Misplaced Pages

One more question

We have Category:Warehouses on the National Register of Historic Places and Category:Registered Historic Places of religious function, but nothing for any other types of buildings. Would it be reasonable to have a Category:Houses on the National Register of Historic Places or Category:Residences on the National Register of Historic Places? I'd create such a category, but I don't want to create a new scheme without input. Nyttend (talk) 23:02, 25 December 2008 (UTC)

I don't know much about categories, but it would seem to me that "Houses on the NRHP" would be too broad to be useful; there would be about 50,000 of them i suppose if it was attached to historic districts and any NRHP property that has a house involved. Arent't most NRHPs houses? There are categories like "Houses in New York" already, too, but i don't think there is "NRHP houses in New York" or anything just like that. doncram (talk) 01:51, 27 December 2008 (UTC)

"NRHP houses in New York" might be useful for the many people who are interested in details of residential living (architecture, gardening, cooking …). Such a category could be a subcategory of both "NRHP houses" and "Houses in New York". Category naming conventions should be applied to the name, if it is to be created. -- SEWilco (talk) 06:31, 27 December 2008 (UTC)

Agreed, that'd be the way to do it. There are over 250 house/homes on the Register here in Florida. If you figured an average of 200 per state, that's about 10,000 right there. It'd only be manageable as subcategories, imho. I think it's a good idea. --Ebyabe (talk) 16:09, 27 December 2008 (UTC)

I've put all the houses I could find in Alaska, Delaware, Idaho, Kansas, Montana, New Hampshire, Ohio, Utah, Vermont, and Wyoming into state-level house categories: Kansas and Ohio because I've been working with them a lot lately, and the others because there were only a few houses with articles. I was going to do Hawaii, too, but there aren't any houses with articles. Hopefully this is a good start; perhaps you working with New York, Florida, and other states can expand this to your states too.

On a somewhat related note: as there's already the Category:Registered Historic Places of religious function, I decided to create a New Hampshire subcategory. Remembering SEWilco's note to heed the current naming conventions, I didn't go with "Registered Historic Places of religious function in New Hampshire", but with the (admittedly somewhat absurd) Category:Buildings of religious function on the National Register of Historic Places in New Hampshire. Is this an appropriate name, or is there another name that would fit better? The only other state-level religious buildings category (Oregon) is no help, as it's "RHPs of religious function in OR". If there's a better name, I'll be happy to change it, so we can go for speedy renaming. Nyttend (talk) 15:35, 28 December 2008 (UTC)

Florida houses are done. And updating my comment above, there are 298 homes/houses in the category. --Ebyabe (talk) 17:49, 28 December 2008 (UTC)

I actually think Nyttend's solution to the religious building naming controversy works. We'll just have to create a separate category for "Sites of religious function ..." to allow for a lot of the Native American sacred sites. Daniel Case (talk) 18:13, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

(unindent)I don't think we should reinvent the wheel when we can make our categories fit into what has already been developed elsewhere in WP. There's already a category structure under Category:Architecture that should suit our needs. We can replicate as much of that structure as makes sense under Category:National Register of Historic Places. So we would have something like:

 Category:National Register of Historic Places
   Category:Architecture on the NRHP
     Category:Buildings and structures on the NRHP
       Category:Bridges on the NRHP
       etc...
       Category:Housing on the NRHP
         Category:Apartment buildings on the NRHP
           Category:Apartment buildings on the NRHP in Alabama
           etc...
         Category:Houses on the NRHP
           Category:Houses on the NRHP in Alabama
             Category:Houses on the NRHP in Birmingham, Alabama
             etc...
           etc...
         etc?... (we may not need any other subcategories for housing)
       etc...
       Category:Religious architecture on the NRHP
         Category:Religious buildings on the NRHP
           Category:Places of worship on the NRHP
             Category:Chapels on the NRHP
             etc...
             Category:Church buildings on the NRHP
               Category:Churches on the NRHP in Alabama
               Category:Churches on the NRHP in Alaska
               etc...
               Category:Churches on the NRHP in New York
                 Category:Churches on the NRHP in New York City
                   Category:Churches on the NRHP in Brooklyn
                   etc...
                 etc...
               etc...
             Category:Mosques on the NRHP
             etc...
             Category:Synagogues on the NRHP
               etc...
               Category:Synagogues on the NRHP in New York
               etc...
             etc...
   etc etc etc ...

