The Foundation supports organizations that cultivate and maintain botanical gardens and parks, mainly in the New York area, as well as those whose primary goal is to protect natural landscapes and wildlife habitats, especially for birds.
Courtesy NYBG
Foundation grants aid a variety of initiatives throughout the Garden’s 250 acres, which has been designated as a National Historic Landmark. Most recently, the Foundation gave $15 million to create a 3.5-acre Native Plant Garden that will serve as a center for the study and display of plants native to the northeastern U. S. The Foundation also supports the Leon Levy Visitor Center at the Garden’s main entrance, which was established with a 2004 gift.
© Prospect Park
With a $10 million gift from the Foundation, Prospect Park is restoring its 26-acre Lakeside Center to the original design of Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux — including a reconstructed Music Island (above). The Foundation is also funding a multi-year initiative to improve the care and pruning of trees throughout the park, providing new staffing and equipment that will allow the park to catch up on years of needed maintenance for its important collection of trees.
© Wayne Lankinen, Courtesy Boreal Songbirds Initiative
Working with the top organizations in bird conservation, the Foundation supports efforts to protect wild birds and their habitats and to develop the strong science necessary to make the case for conservation measures that would reverse the decline of bird populations in North America.
The Foundation is working with the Bahamas National Trust to develop a 25 acre site on Eleuthera into the Leon Levy Native Plant Preserve. The primary focus of the Preserve is to raise the awareness of Bahamian plan diversity and bush medicine. It will also serve as a center for environmental education. The Preserve will include a visitor’s center and an education center. The groundbreaking was in 2010 and the Preserve is expected to open in February, 2011.
As a leading center for theoretical research and intellectual inquiry in science and the humanities, the IAS in Princeton has strived to provide a beautiful, tranquil environment conducive to the original, even speculative thinking needed to advance knowledge. With funds from the Foundation, the IAS is landscaping its 800-acre campus.
The Foundation is providing support for the construction of the Franklin D. Roosevelt Four Freedoms Park on the southern tip of Roosevelt Island in the East River. Designed by Louis I. Kahn, the park commemorates the speech Roosevelt gave in 1941 propounding the fundamental rights all humans should enjoy: freedom of speech, of religion, from want and from fear.