Grantees In The News

“Using Modern Tools to Reconstruct Ancient Life”

Sam Roberts, NY Times, January 9, 2012, see article.

Archaeologists working at the Leon Levy Expedition in Ashkelon, Israel, using modern tools in a new discipline, microarchaeology, have reassessed their view of what they were excavating.  This new technology was used in collaboration with the Kimmel Center for Archaeological Science in the Weismann Institute in Israel.

“For archaeologists”, said the expedition’s co-director, Dr. Daniel M. Master, “it was the difference between a palace and a stable”.

New York Times, December 25, 2011. See article.

An editorial in the New York Times Opinion Page endorses the conclusions of the report in the Cardozo Law Review by the Immigration Representation Study Group which details the severe shortage of adequate legal assistance for thousands of immigrants facing deportation in New York.

Leslie Sinclair, Psychiatry News, December 16, 2011. See article.

Vilma Gabbay, M.D. the Leon Levy Assistant Professor and researchers at the New York University Child and Adolescent Pyschiatry report their findings on an investigation of anhedonia, a specific symptom of major depressive disorder in adolescents, which may advance the understanding of depression’s neurobiology.

“A Melting Pot at  the  Intersection of Empires for Five Centuries”

New York Times, December 19, 2011

“Edges of Empires: Pagans, Jews and Christians at Roman Dura-Europos” the current exhibit at the Institute of the Ancient World opened this week. In the 1920’s the abandoned city of Dura-Europos, which had been buried in the desert in Syria for centuries was rediscovered. Surprisingly, the finds at Dura showed that religious coexistence and multiculturalism thrived a couple of millennia ago on the outskirts of the Roman Empire.  Seventy-seven objects from an excavation in Syria are on loan from Yale University. Included in the exhibit are the earliest known images of Christ, from the year 240.

“In a Study, Judges Express a Bleak View of Lawyers Representing Immigrants”

New York Times, December 18, 2011

A study to measure the performance of  lawyers who represent immigrants facing deportation reported that immigrants received “inadequate” legal assistance in 33 percent and “grossly inadequate” in 14 percent of the cases between mid-2010-mid 2011.  The study was conducted by lawyers and researchers under the auspices of Robert A. Katzmann, a federal appellate judge in New York City. Immigration judges themselves responded with a “scathing assessment of much of the lawyering they have witnessed in their courtrooms”.

Hundreds of Migrating Birds Die At Laurel Mountain Wind Farm

The Charleston Gazette, October 29, 2011

ELKINS, W.Va. — Lights left on at a power substation on a foggy night during the fall migration season are believed to be responsible for the deaths of nearly 500 songbirds earlier this month at the new AES Laurel Mountain wind farm near Elkins….

“Wind energy has the potential to be a green energy source, but the industry still needs to embrace simple, bird-smart principles that would dramatically reduce incidents across the country, such as those that have occurred in West Virginia,” [Kelly] Fuller [wind campaign coordinator for the American Bird Conservancy] said. Link to the article.

The New York Times followed up with this post on its Green blog.

Jazzy New Leader for CUNY Biography Center

The New York Times, Oct. 10, 2011

“The prize-winning author Gary Giddins has written biographies of Louis Armstrong, Charlie Parker and Bing Crosby. Now he will help other writers recreate the lives of their chosen subjects as the new acting executive director of the Leon Levy Center for Biography at the CUNY Graduate Center….” Link to the article.

A City of Glass Towers, And A Hazard For Migratory Birds

The New York Times, Sept. 14, 2011

Most bird-watching enthusiasts spend their days looking up in the hope of seeing the flash of a yellow warbler or a scarlet tanager. Deborah A. Laurel looks at the ground. Ms. Laurel is a volunteer for New York City Audubon, and during the weeks of the fall migration, she is part of a dawn patrol that scans the sidewalks and plazas of Manhattan, searching for victims of the city’s forest of glass towers….New York is a major stopover for migratory birds on the Atlantic flyway, and an estimated 90,000 birds are killed by flying into buildings in New York City each year, the Audubon group says. Link to the article.