If there are too few NRHP churches in Alaska, they can be categorized under Category:Church buildings on the NRHP until there are enough to warrant a separate subcategory.

We should also make our categories subcategories within the Category:Architecture structure. For example, Category:Churches on the NRHP in Alabama should be a subcategory of Category:Churches in Alabama and Category:Mosques on the NRHP should be a subcategory of Category:Mosques in the United States. --sanfranman59 (talk) 19:47, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

Category:Religious properties on the National Register of Historic Places

RE the above: Do we then want to go ahead and create

• Category:Churches on the National Register of Historic Places
• Category:Cathedrals on the National Register of Historic Places
• Category:Synagogues on the National Register of Historic Places
• Category:Mosques on the National Register of Historic Places

Einbierbitte (talk) 16:54, 28 December 2008 (UTC)

If we do, I'd suggest starting with the churches category, as that would probably the most populated one. --Ebyabe (talk) 17:52, 28 December 2008 (UTC)

Are there mosques on the NRHP? The idea of having this fourfold scheme sounds good to me, and (given that the NRHP really isn't that diverse religiously) I doubt that we'd need to make a category for other kinds of religious buildings. By the way, what about my statewide category: is it a good thing, or do you think it better to do otherwise? Nyttend (talk) 23:57, 28 December 2008 (UTC)

I say yes, the current category Registered Historic Places of religious function is so overpopulated that it isn't very useful at present. I definitely think that we could use a Churches on the National Register of Historic Places in Alabama subcategory. It would be easily populated. I would assume that the other states have similar needs. Altairisfar_talk 02:32, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

Oh, absolutely use per-state categories. We might not need them for synagogues and mosques, though, as I don't believe there are anywhere near as many on the Register as churches. Don't think we need to create categories with only a very few articles in them, imho. --Ebyabe (talk) 03:18, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

I've added a lot of articles to Category:Registered Historic Places of religious function, knowing that these would be changed at some point, but realizing it would be much easier to find them for renaming if they're all in this huge category. Form there we could decide how to break them up. In addition to the churches, cathedrals, temples, and mosques, we need to cover religious schools and cemeteries.--Appraiser (talk) 16:45, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

Two more questions: is it good to have an overall "religious" for a state, or just "churches", etc., and if so, is the name format that I used for New Hampshire good, or is there something better? I'm not trying to be impossible-to-please; it's just that I don't feel like placing categories only to find that they need to be renamed. Nyttend (talk) 03:29, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

I'm working on Florida ones now. I'm beginning to think just the overall state category might be enough. Doing churches/synagogues/mosques could be overcategorizing. --Ebyabe (talk) 03:55, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

So just a "Religious properties on the National Register of Historic Places in ___particular state___" or something similar for now? Sounds good to me. Altairisfar_talk 04:19, 29 December 2008 (UTC) I followed your lead and did Alabama with "Buildings of religious function on the National Register of Historic Places in Alabama." So now Alabama, Florida, and New Hampshire are done. Altairisfar_talk 06:26, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

And Rhode Island. Nyttend (talk) 15:11, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

Mosques on the NRHP

For what it's worth, there are just a handful of mosques on the NRHP. Using Elkman's search tools on likely keywoods such as mosque, muslim, and islam yields just:

• Mother Mosque of America, oldest US mosque, in Cedar Rapids, Iowa
• Abou Ben Adhem Shrine Mosque, not an Islamic mosque, but rather a Shriners building in Springfield, MO
• (Mosque of the El Jebel Shrine, in Denver, CO, not on the US mosques list, not sure what that is

