City Lore Study Center in Folklife and Local History

FAIN: CZ-50006-04

City Lore: NY Center for Urban Folk Culture (New York, NY 10003-9345)
Marci Reaven (Project Director: February 2003 to April 2021)
Steve Zeitlin (Project Director: April 2021 to present)

Endowment for a new Study Center in Folklife and Local History to serve scholars, educators, publishers, media producers, and the general public.

City Lore seeks a Challenge Grant to endow a new study Center in Folklife and Local History, located in City Lore's office. The Study Center will contain City Lore's newly reorganized and cataloged photo and audio archive -- one of the richest repositories of its kind, covering family, community and cultural life in New York City from the 1960s to the present. The Study Center initiative will also involve selectively digitizing three important thematic groups of photographs for exhibits and resource collections on City Lore's website (www.citylore.org). Together, the Study Center and its virtural satellite will greatly improve staff and public access to these valuable humanities resources. Already the collection is used by scholarly researchers, educators, publishers and media producers. Improving access to the collection will also increase City Lore's public programs by facilitating the "re-purposing" of documentary materials in web exhibits, primary resource packets for schools, museum exhibitions, and publications. CIty Lore is a cultural organization established in 1986 and nationally recognized for its innovative and high-quality documentation and public programs in local history and folklife. Our staff of humanities professionals are experienced in humanities interpretation and presentation. Staff and board members believe that this initiative will have a transforming impact on the organization, providing not only its first endowment, butalso securing a serious research facility. We have full confidence that we will raise the Challenge Grant match on schedule.