Grantee News

A community Open House was held February 19th in Governor’s Harbour, Eleuthera, to celebrate the partnership between the Bahamas National Trust and the Leon Levy Foundation to create the Leon Levy Native Plant Preserve (a 25 acre sanctuary to showcase the Bahamas rich plant life). The project is expected to bring more than $2 million into the local economy. Open House attendees included the Hon. Earl D. Deveaux,members of the Bahamas National Trust Council/Eric Carey, Executive Director of the Trust Eric Cary, Shelby White, founding trustee of the Leon Levy Foundation and other local government officials and community members. Link to article.

“Did Salinger Leave a Word for Posterity?”

New York Times, Feb. 5, 2010

When two interests of the Leon Levy Foundation — archives and biography — combined recently at a public event, it made news. Occurring  just days after the death of J.D. Salinger, the symposium lured New York Times veteran Clyde Haberman, who led off a Feb. 4 column with speculation about letters and papers the reclusive writer may have left behind. More generally, the symposium, sponsored by the Leon Levy Center for Biography at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, dwelled on biographers’ use of and dependence on archives. As Haberman observed, “Archivists don’t usually enjoy public acclaim, but they are indispensable to anyone who delves into the lives of the great, the near-great and the not-so-great.”

Link to Haberman’s column.

“A Lost European Culture, Pulled From Obscurity”

New York Times, Nov. 30, 2009

“Before the glory that was Greece and Rome, even before the first cities of Mesopotamia or temples along the Nile, there lived in the Lower Danube Valley and the Balkan foothills people who were ahead of their time in art, technology and long-distance trade. For 1,500 years, starting earlier than 5000 B.C., they farmed and built sizable towns, a few with as many as 2,000 dwellings…”

Link to the article.

“Footprints found under ancient mosaic”

Jerusalem Post, Oct. 14, 2009

“While they may not have been the markings of a pair of Naot sandals, Israel Antiquities Authority conservators discovered footprints over 1,700 years old in early October under the Lod mosaic and at least one print resembling a modern sandal”.

Head of the Israel Antiquities Authority Art Conservation Branch Jacques Neguer said that when removing a section of a mosaic, it is customary to clean its bedding, and study the material from which it is made and the construction stages. It was during that process that they found the footprints under the mosaic.

Link to the article. Read an earlier article detailing plans for the mosaics on Art Daily (link).

“One-Third of U.S. Bird Species Endangered, Survey Finds”
New York Times, March 19, 2009:
“Habitat destruction, pollution and other problems have left nearly a third of the nation’s 800 bird species endangered, threatened or in serious decline”, according to a study issued on Thursday. Described as the most comprehensive survey of American bird life, the report, “The U.S. State of the Birds,” analyzed changes in the bird population over the last 40 years. “This report should be a call to action,” Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said at a news conference in Washington.

Link to the article. Link to the full report.

“Edward Hirsch, the president of the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, announced today (April 9, 2009) that in its eighty-fifth annual competition for the United States and Canada the Foundation has awarded 180 Fellowships to artists, scientists, and scholars….chosen from a group of almost 3,000 applicants.”

Link to Press Release.

The Leon Levy Foundation provides supplemental awards to fellows with no academic or institutional affiliation; in 2009, 56 awardees qualified for supplements.

“Interrogation Memos Detail Harsh Tactics by the C.I.A.”

The New York Times, April 17, 2009:

“The Justice Department on Thursday made public detailed memos describing brutal interrogation techniques used by the Central Intelligence Agency, as President Obama sought to reassure the agency that the C.I.A. operatives involved would not be prosecuted….”. The release of the documents came after a bitter debate that divided the Obama administration, with the C.I.A. opposing the Justice Department’s proposal to air the details of the agency’s long-secret program. Fueling the urgency of the discussion was Thursday’s court deadline in a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union, which had sued the government for the release of the Justice Department memos.

Link to the article. 

Link to the ACLU Press Release.