The whole List of mosques in the United States covers just 35 notable mosques, of which some may possibly be current or future NRHPs. doncram (talk) 05:27, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

Apparently the Mosque of the El Jebel Shrine is also a Shriners building, which implies that there's exactly one actual religious mosque on the NRHP. A lonely category indeed. Andrew Jameson (talk) 11:41, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

NRHP categories on Commons

Hey, the NRHP photo categories available on Commons could be cleaned up, and there's some filing away of photos that could be done there. See http://commons.wikimedia.org/Category:National_Register_of_Historic_Places. doncram (talk) 01:46, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

Hm, the state ones should probably be changed now to match what's here on Misplaced Pages. It can be done by a bot. I had them done for Florida a few months ago, as can be seen here. Ironic, actually, since the way I'd been naming the categories originally. :) --Ebyabe (talk) 02:43, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

I agree, they need to be changed. I had made up one that complied with our naming structure here on en.wikipedia, and someone was "nice" enough to rename it to the wrong name to comply with the rest of the structure. They didn't ask me about it, they just did it. Hmmm. Royalbroil 03:29, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

As I've worked on creating county and city tables here, I've tried to categorize images over at Commons along the way. I did a whole bunch of work on photos of NRHPs & NHLs in California. But there's still a huge amount of work to be done. Unfortunately, many contributors to Commons don't bother adding categories (or even descriptions) to their photos when they upload them, making it almost impossible to match them up with articles here. --sanfranman59 (talk) 18:27, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

Yet another question: contributing properties

Are contributing properties notable? This Masonic temple is part of the Rock Springs Downtown Historic District in Rock Springs, Wyoming, and not listed on the NRIS or Elkman or nationalregisterofhistoricplaces.com. I don't know that it's a contributing property (or more to the point, how to find out whether it is or not), although judging by the picture in the article it's probably one of the classical revival structures that led to the district being listed in the first place. At the moment, the only source appears to be from the temple's website, and as it's apparently not a specifically listed property, I doubt that we could have the necessary sources unless it's notable for non-NRHP reasons. Nyttend (talk) 01:16, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

Hold up, it's a copyvio; as an admin, I'm speedy deleting for copyvio reasons. You non-admins can still see everything: the text of the article is the first paragraph (minus the last sentence) of this, the main page of the lodge website, and the picture is a copyvio of this image. Awaiting opinions... Nyttend (talk) 01:21, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

I rather expect it is indeed a contributing property, as similar lodge buildings are in many other historic districts. You would confirm that by getting the NRHP nomination document for the Rock Springs Downtown Historic District, which will detail all the contributing and non-contributing properties. It's free. :) doncram (talk) 01:46, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

The author of the page, Leveck, may be the owner of the content in question. The copyright notice at rockspringslodge12.org says to contact leveck at sign rockspringslodge12.org. As far as whether or not it's a contributing property, I can't tell that for certain. It probably is, given the description and the fact that rockspringslodge12.org has a photo of their NRHP plaque. I found a narrative description of the district by going to and searching for "Rock Springs", but it doesn't contain a list of contributing properties.

In general, I think a contributing property to a historic district is notable, though there's a decision to be made between writing a separate article versus just including that property in the district's article. There are probably many houses on Summit Avenue (the Historic Hill District) that have enough research material for their own articles. On the other hand, Gooseberry Falls State Park is part of a historic district that contains 88 contributing properties, but I don't think I'd write separate articles about the concourse (the "Castle in the Park"), the water tower, the refectory, the kitchen shelter, and so on. It boils down to how much research material is available for a given property, as well as how long an article can be made from it. (Which reminds me: Gooseberry Falls State Park could probably use a lot more description of its CCC buildings, as well as pictures. The existing article is kind of thin in that regard.) --Elkman 02:49, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

