Keeping the Bodegas, Banyas & Barbershops: A Toolkit for Creating, Growing, And Sustaining a Legacy Business Program to Preserve Cultural and Community Continuity | Thesis Project Document

Abstract

This thesis project document provides examples of content created for an online Legacy Business Program Toolkit intended to support the preservation of longstanding, culturally significant businesses that contribute to community identity and sense of place. It supports the thesis framework document of the same name. Legacy businesses represent an important yet often underrecognized form of living cultural heritage, particularly within BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color), ethnic, and immigrant communities. In the absence of national or state-level guidance, the toolkit illustrates existing and emerging best practices from municipal and community-based legacy business programs nationwide and aligns them to a people-centered historic preservation framework that values both tangible and intangible cultural resources. This thesis project document includes the primary public website address for the toolkit, archived website links depicting the website at the time of submission, and representative screenshots illustrating the site’s organization and content. As both a preservation deliverable and a resource for others, this thesis project and corresponding website support wider conversations in historic preservation about equitable preservation, cultural sustainability, and the importance of protecting intangible cultural heritage alongside historic buildings.