“In Tiny Worm, Unlocking Secrets of the Brain”

The New York Times, June 21, 2011

“In an eighth-floor laboratory overlooking the East River, Cornelia I. Bargmann watches two colleagues manipulate a microscopic roundworm. They have trapped it in a tiny groove on a clear plastic chip, with just its nose sticking into a channel. Pheromones — signaling chemicals produced by other worms — are being pumped through the channel, and the researchers have genetically engineered two neurons in the worm’s head to glow bright green if a neuron responds. These ingenious techniques for exploring a tiny animal’s behavior are the fruit of many years’ work by Dr. Bargmann’s and other labs”.  See article

“Migrating Birds Face Perilous Path”

The Washington Post, May 23, 2011

“…Spring bird migration has just finished peaking along the East Coast, bringing striking and unimpressive species alike as they make their way north. The pathway they navigate has become increasingly perilous, as factors ranging from illuminated buildings to wind turbines exact a toll.

“It is literally a commando course for these birds to navigate through, and we’re making it worse,” [Mike] Parr, [vice president of the American Bird Conservancy,] said…” Link to the article.

“As Barriers to Lawyers Persist, Immigrant Advocates Ponder Solutions”

The New York Times, May 3, 2011

“…On Tuesday, about 200 leaders from legal, governmental and immigration circles gathered in Manhattan to discuss the barriers that deny many immigrants proper legal counsel. Robert A. Katzmann, the federal judge who started the effort and organized the symposium, called the problem a “substantial threat to the fair and effective administration of justice.” See article.

At the meeting, John Paul Stevens, retired Supreme Court justice, delivered the keynote address.   Link to event video.

As part of Katzman’s initiative, the Leon Levy Foundation has created a Leon Levy Fellowship program to train lawyers in immigration law.

“What Shostakovich Was Really Expressing”

The New York Times, May 6, 2011

“…in Shostakovich, forces intrude from outside. …It reacts to something outside itself, something in the mind of its creator, perhaps, or in the traumas of history. It is, in some mysterious way, program music, telling a story. Its twists come not from unfolding musical ideas but from the traumatic character of its chronicle….And that is how Wendy Lesser treats these works in “Music for Silenced Voices.” This book is a paean to Shostakovich’s quartets and their significance. In her listening, Lesser, an accomplished critic and the editor of The Threepenny Review, is literate, sensitive and imaginative…” Link to the review.

“An Artist of the Botanical World”

The New York Times, May 15, 2011

“…In the late 18th century, the twice-­widowed Mary Delany created nearly a thousand breathtakingly beautiful and intricate paper “mosaicks” of flowers….Mrs. D., as her latest biographer, the poet Molly Peacock, sometimes calls her [in "The Paper Garden: An Artist Begins Her Life's Work at 72"], began this project in her early 70s…Today the collages reside in the British Museum….Peacock takes the reader on a journey that, however obscure or strange the link might be, is a graceful meditation on botany, nature, life and age….” Link to the review.

“Bird Week: Watching and Counting”

The New York Times, May 7, 2011

“Counting birds can be a daunting task. Some tend to cavort overhead in plain view, while others conceal themselves atop tall trees. A few are large and rambunctious, making them conspicuous targets while others are tiny and subdued. If you get too close, most flutter out of sight. But eBird.org, a citizen-led science project led by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and the National Audubon Society, has undertaken the monumental task of marshaling the international birder community to enumerate as many species as possible….” Link to the article.

“Partnerships and Power Shifts Between Two Mighty Lands”

The New York Times, March 24, 2011

“ ‘Nubia: Ancient Kingdoms of Africa’,” an exhibition at New York University’s Institute for the Study of the Ancient World, takes you deep into the history of a currently volatile part of the continent….it’s certainly illuminating.” Link to the review.

“In Israel, Treasures for Those Willing to Dig”

 The New York Times, March 25, 2011.

Every June and July since 1985, college students and young adult volunteers have participated in the Leon Levy Expedition to Ashkelon. ”We’re voyeurs,” said Adam Aja of Harvard. “We’re going through ancient garbage”. To the untrained eye, the broken pottery and other other artifacts may seem indistinguishable, but archaeologists take great care not to contaminate distinct layers of ancient civilizations.” Link to the article.

“The Leon Levy Native Plant Preserve Opens in Governor’s Harbor”

The Eleutheran, March 25, 2011

The official opening ceremony of the Leon Levy Plant Preserve on the island of Eleuthera was held on March 24, 2011. Shelby White proposed the creation of the preserve to the Bahamas National Trust in honor of her late husband, Leon Levy.  A 25 acre preserve it will serve as a center for environmental education and as a public access facility for Bahamians to learn about Bahamaian vegetation and traditional bush medicine. Link to the article. The Tribune of the Bahamas also published an article on the preserve here.

“The Lod Mosaic”

New York Review of Books, February 14, 2011

“It’s not easy to make sense of the remarkable Lod Mosaic, a large, ancient floor newly discovered in Israel and now on display in the United States for the first time at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. But the very difficulty…is what makes it so fascinating.”