Nyttend seems pretty good at rounding up references. Congrats on getting GA rating for super-well-referenced Southworth House (Cleveland, Ohio). As the promoter said "Great job improving the article thus far; we need more "short" articles such as this. Congratulations". :) doncram (talk) 07:00, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

Odd Fellows Hall

A proposal has been made to merge the various Odd Fellows Hall disambiguation pages. The discussion can be found at Talk:Odd Fellows Hall. Oh, and Happy New Year, all. :) --Ebyabe (talk) 01:23, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

Delisted property guidelines

After a brief search, I didn't find any consistency in application nor a guideline for what should happen to articles that cover now delisted properties. There is a list to add them to but unless it was a NHL there does not seem to be cat, so those on the list that were only NRHP are still in the regular NRHP cat, and many still have the NRHP infobox. Is there a guideline of some sorts for dealing with this, and if not, shouldn't there be one? My brief proposal would be something like this:

• Edit the infobox to include a field for "delisted", and get a infobox guru to then make it alter the title of the infobox to add "Former" to the text at the top of the infobox when the "delisted" field is used.
• Create a cat for former NRHP, though not sure if there would be a need to break it down by state.
• Then outline what is to be done, including (going by what I found in the archives here) moving the listing from the state/county listing to a separate section in that listing, and adding the entry to the aforementioned delisted list.

Hopefully this project can take on this minor issue. Aboutmovies (talk) 08:29, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

Hey, thanks for the well-put suggestions. Yikes, i see that it was i who created List of delisted National Register of Historic Places properties, in October 2008, many moons ago. Since creating that, it has become more clear to me that there are lots and lots and lots of NRHP delistings, perhaps too many to list there. Creating nation-wide categores for NHL delistings and for NRHP delistings is certainly appropriate, i think. Actually i think there are so many NRHP delistings that state-specific categories for NRHP delistings is probably merited, but I would be happy to leave the decision to subdivide a nation-wide category to categorization specialists. Should the nation-wide categories be: "Category: Delisted National Register of Historic Places properties and districts" and "Category: De-designated United States National Historic Landmarks"? I'd be very glad if someone would create the relevant categories.

And yes, absolutely, a guideline for dealing with delistings should be included in wp:NRHPMOS, including recommendation to list in a separate section/(move delistings to a separate section) in state/county NRHP lists of RHPs. Yes, also, a variation upon the NRHP and NRHP2 infobox templates should be created. Thanks for the suggestions! doncram (talk) 18:00, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

I think we should have a separate infobox color and banner for these as well. Daniel Case (talk) 07:16, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

Update: Created Category:Former National Register of Historic Places to mirror Category:Former National Historic Landmarks of the United States, but may need a re-name. Will check with the infobox project to see if one of them can update the NRHP infobox. Aboutmovies (talk) 07:44, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

Creation of that category was a good initiative. As you note, however, the category will need to be renamed. A property that was formerly listed on the National Register of Historic Places is not a "former National Register of Historic Place", as the current name implies. I'd like to suggest Category:Former National Register of Historic Places listings
Whatever that category is called, when articles are added to it, please don't remove those articles from the NRHP categories for the geographic area in which the property is located. The fact that a property is no longer on the Register does not mean that it is no longer a place of interest in the city, county, or state where it is located. --Orlady (talk) 15:26, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

That's okay. We here can edit the NRHP and/or NRHP2 infoboxes. It just takes some motivation, and a couple decisions: what color for the delisted properties in the infobox header? One shade of light gray, being somber, was already used for National Memorials in our color key. Maybe no color? Also, need a field for delisting date. Also need a . Will try applying a temporary NRHP3 version on delisted property Odalen Lutherske Kirke. Check it tomorrow and comment pls. doncram (talk) 10:24, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

I know anyone can make the edit (except its edit protected), but it was more of the technical know-how with getting the template to add "Former" to the title and change the color if the delisted field for either NHL or NRHP was used. If you have the know how, go for it. I suggested silver for the color. If you are also an admin, I wrote the code for the fields if you want to update that too? Aboutmovies (talk) 10:47, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

