The National Trust for Historic Preservation is releasing today its list of the most endangered historic places in the United States. The list includes the hangar that housed the nuclear bomber Enola Gay as well as a 1960s Los Angeles hotel.

 

The NTHP has been pressing the Government to implement some measures that would encourage homeowners and businesses to preserve the already existing structures rather than building new ones. Congress has recently passed legislation that provides incentives for owners of old, historic structures to make them more energy-efficient, and the NTHP has been making efforts to back this set of laws and its implementation. 

 

The organization selects each year a number of structures that constitute important examples of America's architectural and cultural heritage that are under threat of being destroyed. 

 

Besides the well known hangar that housed the Enola Gay, the airplane that dropped the world’s first atomic bomb used in war, on Hiroshima, Japan, the list includes a number of other sites that are currently left in ruin.  

 

The Memorial Bridge, which served as a connection between the coastal towns of Portsmouth, N.H., and Kittery, Maine, for more than 85 years, is now in degradation. In similar conditions is the Human Services Center in Yankton, S.D. Which was founded in 1879 as the South Dakota Hospital for the Insane. The institution has an impressive collection of new-Classical, Art Deco and Italianate buildings. Authorities have made plans to demolish 11 of them. 

 

The list also includes: 

Ames Shovel Shops Easton, Massachusetts, 

Dorchester Academy Midway, Georgia 

The Manhattan Project's Enola Gay Hangar Wendover Airfield, Utah 

Lanai City, Hawaii 

Miami Marine Stadium Virginia Key, Florida 

Mount Taylor Grants, New Mexico 

Unity Temple Oak Park, Illinois.