Lori Segal Zabar was born in New York City in 1954. She earned a B.A. in Art History from Barnard College, an M.S. in Historic Preservation from Columbia University, and a J.D. from NYU School of Law.^[1] She was a scholar of William Earl Dodge Stokes and focused her master’s thesis on his work. As the first Director of the New York City Historic Properties Fund at the New York Landmarks Conservancy, she funded preservation projects for Stokes’ buildings and other historic sites.^[2] Key projects included the Washington Square Methodist Church in Greenwich Village, income-based housing at the Convent of the Church of the Annunciation in Harlem, and rowhouses in East New York.^[3]  Zabar also co-owned the Kurland-Zabar Gallery, an antiques gallery specializing in nineteenth and twentieth-century decorative arts.^[4] Notable exhibitions included “Reflections: Arts & Crafts Metalwork in England and the United States” (1990) and “Christopher Dresser: The Power of Design” (1993).^[5]

Lori Zabar was the granddaughter of Louis and Lillian Zabar, the founders of Zabar’s, an iconic Jewish American gourmet and housewares store on the Upper West Side. She documented the store’s history in Zabar’s: A Family Story, With Recipes, published posthumously in 2022.^[6]  Zabar passed away on February 3, 2022 at age 67. She was remembered as a passionate, knowledgeable individual with a keen eye for detail and a talent for making complex stories accessible.^[7]

New York City Historic Properties Fund

Director 

New York Landmarks Conservancy

Manager

City Ventures Fund

Manager

Kurland-Zabar Gallery

Co-Owner

Metropolitan Museum of Art

Research Associate

​​M.S. Thesis

William Earl Dodge Stokes: Developer of Residential Real Estate on Manhattan’s Upper West Side Including Ansonia Apartment-Hotel

Lori Segal Zabar

Columbia University 1977

https://books.google.com/books/about/William_Earl_Dodge_Stokes.html?id=4EYXOAAACAAJ

In 1982, Lori Zabar became the first Director of the New York City Historic Properties Fund at the New York Landmarks Conservancy. The Fund developed after the United States General Services Administration approached the Landmarks Conservancy in the late-1970s to find new uses for the landmarked yet vacant Federal Archives Building in Greenwich Village. Converted into market-rate housing, the Federal Archives Building introduced the concept of transferring federal property for private development.

Using the net revenues from the Archive Building’s redevelopment, the Landmarks Conservancy created this revolving loan fund. New loans are made as previous ones are repaid, benefiting stewards of National Register-listed or eligible historic buildings that do not qualify for conventional financing.. Under Zabar’s leadership,  the Fund’s  first loan of $55,000 contributed to the renovation of Washington Square Methodist Church, designed by Gamaliel King in 1859.^[8] The loan became part of a $1.5 million fundraising campaign to restore the church’s architecture.^[9]

Zabar also managed the City Ventures Fund, inaugurated in 1986 and supported by private donations. Modeled after successful projects at the National Trust for Historic Preservation, the City Ventures Fund aimed to dispel the notion of historic preservation as primarily a hobby of high income individuals and groups.^[10] It provided grants to city-owned buildings within the Department of Housing Preservation and Development’s urban homesteading program, combining Landmarks Conservancy grants with contributions from homesteaders for quality restorations.^[11]

Zabar was also a noted scholar on property developer William Earl Dodge Stokes, focusing her master’s thesis on his work developing residential real estate on the Upper West Side, particularly the Ansonia Apartment-Hotel. She advised on the renovation of Stokes’ buildings and collaborated with architecture and real estate historian Christopher Gray. Together, they consulted on Banco Di Napoli’s 1993 restoration and renovation of the landmarked McKim, Mead & White townhouse at 4 East 54th St.,^[12] which involved adding two floors.^[13]

Throughout the 1980s, Zabar and Gray co-authored a step-by-step guide to researching buildings in the City,  included in “Architectural Resource Materials in New York City” by the Committee for the Preservation of Architectural Records.^[14]  The guide made researching historic buildings more accessible for preservationists citywide.