question, John. And I would say, you know, just because the designs had some provocative changes or some new ways to think about the trees, it doesn't mean that the park service does those plans. And part of this is that the park service is going to take these ideas, the feedback. There's a lot of good feedback from the surveys. There's a lot of stakeholder feedback and they're going to take a look at all this. There is this, they will definitely be a preservation of those cherry trees. And part of what this process is, is that how do we widen the, how do we make better walkways and pathways for the cherry, for the cherry tree walk so that visitors don't stomp on the roots and cause issues. But, and yes, some of the designs have, have been really move them to a safer spot so that more people can enjoy them. So, you know, the decision really will be the national park service through their master planning process. And it's, it's really multiple years in planning. And there's going to be more public feedback and comments. But right now there's no plan to move those cherry trees around the tidal basin. But there will be a lot of things that need to be taken into consideration, depending, based on the fact of what's happening with this region because of climate change and over the year. So, you know, there's going to be this short term plan over the next 10 to 20, maybe over 50. And then we've got, you know, some of the plans actually pushed and suggested looking at a 100 year plan. So a lot of really good feedback for the park service to look at. But ultimately the park service with feedback from the public makes that decision. I hope that one. Sorry. How, how might people, what is the best avenue in addition to taking the survey on this website, posting your Instagram feeds to show the public's interest and that you can use to go to Congress with that interest, that, that momentum. What other means are there for the public to get involved? And not just in Washington, but in their own cities. Like said, Harbor, what are the avenues for people to get involved? Catherine, do you want to say anything specific to that? I asked you that, Sag Harbor. So I wanted to answer first. Well, you know, I, I always have the philosophy that everyone has a strength to share. And if you, you know, there's just different ways that people can engage. You might have an expertise that can be incredibly helpful. You could volunteer. You know, you could help with, you know, obviously, for volunteering, there's participant committee, you can obviously donate to them to the effort to the projects help with, you know, we're not an advocacy organization. You know, that's not our bylaws, but, you know, we do do some and we will continue to do that, but we don't mobilize. We don't mobilize people to, on behalf of the National Mall, but to advocate. But, you know, there's, there's just different ways are, you know, our, our recommendation is just, you know, look us up, contact us. And if you have a way that you want to engage and be supportive, we're, we're all open. I think everybody has a chance to play a role in public spaces. So I did see, I saw in looking at the chat box, I saw a comment about somebody wondering about the role of the wealthy individual. And while that's a politically charged question, has that changed over time? And is the mix of the wealthy person and the individual donor changed in proportion and changed in relation to each other in the funding of national monuments? So it's the question that, is it only the wealthy that support the projects? Yeah, so the comments actually say, yeah, so it's when you were talking about money and the involvement of private versus public. And the question was, it was a comment that said, but isn't that limiting involvement to the wealthy versus the general public? I got it. And I would say, no, it's not. Everyone can. I mean, every dollar counts. I don't mean to sound like that sounds cliche, but it's every dollar does count. I'll use the example, but this is something we're trying to do with the trust to engage folks that they can get involved at any donation level. You know, we obviously go out, seek philanthropists, because sometimes we can get larger dollars quicker and then they'll invest and donate towards a whole design plan and we can get it done, we can expedite much more quickly. But every dollar counts. I'll give the example of the Statue of Liberty. I remember that, but when they were renovating the Statue of Liberty, Lee Iacoco was asked to share that. He said everyone can contribute. So he was getting bags of change from children and $10 million checks from companies. It didn't matter. They raised $400 million in four years. And the end game was that everybody can contribute to it. So it made a big difference. He did not, and we do not, see that philanthropists are the answer, just the wealthy of the wealthy to help make this happen. We've seen some incredible support. Sometimes a small gift can leverage more gifts. And there's all different ways that people can get involved. And just supporting the organization, this is something that always gets left off sometimes, is that sometimes we're only talking about a restoration project when you're talking about public spaces, but the organizations behind those efforts always need support. So that's really critical. And if the organization's not there, the project can't move forward, the effort, the effort of the partnership can't move forward. So a lot of times people think, I just, if it's, if you're doing this big restoration project, oh, that's, that's for the millionaires, but it's not. Or you can just give to the organization to help support the general operation so that the organization is sustainable and doesn't go away. Those are really important, incredible, incredibly important parts, elements to the success of, of, of those kinds of fundraising. Yeah. And Catherine, I did want to add to your earlier conversation about advocacy is the National Trust for Historic Preservation does do a lot of advocacy work on behalf of public lands generally. So you can always sign up for our government relations newsletter to keep track of what's going on there. And I'll drop the link in or I'll share it in the email you get afterwards. So you can keep up to date on what's happening on our end with that material. I also do period. We, if you could drop our, yes, well, people can sign up for our newsletter. And yes, we keep people up to speed on what our projects are doing. And, and definitely make sure to add both of our information to that email. And then I didn't want to forget that earlier in