Dr. Glen W. Bowersock, former Professor of Classics at Harvard University and Professor of Ancient History at the Institute for Advanced Study, assesses the exhibit. Link to review.

“Mahler Said What To Whom?”

The New York Times, Feb. 4, 2010

“…The effort is detailed in one tiny part of a mass of archival material made public on Thursday by the New York Philharmonic, the first phase of a project to put most of its vast archives on the Internet. This phase encompasses the Bernstein years, running from 1943 — when he made his last-minute debut as a substitute for an ailing Bruno Walter — to 1970, the year after his formal tenure ended….

Paid for by a $2.4 million grant from the Leon Levy Foundation, the release contains 3,200 programs; hundreds of documents; more than 1,000 scores marked by past conductors, including Mahler; letters; handwritten notes; old clippings; and yellowing Western Union telegrams….”  Link to the article.

“If the cost of digging a trench is 9 gin, and the trench has a length of 5 ninda and is one-half ninda deep, and if a worker’s daily load of earth costs 10 gin to move, and his daily wages are 6 se of silver, then how wide is the canal?

…The institute [for the Study of The Ancient World], part of New York University, has gathered together a remarkable selection of Old Babylonian tablets from the collections of three universities — Columbia, Yale and the University of Pennsylvania — that cover a wide mathematical range. Made between 1900 and 1700 B.C., they include student exercises, word problems and calculation tables, as well as more abstract demonstrations.”

Link to the review. Read an earlier article on the exhibit, in the Times’s Science section, here.

“Grace and Culture Intertwined”

The New York Times, Nov. 5, 2010

“American Indian art is some of the most beautiful ever made anywhere on earth. Some of us have loved it as long as we can remember. And with a new permanent-collection installation at the National Museum of the American Indian in Lower Manhattan, we can love it even more…” Link to the review.

“Birds Flock Online”

Nature, August 2010

Researchers at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology have long partnered with computer scientists at Cornell and elsewhere to explore the dynamic patterns of bird species occurrence across broad spatial and temporal scales. Through its eBird database, the Lab has collected almost 50 million bird observations from more than 500,000 locations across North America, along with satellite imagery, habitat, anthropogenic, and a myriad of environmental predictor variables, giving scientists a very accurate representations of bird occurrence both throughout a year and across years.

Now, this project has won 100,000 hours on the U.S. National Science Foundation’s powerful TeraGrid supercomputer. Using high performance computing techniques, Lab scientists will explore and model the data to predict migratory changes — and perhaps extinctions — for hundreds of species.

Link to the article.

“A New and Improved Lefferts Collection at BHS”

The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, June 9, 2010

“The Brooklyn Historical Society (BHS) announced yesterday that it has received a grant from the Leon Levy Foundation that will allow it to process, conserve, digitize and make accessible to the public, a collection of family materials that were donated to BHS in January 2010 by the Lefferts Historic House/Prospect Park Alliance (at left).

The donation from the Prospect Park Alliance includes a variety of materials, including beautiful examples of early Dutch Bibles and Catechisms from the 1600s and 1700s…”

Link to the article.

“An Upgrade for Brooklyn Library”

The Wall Street Journal, May 22, 2010

“Shelby White is in the business of preserving history. Even if that means changing the way things have always been done.

The New York philanthropist and widow of late billionaire investor Leon Levy is giving a $3.25 million grant to help propel the century-old Brooklyn Public Library system into a modern center for technology and learning.”

Link to the article.

“Did Salinger Leave a Word for Posterity?”

The 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”

The 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.

Foundation Helps Archives to Go Online

The New York Times, Oct. 13, 2009

“The National Park Service found the original deed from 1695 for the homestead in Virginia where George Washington was born [at left] and copies of John Peter Zenger’s New-York Weekly Journal from 1735 reporting on his landmark trial affirming freedom of the press. The Center for Jewish History discovered the 1944 document in which Raphael Lemkin coined the term genocide. The Morgan Library turned up a 1913 letter from the sister of Virginia Woolf saying that “Virginia was very much depressed yesterday” and attempted suicide — three decades before she would kill herself.

“Those are among the nearly two dozen institutions that have received grants from the Leon Levy Foundation since 2007 to identify, preserve and digitize their archival collections and to make them available online to scholars and to the public…”

Link to the article.

“One-Third of U.S. Bird Species Endangered, Survey Finds”

The 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.

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.