(edit conflict) We have 2 templates in use; the NRHP template which is the default implemented by Elkman's tool, and the NRHP2 template which handles variations such as including a map as well as a photo. We've used the NRHP3 template as a testing ground for changes to be implemented into the NRHP2 infobox. Okay, i just tried editing the current NRHP3 infobox and applying it on delisted property Odalen Lutherske Kirke. There's no obvious way to turn off the NRHP blue color or to change the top two fields, at least not to me. For a new delisted banner, below, I tried applying color "Gray", which turns out pretty dark for me. Date "delisted=" field works okay. But there are some other obvious glitches which need to be fixed (I wonder if dudemanfellabra could help here again). And feedback about what specifically is really wanted is needed. Aboutmovies, feel free to experiment with the NRHP3 infobox if u like. doncram (talk) 11:01, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

I fixed the one error, then made some cosmetic changes, wording. Aboutmovies (talk) 11:37, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

Doncram asked me how many properties have been removed from the National Register. I checked the database, and there are 1508 properties that have been removed from the National Register (i.e. their status is 'RN'). In Minnesota alone, there are 116 properties that have been removed. I'm not sure it would be practical to create lists for each state, or to include them in each county, but we could create articles about the more notable properties that were removed, as appropriate. Here are a few examples from Minnesota:

• Forum Cafeteria in Minneapolis - demolished to make way for the bland City Center building, although the interior of the cafeteria was restored and placed inside City Center
• The previous High Bridge (St. Paul) - demolished because it was obsolete and unsafe, replaced by a new bridge
• The previous Wabasha Street Bridge - ditto
• Selby Avenue Bridge - same story
• Dania Hall in Minneapolis - burned
• Bridge No. L3040 in Belle Plaine, Minnesota - demolished because farmers kept driving bigger and bigger trucks over an 1878 bridge

There are a lot of others, of course. --Elkman 14:43, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

Agreed that some are notable enough, for example Plunketts Creek Bridge No. 3 was removed after its destruction following a 1996 flood, but as it is also listed on the Historic American Engineering Record, there is enough info on it that I plan to take the article to FAC soon. I also wrote and got a copy of its NRHP file from the NPS, including material on the delisting. Ruhrfisch _><>° 14:53, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

Two CFDs where input from editors here is needed

A while back when I created the "Buildings by former use" category to hold subcats for the many fire stations and schools on the Register that aren't being used for those purposes anymore, among other building types, I added train stations and churches.

Well, after a little New Year revert-warring between myself and User:Carlaude, who thinks we shouldn't distinguish categorically between congregations that have dissolved and buildings they no longer use (see an NHL, Dutch Reformed Church (Newburgh, New York), for an instance of a former building of a still-extant congregation, and I know there are others), we've taken it to CFD.

See Misplaced Pages:Categories for discussion/Log/2009 January 3#Category:Former churches for my proposal to rename that category to make it clearer that it refers to churches as organizations and not the bricks and mortar. Carlaude's is at Misplaced Pages:Categories for discussion/Log/2009 January 2#Category:Former church buildings proposing to delete the category I created. Daniel Case (talk) 07:14, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

Splitting a single city

Help! I decided to put Philadelphia into a table, since every other Pennsylvania county (Philadelphia is a consolidated city-county) had a nice table. However, I just found that there are about forty listings too many: at listing #480, it passes the maximum number of templates, so every listing from #480 to #521 doesn't display properly. I know how to deal with this normally, as it's the same problem I encountered with Kansas as noted above, but there's nothing of Philadelphia to split out from Philadelphia: it's one city in one county. I note what Pubdog says above about Baltimore, but (having never divided a city list) I'd like advice or actual action please. Nyttend (talk) 13:59, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

This page lists the city's twelve districts with their official boundaries, although it might be difficult to plot these on an actual map. Seeing that Baltimore today is split alphabetically, however, I'm going to be bold and split it that way; I'd welcome comments, however! Nyttend (talk) 14:12, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