the presentation, we refer to one of the studios as just a land. The, the studio's name is actually the land studio. So I wanted to make sure to put that correction in there. And Susanna actually had a question about, because we have about a minute for one last one is if funding gets allocated to the title basin project, how will you decide what to prioritize and what to do? And we actually have like two or three minutes to be a little bit longer, but I just wanted to ask that. If funding is prioritized to the title basin, what, what's the second part? Sorry, if funding gets allocated to the title basin project, how will you decide slash prioritize what to do? Or how will those decisions be made? Got it. So the park service has a very systematic process with big infrastructure projects like this. And this is going, this is requiring a master planning process. So the ideas lab has, has been an effort for the trust to inspire innovation when the park service goes to do that process. So it's not just a baseline fix. We can look at things more holistically, look at things to plan for in the future. So as they go into this master planning process, we hope to continue to be a part that the outcomes from the ideas lab help feed the process because they're going to go through another round of public hearings and, and as part of their process. And then they're going to start to design what's sort of this short term and then some of the long term elements that they're going to incorporate. So then there's a price tag around that, then the funding comes. So the funding kind of comes to support the master plan and the designs that come from that. So I think I know how you're asking that, but we're, but it, it, it's not that a bunch of money comes and then decisions are made from that. I think it's, they're going to be a decision around what's the short term fix and let's get funding for that. And then the next stage will be this as part of the master plan, let's look at what are the other, what are the other changes and design elements that we're incorporating and what's the price tag around that and let's get money for that. But it's a little bit, it's, I think it's going to be the design and the cost then come the money versus the other way around. I think that's what I was thinking. How would the money come in and then how would you make decisions? So anyways, answer that. All right, so I think there's a few closing images. Yeah, I just want to see if Christie, you unmuted yourself. So did you have something you wanted to add? Yeah, I just, there are a couple of things that kind of weave these together. And I think, as it relates to broad based support, I mean, I think that the first phase of a large, complicated project like this is just ensuring that it, it has priority, that it is people's priority. And that, you know, I used to do a map. I do like a big like, who are the stakeholders here? You know, is it like it's everybody from the obvious partners to people as you distribute the ownership of it, you know, to anybody who comes through to people who go to the Kennedy Center, which has, it's not even nearby, but it's really about owning a piece of our country's history. So I just think the first thing is about priority. And to me, that is about people owning it on a really broad basis because it's about awareness, which is both marketing and, you know, this, this ideas forum is great because it gets people thinking about what the possibilities are beyond just the fix itself. So I just, I thought that was important to say. I have to say, when you look at it on a community scale, like in Sag Harbor, Donald, your question, when you look at what April Gornick led the community to raise the money for the Sag Harbor Cinema, it came from thousands of people, thousands and thousands of $5 donors. And that was about it serving the public. So, you know, it just goes back to who owns it. Right. Yeah. Just before we go to the last images, I think we have just a few minutes. I, Donald and I wanted to thank everyone who's been involved with this project because these webinars, since this is the last one, we just wanted to say how much we've enjoyed doing these. And thank you, Christie and Catherine for your contributions today. And one of the things that was just so striking to, I think, both Donald and myself is how relevant all of these questions are. We didn't actually realize when we started this project that we would be head on discussing the relationship of public space to political activism, the relationship of public space to climate change, the relationship of public space to the meaning of monuments. And then today, issues of how government and the general public, the public and the private sectors coordinate. All of these issues, I think, are really prominent in public discourse today. And they're distilled in this project. And it's been a pleasure to be able to tackle some of them. So thank you to everyone involved. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for having us. Pleasure. And thank you, Donald and Tom for all the work you've done. Our pleasure. Yeah. Thank you, Tom and Donald, you guys for, this was great. Thank you for doing the ideas lab websites. Fabulous. I hope everybody continues to check it out. Great. So we just have a couple of closing slides. So first of all, keep talking, keep the discussion going. We have an online community called Forum Connect. It is free and open to everyone. And you can find it at the URL on the screen, which is also forum dot saving places dot org slash forum. I think connect conversations this week have been about infill or lead paint in a historic church. And it really ranges and varies from day to day. I'm the community manager, so I'll be checking that out. And I am always very happy when people join us. Next, keep learning. We have another webinar coming up in a month as part of our Brown versus Board of Education advocacy work. This one's called Before Brown versus Board, a look at Dred Scott v. Sanford and Plessy v. Ferguson. And that registration link is on that webinar link that I posted right before I started talking, but I'll also include that in the follow up email. And finally, thank you so much for joining us for this and the three previous webinars on the title basin. For more information on preservation leadership forum, go to forum dot saving places dot org. And if you have any questions at all, you can email us at forum online at saving places dot org. Thank you, everyone for coming today. And again, keep an eye out for that follow up email. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks, everybody.