Historic Scotland stonemasons travelled to the United States recently to help train young people in Harlem, New York.

Kenny McCaffrey from Cupar and Malcolm Hutcheon from Insch worked with young people learning masonry and preservation skills through the Abyssinian Development Corporation (ADC). One of the key aims of ADC is to achieve revitalisation of the community through focussing on the physical infrastructure.

To help achieve this, ADC has implemented YOUTHBUILD, a nationally recognised workforce development initiative providing training for ‘at risk’ youth.

As part of the trip, which was organised by Historic Scotland, workshops were held at the Cathedral of St John the Divine, where the Scottish team worked with Chris Pellitteri the Cathedral’s stone carver in residence, to help share advice and expertise on stonemasonry with local young people.

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Fiona Hyslop, Minister for Culture and External Affairs said: “There are a number of similarities in the architectural style and building materials used through much of the fabric of the traditional buildings in New York and in the tenements and civic buildings that characterise much of the Scottish landscape.

“By visiting the project and helping to train young people we hope to provide them with skills which will help them to not only care for their historic fabric, but also equip them with knowledge to help build sustainable and long term careers.”

Malcolm Hutcheon said: “We did two skills workshops in Harlem which were really well attended, and it was fantastic to be able to work with the guys to help them learn more about traditional building crafts.

“The programme is about helping to give young people more confidence and it was great to see that they really appreciated what we were teaching them and I hope that it inspires them moving forward.”

A key part of the visit focussed on skills that can be transferred into caring for other buildings within the area and visiting ongoing projects. A large part of housing stock in Harlem is of “brownstone”, much of which was in the hands of the city when the ADC was launched twenty years ago. Now less than 30% of the housing stock is owned by the City of New York, and the ADC has provided over 1,000 units of affordable housing.

(GK)