I agree that a neighborhood division is likely to be impractical, because of issues in assigning properties to neighborhoods. However, since the name of any specific property often is not intuitively obvious to the user (for example, "US Court House and Post Office Building" might be under "U" or "C" or "P" -- or maybe "F" for "Federal Building"), splitting the list alphabetically into several articles, as is done in National Register of Historic Places listings in Baltimore (Independent City), also seems less than satisfactory. Can the tables for different parts of the alphabet be placed in one article? --Orlady (talk) 14:50, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

I think that Baltimore and Philadelphia both should be split into geographical districts, as was done for the 506 National Register of Historic Places listings in New York County (Manhattan) by Dmadeo and myself. This is a reader-understandable way to divide the material and it works well with the accompanying maps of coordinates, although it takes some work to get it organized this way. Having multiple overlays of the whole city "divided" alphabetically seems weird to me. For Manhattan, Dmadeo came up with a good division scheme (Manhattan below 14th, 14th to 59th, 59th to 110, above 110, and smaller islands) and coarsely divided the 506 listings that way using his knowledge of the city. At first, there were a good number of places near dividing lines that were put in the wrong page. I added and worked with the maps of coordinates to identify and move properties to the right pages. There are a few historic districts that cross a border (e.g. Riverside Park and Drive) so appear in two district pages. There was a lot of manual work involved in implementing the geo division, but in my view that is the only way that makes sense and it is not too much work. For Philadelphia, since there are apparently 12 official districts, you could start by dividing the list into twelve[REDACTED] list-articles each with an accompanying Google map, taking your own best guess as to which properties, and then refine. Once each of the 12 list-articles is cleaned up, you could later choose to present 2 or 3 list-article chunks in one[REDACTED] article. Nyttend, do you agree, and are you familiar enough with Philadelphia to do the first rough division? Or is there a different natural way to partition Philadelphia besides using the 12 official districts? doncram (talk) 16:37, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

The closest I've been to Philadelphia is Gettysburg, and the most I know of the city is from the pastor of the church I attend when I'm not in college, who went to seminary there. As I'll be at college in a few days, I won't even be able to ask him. I think geographical arrangement would make more sense, but the way in which the table was before (with too many templates) was altogether unworkable; I went with the alphabetical split as a stopgap measure. The 12 districts provide a convenient way to arrange it, so I agree that it would be sensible to use those 12 districts — assuming there's someone who understands the map and/or the city well enough to divide it accurately. Nyttend (talk) 17:39, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

Since I starting tablizing the PA counties, I always dreaded finishing and having deal with Philly. I've also had time to try and come up with a solution that I think would work. The city seems to already have some geographic boundaries that we could use: South Philly, Southwest Philly, North Philly, Northwest Philly, Northeast Philly, West Philly and Center City. Doncram mentioned that the city has 12 districts, but sometimes more than one district falls into one geographic section. I also thought, if we have to, contact WP:PHILLY and see what they say. --​​​​D.B. 18:45, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

The Pennsylvania Department of Transportation publishes a very detailed map of Philadelphia showing the major streets and all neighborhoods here (PDF). Since the list is only 40 items too large or so, I think it might make sense to split the city into as few districts as possible, perhaps two or three. My guess is the center city will have more than any other district. Ruhrfisch _><>° 18:50, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Good. There may be little/no disagreement here. All Some of DT's 7 division parts are groupings of the well-defined 12 official districts covered in map that Nyttend (not me originally) pointed out, above. I see that DT's "North Philly" combines together 3 of those districts. "Northwest Philly" combines 2 districts. I'm happy to defer to DT and group those together up front, making it 9 or fewer parts rather than 12 parts. It's just important to have a MECE partition. Yes, as Ruhrfisch notes, it is likely that the Center City has the biggest number of NRHPs. doncram (talk) 19:03, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

And DT's Northeast Philly combines 3 more. 12-2-1-2=7 So that would make 7 list-articles: