December 1, 2025

By Emily R. Kahn, Executive Director

The New York Preservation Archive Project is thrilled to announce the fourth cohort of Shelby White & Leon Levy Archival Assistance Initiative Grant. In keeping with our mission to document, preserve, and celebrate the history of historic preservation in New York City, the New York Preservation Archive Project established the Shelby White & Leon Levy Archival Assistance Initiative to help historic preservation-related not-for-profit organizations and similar institutions identify and maintain their archival resources related to stories of historic preservation. Generous assistance from the Leon Levy Foundation in 2022 allowed the Initiative to be reinvigorated for three additional rounds of grants. In 2025, the Archive Project received additional support from the Leon Levy Foundation to continue the grant through 2027.

Following robust deliberations, staff and board members from the New York Preservation Archive Project selected seven organizations to receive grants up to $5,000 (doubling the maximum grant amount from previous rounds). Please join us in congratulating the following awardees of the highly competitive 2025 Shelby White & Leon Levy Archival Assistance Initiative:

The Architectural League of New York

Awarded Project: To create an oral history archive featuring interviews with key figures in the League’s preservation work.

Crown Heights North Association

Awarded Project: To make accessible records and oral histories of Black preservation empowerment in Brooklyn.

Historic Districts Council

Awarded Project: To continue digitizing pre-2012 paper records pertaining primarily to the designation process for historic districts.

Landmark West!

Awarded Project: To digitize and create Optical Character Recognition (OCR) for 40 years of bi-annual organizational newsletters.

Lower East Side Preservation Initiative

Awarded Project: To survey the Clayton Patterson and Elsa Rensaa Archive documenting  how the Lower East Side has changed over time.

Prospect Park Alliance

Awarded Project: To catalog records related to Tupper Thomas, the first Prospect Park administrator, and her preservation work.

Tenement Museum

Awarded Project: To process a previously surveyed collection of records pertaining to preserving a historic tenement located at 97 Orchard Street.

To date, the Archive Project has awarded $113,000 to 25 organizations in four boroughs through the Shelby White & Leon Levy Archival Assistance Initiative.