NYPAP Celebrates 20 Years!: The New York Preservation Archive Project Reaches a Major Milestone!
June 1, 2018 | Anthony C. Wood, Chair
In January 1998 the New York Preservation Archive Project was officially incorporated in New York State. Truth be told, our origins go back another five years to when the J.M. Kaplan Fund provided seed funding to launch the Archive Project under the Historic Districts Council’s fiscal umbrella. The Archive Project was largely volunteer driven until 2001 when a paid Kress Fellow began to assist. In 2006, we graduated to a part-time administrator and finally, in 2014, we secured our first full-time executive director. We’ve built our board from the original “fearsome foursome” to 17 members, and our budget has grown from a few thousand dollars to over $200,000. Thanks to your support, we’ve come a long way, baby.
Along that way, through a range of activities and programs, many of which are highlighted here, we have steadily advanced our mission of documenting, preserving, and celebrating the compelling story of preservation in New York City. We have saved preservation papers from dumpsters, conducted oral histories, commissioned original research, given grants to help preservation organizations preserve their archives, celebrated anniversaries of key preservation history dates, and designed an award-winning website. We produce a semi-annual newsletter, bestow a preservation award, and offer programs ranging from the “unofficial” opening of the holiday season—the Bard Birthday Breakfast Benefit—to lectures, panel discussions, conferences, a film festival, and archival workshops across the boroughs. In short, we’ve been busy. Though we are proud of our accomplishments, we also believe the best is yet to come!